Star Wars - New Jedi Order

 

Agent Of Chaos II - Jedi Eclipse

 

James Luceno

 

 

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

 

Anakin Solo; Jedi Knight (male human)

 

Beed Thane; archon of Vergill (male human)

 

Borga Besadii Diori; Hurt ruler (female Hurt)

 

Brand; New Republic commodore (male human)

 

Chine-kal; commander, Creche (male Yuuzhan Vong)

 

Droma; spacer (male Ryn)

 

Gaph; refugee (male Ryn)

 

Han Solo; captain, Millennium Falcon (male human)

 

Jacen Solo; Jedi Knight (male human)

 

Kyp Durron; Jedi Master (male human)

 

Leia Organa Solo; New Republic ambassador (female human)

 

Luke Skywalker; Jedi Master (male human)

 

Malik Carr; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

 

Melisma; refugee (female Ryn)

 

Nas Choka; supreme commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

 

Nom Anor; executor (male Yuuzhan Vong)

 

Prince Isolder; Royal House of Hapes (male human)

 

Randa Besadii Diori (male Hurt)

 

Roa; prisoner (male human)

 

Sapha; prisoner (female Ryn)

 

Talon Karrde; liaison (male human)

 

Viqi Shesh; senator (female human)

 

Wurth Skidder; Jedi Knight (male human)

 

 

ONE

 

 

It was morning in Gyndine's capital city, though that fact was scarcely evident to anyone on the surface. The rising sun, when glimpsed at all, was a blanched disk behind roiling smoke belched from flaming forests and buildings. Sounds of battle reverberated thunderously from the surrounding foothills, and a hot scouring wind swept down across the landscape. A crepuscular darkness, ripped ragged by flashes of blinding light, ruled the day.

 

The artificial light was supplied by warriors and war machines, coursing over scorched ground, streaking through the racked sky, in orbit above the madness. Through leaden clouds allied and enemy fighter craft pursued one another doggedly, adding sonic claps to the strident score of combat. East of the beleaguered capital, beams of energy stabbed mercilessly at the surface from on high, fanning out like shafts of profuse sunlight or concentrated into dazzling curtains that set the horizon glowing red as a frozen dawn.

 

Loosed by advancing enemy contingents, missiles of superheated rock assailed what remained of the city, holing surviving towers and toppling those already gutted by fire. Hunks of shattered ferrocrete and twisted plasteel tumbled onto cratered streets and clogged alleyways. A few civilians dashed desperately for shelter while others huddled, paralyzed with fear, in gaping, fire-blackened maws that were once entryways and storefronts. In some quarters, ion cannons and nearly depleted turbolaser batteries answered the missile barrage with darts of cyan light. But only in the environs of the New Republic embassy were the enemy projectiles deflected, turned by a hastily installed containment shield.

 

Dangerously close to the shield's shimmering perimeter, a thousands-strong mixed-species throng, massed behind stun fencing, pressed to be admitted. At the edges of the crowd droids perambulated in a daze, keenly aware of the fate awaiting them should the invaders overrun the city.

 

Were the stun fence the sole obstacle to safe haven, the crowd might have panicked and stormed the embassy grounds. But the perimeter was reinforced by heavily armed New Republic soldiers, and there was also the force field itself to consider. An umbrella of energy, the lambent shield had to be deactivated before it could be safely breached, and that occurred only when an evacuation ship launched for rendezvous with one of the transports anchored in local space.

 

Ashen faces masked with cloth against the mephitic air, Gyndine's would-be evacuees did all they could to ensure their survival. With arms extended protectively around the shoulders of terrified children or clasped tightly to tattered bundles of personal belongings, they pleaded with the soldiers, tendered bribes, inveigled and threatened. Ordered to remain silent, the grim-faced troops offered neither comforting looks nor words of encouragement. Only their eyes belied the seeming dispassion, racing about like taurill or angling imploringly toward the one person who could accede to the entreaties and demands.

 

Leia Organa Solo caught one such glance now, aimed her way by a human soldier posted close to what had become the communications bunker. With her face smudged and her long hair captured under a brimmed cap, it was unlikely that anyone in the crowd recognized her as onetime hero of the Rebel Alliance and former chief of state, but the sky-blue combat overalls-bloused sleeves emblazoned with the emblem of SELCORE, the Senate Select Committee for Refugees-identified her as everyone's best chance for rescue, their purveyor of deliverance. As it was, she couldn't venture within five meters of the stun fence without having wailing infants, necklaces of prayer beads, or rushed missives to offworld loved ones extended to her in dire urgency.

 

She didn't dare make eye contact with anyone, lest in her gaze someone read hope or evidence of her anguish. To provide some measure of equipoise, she drew deeply on the Force. But more often than not she paced unswervingly between the bunker and the leading edge of the shield, eager for word that another evacuation ship had landed and was waiting to be filled.

 

Ever in her wake moved faithful Olmahk, whose native gray ferocity made him appear more stalker than bodyguard. But at least the diminutive Noghri looked at home among the chaos, whereas C-3PO-his normally auric gleam dulled by soot and ash-was positively dismayed. Lately, though, the protocol droid's apprehension had less to do with his own safety than with the larger threat the Yuuzhan Vong posed to all machine life, often the first to suffer when a world fell.

 

A forceful explosion rocked the permacrete under Leia's feet, and a swirling globe of orange fire mushroomed from the heart of the city. A searing wind laced with droplets of even hotter rain tugged at Leia's cap and jumpsuit. Created by the energy exchanges and conflagrations, microclimatic storms had been washing across the plateau all night long. Hail mixed with cinders lifted from Gyndine's ruined surface pelted everyone, blistering exposed flesh like acid. Even through the insulated soles of knee-high boots, Leia could feel the ground's aberrant heat.

 

A loud sizzling sound made her swing toward the shield in time to see it evanesce in undulating waves of distortion.

 

"Evac ship away," a soldier reported from the communications bunker, both hands pressed to the outsize earmuffs of his comm helmet. "Two more headed down the well."

 

Leia raised her eyes to the tenebrous sky. Defined by running lights as oblate in shape, the departing ship raised itself on repulsor power, then shot upward on a column of blue fire, escorted by half a dozen X-wings. Lying in ambush, a cataract of coralskippers vectored in from the foothills to give chase.

 

Leia whirled to the soldiers posted at the stun fence. "Admit the next group!"

 

Crushed shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, folks at the forward edge of the crowd-humans, Sullustans, Bimms, and others-were funneled through the embassy gates. With the shield lowered, enemy projectiles that would have been deflected plummeted like fiery meteors, one of them striking the east wing of the Imperial-era embassy and setting it ablaze.

 

Leia clapped the evacuees on the back as they streamed toward a shuttle craft idling on the landing zone. "Hurry!" she urged. "Hurry!"

 

"Shield repowering," the same comm officer relayed from the bunker. "Everyone back."

 

Leia gritted her teeth. These were the worst moments, she told herself.

 

Soldiers at the gate resealed the cordon and scanned the vicinity for evidence of field disruptors. In response the crowd surged forward, railing against what had to seem the inequity, the arbitrariness of it all. Folks closest to the front, fearing they would miss their chance at salvation by one or two persons, tried to worm or force their way past the soldiers, while those in the rear shoved and scrambled, determined to fight their way forward. Leia saw that it was futile, and yet the crowd refused to disperse, hoping against hope that New Republic forces could keep the invaders at bay until every civilian and noncombatant was evacuated.

 

"Mistress Leia," C-3PO said, approaching in haste with his hands raised and his photoreceptors^glowing, "the deflector shield is weakening! If we don't l^ave soon, we're sure to perish!"

 

As many would that day, Leia thought.

 

"We'll leave on the last ship," she told C-3PO, "not before. Until then, make yourself useful by cataloging names and species."

 

C-3PO lifted his arms higher and skittered through an abrupt about-face. "What's to become of us?"

 

Leia exhaled wearily, wondering, as well.

 

The bombardment had commenced two days earlier, when a Yuuzhan Vong flotilla had arrived unexpectedly in the nearby Circarpous system from enemy positions in Hutt space. A slapdash attempt had been made to fortify the sector capital, but with fleets and task forces already committed to safeguarding major systems in the Colonies and the Core, the New Republic had little to offer worlds of secondary importance like Gyndine, despite its modest orbital shipyard.

 

By the same token, there was no rhyme or reason for the Yuuzhan Vong attack-beyond continuing to sow confusion. With the recent fall of several Mid Rim worlds, Gyndine, because of its relative remoteness, had been thought ideal for use as a transit point for refugees, and indeed many of those outside the fence had been shipped in from Ithor, Obroa-skai, Ord Mantell, and a host of enemy-occupied planets. It was becoming clear that the Yuuzhan Vong delighted in pursuing displaced populations almost as much as they delighted in sacrificing captives and immolating droids. Even the ground assault on Gyndine seemed to be their way of proving themselves as adept at seizing worlds as they were at poisoning them.

 

The voice of the comm officer put a quick end to Leia's musings. "Ambassador, we've got a live surveillance probe feed from the field."

 

Leia hesitated, then ducked into the bunker, where a reduced-scale hologram, dazzled by noise, had the attention of the several men and women gathered there. It took her a moment to make sense of what she was seeing, and even then part of her refused to accept the truth.

 

"What in the name of-"

 

"Fire breathers," someone said, as if anticipating her amazement. "Rumor has it the Yuuzhan Vong stopped off at Mimban so the things could fill up on swamp gas." Leia's quivering legs urged her to sit, and as she did she brought a hand to her mouth. Parading out of sunrise like the harbingers of a new and dreadful dawn, came a legion of enormous bladderlike creatures, supported on six stubby legs and equipped with arrays of flexible proboscises from which gushed streams of gelatinous flame. "The methane and hydrogen sulfide have to be mixing with something they carry in their guts to produce that liquid fire," a woman at the controls of the holo-projector commented, more intrigued than horrified. "They're also exhaling antilaser aerosols." Yet another example of the enemy's genetically engineered monstrosities, the thirty-meter-tall fire breathers didn't so much march as loll over the terrain, like loosely tethered lighter-than-air balloons, incinerating everyone and everything in their path.

 

Leia could almost smell the nidor of the carnage.

 

"Whatever they are, they've got thick hides," the comm officer said. "Can't be taken out by anything less than a turbolaser beam."

 

Unable to slow the advance of the deadly blimps, Gyndine units were abandoning entrenched positions and falling back in droves toward the city. Strewn about were fire-blackened war machines of all variety-tank droids, aged Loronar mobile turbolasers, even a couple of AT-AT walkers, tipped over, headless, collapsed on the ground with legs splayed.

 

"They're withdrawing!" Leia said harshly. "Who issued the retreat order?"

 

Even as the words left her mouth, she was sorry she had uttered them. Those officers who weren't scrutinizing her were suddenly studying their hands in unease. Could she blame the troops for retreating when that was precisely what the New Republic had been forced to do almost from the start of the invasion-withdrawing toward the Core, as if the density of the star systems there afforded protection? Who could say any longer which actions were just, and which were dishonorable?

 

Exiting the bunker without a word, Leia found a shaken C-3PO waiting for her.

 

"Mistress Leia, the most distressing news has reached me!"

 

Leia could barely hear him. In the few moments she had spent in the bunker, the battle had advanced to the outskirts of the capital. The crowd was more agitated than before, surging forward and from side to side.

 

Through a gap in the city's skyline, Leia thought she could discern the bobbing form of a Yuuzhan Vong fire breather.

 

"It seems," C-3PO was saying, "that Gyndine's citizens are laboring under the impression that you are deliberately discriminating against folks of former Imperial persuasion."

 

Leia's jaw dropped and her brown eyes flashed. "That's absurd. Do they think I can pick out a former Imperial on sight? And even if I could-"

 

C-3PO lowered his voice conspiratorially. "In fact, there is some statistical justification for the claim, Mistress. Of the five thousand thus far evacuated, an overwhelming percentage have been inhabitants of worlds whose early loyalty to the Rebel Alliance is well documented. However, I'm certain that owes to nothing more than-"

 

C-3PO's explanation was swallowed by a deafening explosion. Electricity danced wildly along the periphery of the energy dome, and the shield disappeared. At once, the telltales that lined the stun fence flickered and went out. A frightened gasp rose from the crowd.

 

"The field generator has been hit!" C-3PO said. "We're done for!"

 

The crowd surged again, and the soldiers closed ranks. Weapons powered up with an ominous whine.

 

C-3PO began to back toward the embassy gates. "We'll be crushed!"

 

With lethal efficiency, Olmahk moved to Leia's side. She was about to caution him to remain calm when one of the soldiers panicked and fired a sonic weapon at point-blank range into the crowd, dropping dozens and sending the rest rushing in all directions.

 

Without thinking, Leia ran to the dazed soldier and yanked the weapon from his lax hands. "We're supposed to be rescuing these people, not injuring them!"

 

She threw the weapon aside. Drawing her hand across her forehead, she inadvertently dislodged the brimmed cap, spilling her hair to her shoulders. Wending her way back to the bunker, she grabbed the nearest comlink and demanded to be put through to the task force commander.

 

"Ambassador Organa Solo, this is Commander Ilanka," a basso voice responded shortly.

 

"We need every available ship, Commander- immediately. Yuuzhan Vong forces are entering the city."

 

Ilanka took a moment to reply. "I'm sorry, Ambassador, but we've got our hands full out here. Three more enemy warships have exited hyperspace on the far side of the moon. Whatever craft are on the surface will have to suffice. I urge you to load and launch. And, Ambassador, I strongly suggest you get yourself aboard one of them."

 

Leia thumbed the comlink off and scanned the crowd in alarm. How can I choose? she asked herself. How?

 

A storm of blazing yorik coral meteors battered the embassy and neighboring buildings, setting fire to all they touched. The inferno triggered an explosion at a fuel dump near the landing zone, fountaining shrapnel far and wide. The right side of Leia's face screamed in pain as something opened a furrow in her cheek. Instinctively she brought her fingertips to the wound, expecting to find blood, but the airborne fragment had cauterized the wound in its white-hot passing.

 

"Mistress Leia, you're injured!" C-3PO said, but she waved him back before he could reach her. Peripherally she saw that a tall sinewy human was being ushered forward, his arms vised in the grip of two soldiers. Beneath a soft cap he wore low on his forehead, the man's face was bruised and swollen.

 

"Now what?" Leia asked his custodians.

 

"An agitator," the shorter soldier reported. "We overheard him telling people in the crowd that we're only extracting New Republic loyals. That anyone with an Imperial past might as well kiss his-"

 

"I understand, Sergeant," Leia said, cutting him off. She assessed the captive briefly, wondering what he could possibly have to gain by spreading lies. She had her mouth open to ask him when a meaningful sniff from Olmahk put her on alert.

 

Leia stepped closer to the man and peered intently into his eyes. As she raised her right forefinger, a low growl escaped Olmahk. The captive recoiled when he realized Leia's intent, but his reaction only firmed the soldiers' resolve to hold on to him. Leia's eyes narrowed in certainty. She thrust her finger into the man's face, striking him just where his right nostril curved into his cheek.

 

To the soldiers' utter astonishment, the man's flesh seemed to recede, taking with it his expression, to reveal a look that combined pain and pride on a face incised with brilliantly colored designs and flourishes. The flesh-like mask that had taken flight at Leia's touch disappeared down the throat of the man's loose-fitting jacket, bunching somewhat as it flayed itself from his torso, only to pour from the cuffs of his trousers like flesh-colored syrup and puddle on the ground at his feet.

 

The soldiers leapt back in shock, the sergeant drawing his blaster and putting repeated bolts into the living puddle. Free of their grip, the Yuuzhan Vong also took a step back, tearing open the front of his jacket to expose a body vest every bit as alive as the ooglith masquer had been. With his lashless eyes fixed on Leia, he lifted his face and howled a bloodcurdling war cry.

 

"Do-ro'ik vong prattel" And woe to our enemies!

 

"Down! Down!" Leia screamed to everyone nearby.

 

Olmahk drove her to the ground even as the first of the thud bugs were bursting outward from the Yuuzhan Vong's chest. The sound was not unlike that of corks being popped from bottles of effervescent wine, but accompanying the lively explosions were the pained exclamations of soldiers and hapless civilians who hadn't heard or heeded Leia's counsel. For ten meters in all directions, men and women fell like trees.

 

Leia felt Olmahk's weight lift from her. By the time she looked up, the Noghri had ripped out the Yuuzhan Vong's throat with his teeth. Left and right, people lay on the ground groaning in pain. Others staggered about with hands pressed to ruptured bellies, compound fractures, broken ribs, or smashed faces.

 

"Get these people to the battle dressing station!" Leia ordered.

 

Yorik coral missiles were continuing to rain down on the embassy and the landing zone, where a dozen soldiers were overseeing the loading of the final evacuation craft.

 

The crowd had long since pushed through the gates, but stun batons and sonics were keeping many from reaching the waiting craft. Groggily, and with Olmahk falling in behind her, Leia began to move that way herself. She spied C-3PO, whose chest plastron had been deeply dented by one of the thud bugs, just above his circular power-recharge coupler.

 

"Are you all right?" she asked.

 

He might have blinked if he could. "Thank the maker I lack a heart!"

 

As the three of them were closing on the evacuation ship a vintage AT-ST limped into view, blackened along one side and leaking hydraulic fluid, its grenade launcher blown away. A lightly armored box perched on reverse-articulated legs, the All Terrain Scout Transport wheezed and clanked to a halt, then collapsed chin first to the permacrete landing apron. In a moment the aft hatch lifted, loosing a cloud of smoke, and a young man crawled coughing but otherwise unharmed from the cockpit.

 

"Wurth Skidder," Leia intoned, folding her arms acro ss her chest. "I should have known it was you from the brilliance of your entrance."

 

Blond and sharp-featured, Skidder jumped agilely to his feet and threw off his smoldering Jedi Knight cloak. "The Yuuzhan Vong have overrun our defenses, Ambassador. The fight's lost." He grinned smugly. "I wanted you to be the first to know."

 

Leia had heard from Luke that Skidder was on Gyn-dine, but this was her first contact with him. She had had trouble with him during the Rhommamoolian crisis eight months earlier, when he had downed a couple of Rodian-piloted Osarian starfighters intent on interfering with her then-diplomatic duties. At the time she had found him to be reckless, insolent, and overconfident in his abilities, but Luke insisted that the Battle of Ithor, and the injury Skidder had sustained there, had changed him for the better. No doubt because he reveled in being able to put a lightsaber to constant use, Leia thought.

 

"You're a little late with your update, Wurth," she told him now, "but you're in time for the final flight out of here." She nodded in the direction of the landing zone. "My brother would never forgive me if I didn't see you safely back to Coruscant."

 

Skidder returned an elaborately chivalrous bow, extending his right arm toward her. "A Jedi avoids argument at all costs." He held her gaze briefly. "Nothing in the Jedi Code about having to answer to civilians, but I'll comply out of respect for your celebrated sibling."

 

"Fine," Leia said sarcastically. "Just see to it that you

 

get aboard." Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she twisted around.

 

"Ambassador, we're holding space for you, your bodyguard, and droid," a male flight officer reported. "But you'll have to come now, ma'am. The New Republic envoy is already aboard, and we've received orders to lift off."

 

Leia nodded that she understood, then swung back to Skidder, only to see him running toward the embassy gates. "Skidder!" she yelled, making a megaphone of her hands.

 

He stopped, turned to her, and waved a hand in what at least appeared to be genuine acknowledgment. "Just one small task to perform," he shouted back.

 

Leia frowned angrily and turned to the flight officer once more, cutting her eyes back and forth between him and the sizable crowd gathering at the foot of the ship's boarding ramp. "Surely the ship can accommodate a few more."

 

The officer's lips became a thin line. "We're already at maximum payload, Ambassador." He followed her gaze to the crowd, then blew out his breath. "But we can probably cram in four more."

 

Leia touched his forearm in indebtedness, and the two of them hastened for the ramp. Behind a barricade of soldiers, at the head of the line of evacuees, stood a group of tailed, spike-haired, and velvet-furred aliens attired in colorful if threadbare vests and wraparound skirts.

 

Ryn, Leia realized in surprise-the species to which Han's new friend Droma belonged.

 

"Four," the flight officer reminded, even as Leia was doing a head count of the Ryn. "Some of them will have to be left behind."

 

Six Ryn, to be exact, she told herself. Even so, four was better than none. She edged between two broad shouldered soldiers closest to the ramp and beckoned to the aliens in line. "You four," she said, pointing to each in turn. "Hurry!"

 

Expressions of relief and joy appeared. The chosen four turned to exchange embraces with those who would be abandoned. A swaddled infant was passed from the rear to one of the females up front. Leia heard someone say, "Melisma, should you find Droma, tell him we're here."

 

Leia gave a start and glanced about for the one who had said the name, but there wasn't time to seek out the Ryn. Already the soldiers were backing their way up the ramp, taking her with them.

 

"Hold on!" she said, coming to a sudden stop and refusing to be moved. "Skidder. Where's Skidder? Is he already aboard?"

 

She leaned forward to gaze across the devastated landing zone and spotted him dashing for the ship, dragging a human female behind him and cradling a longhaired infant in his left arm. The sight gave Leia pause. Maybe Skidder had changed, after all.

 

"Make certain they get aboard," Leia instructed the officer in charge, pausing when a coralskipper-delivered projectile impacted the permacrete only meters from the ramp. "And I don't care if you have to use a shoehorn to doit."

 

 

TWO

 

 

Death pursued the shuttle to the edge of space, spitting fire from below, needling with fighter-launched missiles, clutching with dovin basals housed in warships anchored just inside Gyndine's envelope. The X-wing escort had to blaze a route through swarms of coral-skippers and take on a frigate analog, five pilots sacrificing themselves in the attempt to see the evacuees to safety.

 

Leia sat in the cramped cockpit watching the battle rage, wondering whether they would reach the transport in time. A ship that had launched before dawn hadn't been so lucky. Hull perforated in several places, the oval craft drifted lazily in golden sunlight, venting atmosphere and debris into space.

 

Wherever Leia's eye roamed, New Republic and Yu-uzhan Vong vessels assailed one another with lasers and missiles, while enemy drop ships fell obliquely into the well, winglike projections extended and ablative coral blushed crimson red. Farther from the planet were the new arrivals Commander Ilanka had mentioned. Two of the ships had tentlike hulls fashioned from some sort of diaphanous material, from which protruded a dozen or more lightning-forked arms, as if dendrites from an insect-spun nest. The third resembled nothing so much as a cluster of conjoined bubbles, or egg sacks waiting to hatch.

 

In the shuttle's passenger cabin, Gyndine's refugees conversed in hushed tones or prayed boldly to sundry gods. Fear rose off the group in waves that stung Leia's nostrils. She was circulating among them when a familiar shudder passed through the ship, and she recognized with relief that a tractor beam had possession of them.

 

Moments later the shuttle was pulled gently, almost lovingly into the docking bay of the transport.

 

But even there death reached for them.

 

During the deboarding process, a pair of coralskippers that had somehow duped the transport's energy shield came streaking into the hold on a suicide run, skidding across the deck and exploding against a blast shield raised in the nick of time. Several refugees and crew members were killed, and a score more were injured.

 

Two of Leia's female aides who had remained aboard the transport hurried to her as she was picking herself up off the coral-littered deck. She made plain what she thought of their attempts to comb her hair back from her face.

 

"You're worried about my hairstyle," she fulminated, "when people here need immediate medical attention?"

 

"But your cheek," one of the women said, chagrined.

 

Leia had forgotten all about the shrapnel. Of its own accord her hand reenacted the movement it had made earlier, fingertips tracing the raised edges of the furrow that had been opened. She exhaled wearily and dropped cross-legged to the deck.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

Silently she allowed the wound to be ministered to, suddenly aware of just how exhausted she was. When C-3PO and Olmahk came within earshot, she said, "I can't remember when I last slept."

 

"That would be fifty-seven hours, six minutes ago,

 

Mistress," C-3PO supplied. "Standard time, of course. If you'd prefer, I could express the duration by other time parts, in which case-"

 

"Not now, Threepio," Leia said weakly. "In fact, maybe you should immerse yourself in an oil bath before your moving parts freeze up."

 

C-3PO cocked his head to one side, arms nearly akimbo. "Why, thank you, Mistress Leia. I was beginning to fear I would never again hear those words spoken."

 

"And you," Leia said, glancing at Olmahk. "See to washing that Yuuzhan Vong's blood off your chin."

 

The Noghri muttered truculently, then nodded curtly and moved off with C-3PO.

 

Fifty-seven hours, Leia thought.

 

Truth be told, she hadn't slept soundly since Han had left Coruscant almost a month earlier. A day didn't pass when she didn't wonder what he was up to, although ostensibly he was searching for Roa, his onetime mentor, who had been captured by the Yuuzhan Vong during a raid on Ord Mantell's orbital facility, the Jubilee Wheel, as well as for members of his new Ryn comrade's scattered clan. Was it possible, Leia wondered, that the Droma mentioned on Gyndine was the same one Han was suddenly running with?

 

Reports would occasionally reach her that the Millennium Falcon had been spotted in this system or that one, but Han had yet to contact her personally.

 

He hadn't been the same since Chewbacca's death- not that anyone or anything had, especially occurring when it did, at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and largely at their hands. It was natural that Han should mourn Chewie's passing more than anyone, but even Leia had been surprised by the direction he had taken-or the one his unabashed grief had driven him to take. Where Han had always been cheerfully roguish, there was an angry gravity to him now. Anakin had been the first target of his father's outrage; then everyone close to Han had gradually fallen victim to it.

 

Experts spoke of stages of grief, as if people could be expected to move through them routinely. But in Han the stages were jumbled together-anger, denial, despair- without a hint of resignation, let alone acceptance. Han's stasis was what worried Leia more than anything. Though he would be the first to deny it-vociferously, at that-his grief had fueled a kind of recidivism, a return to the Han of old the lone Solo, who guarded his sensitivity by keeping himself at arm's length, who claimed not to care about anyone but himself, who allowed thrill to substitute for feeling.

 

When Droma-another adventurer-had first entered Han's orbit, Leia had feared the worst. But in getting to know the Ryn, even slightly, she had taken hea rt. While not a replacement for Chewie-for how could anyone replace him?-Droma at least presented Han with the option of forging a new relationship, and if Han could manage that, he just might be able to see his way to reem-bracing his tried-and-true relationships. Time would tell-about Han, about their marriage, about the Yu-uzhan Vong and the fate of the New Republic.

 

With her cheek sporting a strip of itchy synthflesh, Leia took leave of her aides to wander forward into the passenger hold, where many of the refugees were already claiming areas of deck space. Despite the battle swirling around the transport, an atmosphere of chatty relief prevailed. Leia spotted the New Republic envoy to Gyndine and went over to him. A man of distinguished handsomeness, he sat with his head in his hands.

 

"I promised I would get everyone offworld," he told Leia sullenly. "I failed them." He shook his head. "I failed them."

 

Leia caressed his shoulder in a comforting way. "Awarded the Medal of Honor at the Battle of Kashyyyk, cited for exemplary service during the Yevethan crisis, former member of the Senate Advisory Council to the chief of state ..." Leia stopped and smiled. "Save your recriminations for the Yuuzhan Vong, Envoy. You did more than anyone thought possible."

 

She moved on, listening in on scraps of conversation, mostly devoted to the uncertain future, rumors about the horrors of the refugee camps, or criticisms of the New Republic government and military. She was happy to see that the Ryn had found space for themselves, until she realized that they had been banished to a dark corner of the hold, and that no one, of any species, had deigned to sit within a meter of them.

 

Leia was forced to take a meandering route to them, in and through and sometimes over family groups and others. She addressed the female Ryn who held the child.

 

"When you were boarding, I heard someone mention the name Droma. Is that a common name among your species? I ask only because I happen to know a Ryn named Droma-slightly, at any rate."

 

"My nephew," the only male among them answered. "We haven't seen him since the Yuuzhan Vong attacked Ord Mantell. Droma's sister was one of those you ... who chose to remain behind on Gyndine." He gestured to the infant. "The child is hers."

 

"Oh, no," Leia said, more to herself. She took a breath and straightened. "I know where your nephew is."

 

"He's safe then?"

 

"After a fashion. He's with my husband. They're searching for all of you."

 

"Ah, sweet irony," the male said. "And now we're further divided."

 

"As soon as we reach Ralltiir, I'll try to reach my husband."

 

"Thank you, Princess Leia," the one named Melisma said, catching her completely by surprise.

 

"Ambassador," she corrected.

 

They all smiled. "To the Ryn," the male said, "you will forever remain a princess."

 

The comment warmed and chilled her at once. The Ryn wouldn't have been on Gyndine in the first place if Leia had not relocated them there from Bilbringi. And what of the six she had been forced to leave behind to face imprisonment or death? Was she princess or deserter in the eyes of Droma's sister? The flattering comment had sounded sincere, but it might have been more sweet irony.

 

Leia was heading for the bridge when the transport sounded general quarters. By the time she reached the command center, the ship was already being jarred by concussive explosions that tested the mettle of the shields.

 

"Ambassador Organa Solo," Commander Ilanka said from his swivel-mounted chair, as violent light flashed outside the curved viewport. "Glad to have you aboard. It's my understanding that you were last to board the evacuation ship."

 

"How much trouble are we in?" she asked, ignoring the sarcasm.

 

"I'd classify our situation as desperate verging on hopeless. Other than that, we're in fine shape."

 

"Do we have jump capability?"

 

"Navicomputer's working on coordinates," the navigator said from her console.

 

"Coralskippers in pursuit," an enlisted-rating added. Leia glanced at the target-assessment screen, which displayed twenty or more arrowhead shapes, closing fast on the ship. She turned to look out on Gyndine, and again she thought about the thousands she had been forced to abandon to fate. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't seen Wurth Skidder aboard the shuttle or during her passage through the transport. She was about to page him over the comm when the evac craft's flight officer stepped onto the bridge. He remembered Skidder, along with Leia's orders.

 

"But when you told me to make sure they got aboard, I thought you were referring to the mother and child, not their rescuer." He showed Leia a docile look. "I apologize, Ambassador, but he didn't have the slightest interest in coming aboard. Who is he?"

 

"Someone who thinks he can save the galaxy single-handedly," Leia mumbled.

 

On Gyndine, explosions began to blossom along the transitor and deep into the planet's dark side. A fiery speck in the night, the planet's orbital shipyard slowly disintegrated. Leia became dizzy at the sight and had to steady herself against a bulkhead. The explosions didn't so much stir memories as prompt a troubling vision of some event yet to come.

 

A tone sounded from the navicomputer. "Hyper-space coordinates received and locked in," the navigator announced.

 

The ship shuddered. Starlight elongated, as if the past were making a desperate bid to forestall the future, and the transport jumped.

 

Crouched in the shadows of the smoldering embassy building, Wurth Skidder watched the last of the troop carriers take to the scudded sky. Thousands of Gyndine's indigenous forces had fallen back to the gated compound on the off chance of being evacuated with New Republic effectives. Few had been taken, however, and many of those who had were officers with political ties to Corus-cant or other Core worlds.

 

There was still some furious fighting going on in the city, but the majority of ground troops, realizing that their hopes for salvation had left with the last ship out, had tossed aside their repeating blasters and stripped off their uniforms in the belief that the Yuuzhan Vong would go easier on noncombatants.

 

Which just went to show how slowly news traveled to remote worlds, Skidder thought ruefully.

 

When it came to sacrificing captives to their gods, the enemy drew no such distinctions. In fact, in some cases a uniform-or at least evidence of a fighting spirit-could mean the difference between the mercifully quick death the Yuuzhan Vong offered those who measured up to their warlike ideals and the lingering death they reserved for those taken into captivity. He had heard rumors about captives undergoing dismemberment and vivisection; others about shiploads of captives being launched into the heart of stars to ensure victory for the Yuuzhan Vong.

 

As if the invaders needed a helping hand.

 

The gasbag, fire-breathing abominations that had torched Gyndine's forests and turned lakes into boiling cauldrons were gathered on the eastern outskirts of the capital. Flame-carpet warheads couldn't have done as much damage. Yuuzhan Vong infantry units-reptilian-humanoid Chazrack warriors-had followed the fire breathers in to clean out pockets of resistance and generally mop up. The sky had actually brightened slightly, but what light filtered in through smoke and scudding clouds was blotted out by descending drop ships.

 

One of them-a mesh tent pierced by crooked sticks-

 

was hovering over the embassy grounds now. Skidder had just changed positions to get a better vantage on the ship when its tentlike hull suddenly burst open, releasing a dozen or more huge, rod-shaped and bristled bundles that fell straight to the ground. Skidder didn't understand that they were living creatures until he saw the bioluminescent eyespots, twitching antennae, and the hundred pairs of sucker-equipped legs that sprouted down the length of the segmented bodies.

 

He observed the creatures in undisguised awe. They had the capacity not only to ambulate forward and backward, but also to skitter sideways-which they commenced doing at once, creating a living perimeter around the embassy grounds and moving slowly inward, as a means of forcing everyone toward the center.

 

The sight of the creatures was enough to strike fear in the heart of the most valiant, but Skidder had the Force on his side and was undaunted. Large as the creatures were, he was not without his own grab bag of abilities, and he could easily vault his way to freedom if he wished. After that it would be a simple matter to conceal himself from the Yuuzhan Vong. He could set off into the countryside, away from the devastation, and live off the land, as many of Gyndine's residents had opted to do when word of the imminent attack had spread. But Wurth Skidder wasn't a forager, and he certainly wasn't a deserter.

 

The fact that so few had lived to speak of their experiences as captives made it imperative that someone elect to be taken-someone with more interest in winning the war than in understanding the enemy, as Caamasi Senator Elegos A'Kla had attempted to do, and been butchered for his efforts.

 

Danni Quee, an ExGal scientist who had been captured shortly after the Yuuzhan Vong's arrival at the ice world Helska 4, had told Skidder of the final days of another captive, Skidder's fellow Jedi and close friend Miko Reglia. Quee had recounted the psychological tortures the Yuuzhan Vong and their tentacled yammosk- their so-called war coordinator-had inflicted on quiet and unassuming Miko in an attempt to break him, and of Miko's death during his and Quee's escape.

 

Vengeance went against the Jedi Code-as the code was taught by Master Skywalker, at any rate. Vengeance, according to Skywalker, was a path to the dark side. But there were other Jedi Knights, as powerful as Skywalker in Skidder's estimation, who took issue with some of the Master's teachings. Jedi Master Kyp Durron, for one. It was whispered, even on Yavin 4 in the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, that there were times when darkness had to be fought with darkness. And the Yuuzhan Vong were nothing if not the blackest evil since Emperor Palpatine.

 

Skidder was astute enough to recognize that he was motivated in part by a desire to show Skywalker and the rest that he was not some brash kid but a Jedi Knight of old, willing to put his life on the line-to sacrifice himself, if necessary-for a greater cause.

 

He rose from the shadows.

 

The outsize, insectile creatures loosed from the drop ship had succeeded in herding everyone to the center. Some of the creatures were beginning to curl themselves into rings, corralling their captives and employing their numerous sucker-equipped legs to prevent anyone from making over-the-top escapes.

 

Skidder tossed aside the lightsaber he had fashioned to replace the one he'd lost at Ithor, along with everything else that might identify him as a Jedi Knight. Then he chose his moment. As one of the creatures approached, pushing a score of beings in front of it, Skidder rushed forward, infiltrating the fleeing group before the creature had made a complete circle of itself-and much to the bafflement of a group of Ryn in whose midst he landed.

 

As the bioengineered creature joined its head to its tail parts, Skidder found himself pressed face-to-face with a Ryn female, whose oblique eyes mirrored her terror. He reached down and took her long-fingered hand.

 

"Take heart," he said in Basic, "help has arrived."

 

"Handles just as well as she always did," Han announced confidently, as the newly matte-black Millennium Falcon left behind a lush little world of green and purple forest.

 

"A simple coat of paint and you're feeling invulnerable," Droma said, frowning. "Who would have guessed?"

 

Han made adjustments to the Falcon's drives. "Next stop, Sriluur. Somebody once described it as the source of every foul wind that blows through the galaxy, but-"

 

"You figure they were just being kind," Droma completed.

 

Han glanced at the Ryn, absurdly small in the oversize chair that had been Chewbacca's. "Haven't I warned you about doing that? Anyway, quit your worrying. I've been to Sriluur more times than I can count. And let me tell you, dodging Imperial bulk cruisers was a lot harder than dodging Yuuzhan Vong battleships."

 

"Han Solo has been to Sriluur," Droma pointed out, growing more agitated. "Unless you plan on revealing your true identity, you're just another scruffy spacer with a freshly painted ship and a death wish."

 

Han scowled, stroking the mostly gray growth on his chin as he tried to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the closest of the cockpit's transparisteel panes.

 

"Quit your worrying," Droma mimicked him, "the beard looks fine. But it's not going to keep us from arousing suspicion when we start asking questions about Yuuzhan Vong prisoner ships."

 

"Maybe not, but Sriluur's worth the risk. The Wee-quays might not be the most attractive folks in the galaxy, but they're real good at keeping an ear to the ground. And if anyone can tell us where to start looking for Roa or your clanmates, it'll be them."

 

Droma tugged nervously at his mustache. "Let's just hope your pheromone levels are up to it."

 

Han waved a hand in dismissal. "They only communicate like that among their own kind. I always managed to get by with Basic." He smirked. "I'd like to see you second-guess what a Weequay's about to say."

 

"Scent."

 

"Huh?"

 

"What a Weequay is about to scent."

 

Han put his tongue in his cheek, nodded slowly, and threw switches on the navicomputer. "Maybe we'll get lucky at Sriluur and have to put down in a sandstorm," he said in a casual way.

 

"Extra concealment for the ship?"

 

Han snarled at him. "No, so I can see how much sand it takes to plug that perpetual motion machine you call a mouth."

 

Droma grimaced, then sighed with purpose. "I guess I just don't like the idea of venturing so close to Hutt space-with or without Yuuzhan Vong in the area. There's no love lost between Hutts and Ryn. Many of us were enslaved by them to provide entertainment in one court or another. Some of my ancestors were required to prognosticate for a Desilijic Hutt. When predicted events didn't come to pass, the Hutt would have a Ryn killed by his henchmen or fed to a court beast."

 

"True to form," Han said. "But you've got my word, no Hutt'll stop us from locating your clanmates. We'll have your family back together soon enough."

 

"Then we can make a start on yours," Droma mumbled.

 

Han threw him an angry glance. "You want to explain that?"

 

Droma turned to him. "You and Leia to begin with. If it weren't for me, you'd be with her now. I only hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me."

 

Han compressed his lips. "You've got nothing to do with what's come between us. Heck, it's not even between me and Leia. It's between me and"-he flicked his hand at the starfield beyond the viewpoint-"this."

 

Droma didn't speak for a moment, then said, "Even friends can't be protected from fate, Han."

 

"Don't talk to me about fate," Han snapped. "Nothing's fixed-not these stars and definitely not what happens to us in life." He clenched his hands. "These are what determine my fate."

 

"And yet even you end up in situations that are not of your making."

 

"Like my being with you, for instance."

 

Droma frowned. "I've lost friends and loved ones to tragedy, and I've tried to do exactly what you're doing."

 

Han looked up at him. "What I'm doing?"

 

"Trying to beat tragedy by outracing it. Filling your life to the brim, even when it puts you in danger. Burying your heartache under as much anger as you can muster, without realizing that you've shoveled love and compassion into the same grave. We live for love, Han. Without it we might as well jettison everything."

 

Despite himself, Han thought about Leia on Gyndine, Jaina flying with Rogue Squadron, Anakin and Jacen off to who knew where with the Jedi. When he considered, even for a split second, where he might be without them, the angry words and recriminations that had spewed from him since Chewie's death pierced him like rapid fire. If something should happen to them, he started to think, only to feel a great black maw opening beneath him, undermining everything he believed in. Protectively, he tugged himself from dark imaginings.

 

"I got along just fine without love for a lot of years, Droma. Love is what starts things rolling downhill. It's like being sucked into a gravity well or being caught by a tractor beam. You get too close, there's no escape."

 

Droma nodded, as if in understanding. "So your mistake was in befriending Chewbacca to begin with. You would have been better off keeping your distance. Then you wouldn't be grieving now."

 

"Befriending him wasn't a mistake," Han said.

 

"But if you'd kept your guard raised all those years, you would never have grown as close to him as you did."

 

"Okay, that was a risk I took. But that was then."

 

"Let me suggest an alternative error. You didn't see his death coming and you're angry that you let your guard down."

 

"You're right about that. I should've been more vigilant."

 

"So let's suppose you did everything you could and still failed. Would you be grieving now, or would doing everything have satisfied you enough so that you wouldn't miss him?"

 

"Of course I'd still miss him."

 

"Then who are you angry at-yourself for the things you didn't do, or fate for having snuck up on you?"

 

Han swallowed hard. "All I know is I won't make that mistake again. I'll be ready for anything fate dishes out."

 

"And if you fail again?" Han glared at him. "I won't."

 

Deep in one of the fathomless canyons formed by Cor-uscant's soaring superstructures, Sullustan Admiral Sien Sow switched off his private comlink and relayed the tragic news to the twelve officers seated in the recently readied New Republic Defense Force war room.

 

"Gyndine is lost."

 

The uncomfortable silence that greeted the announcement came as no surprise. The planet's fall had been a foregone conclusion from the moment it had been identified as a target. Filling the silence, machines whirred and hummed as they received and processed intelligence updates from all sectors of New Republic space. In projected light, virtual battle groups of starships moved lazily among virtual worlds.

 

"For allowing this to happen, we are all diminished," Brigadier General Etahn A'baht remarked at last, voicing what many in the room were thinking. And yet the silence lingered.

 

"While I number myself among those who in the end voted against dispatching a force of suitable might to safeguard Gyndine," the aubergine-skinned Dornean went on, "I wish to reiterate the remarks I made during the arguments preceding that regrettable decision. By all but surrendering worlds like Gyndine, we reinforce widespread conviction that the New Republic is interested only in protecting the Core, and in doing so we play into the enemy's hand by weakening ourselves from within."

 

A scornful muttering rose from across the oblong table, and all heads turned to Commodore Brand. "Perhaps it would have been wiser to send an entire fleet to Gyndine and thus deprive Kuat or Fondor of any defense."

 

A'baht stood his ground, meeting the dour human's gaze. "Will that be your justification for allowing the Yuuzhan Vong to occupy the entire Inner Rim? Is the Inner Rim the price we're willing to pay to protect the Core?" He paused for effect. "A wise action, Commodore, would be to cease this exercise in selective defense and begin sending forces where needed."

 

A'baht glanced around the table. "Doesn't it disturb any of you that threatened worlds have begun to surrender without a fight? That former allies have refused to allow us to use their systems as staging areas out of fear of reprisals by the Yuuzhan Vong?"

 

He continued before anyone could respond. "Even a cursory look at the situation reveals that those populations who, at our urging, mounted a res istance have seen their worlds poisoned or devastated, while those like the Hutts, who have struck deals with the Yuuzhan Vong, have escaped bloodshed entirely."

 

"You disgrace all of us by bringing the Hutts into this," Brand said angrily. "Was their capitulation ever in doubt?"

 

A'baht made a placating gesture. "I offer them only as an example, Commodore. But the fact remains that Nal Hutta has been spared the ruination visited on Dan-tooine, Ithor, Obroa-skai, and countless other worlds. My point is that populations throughout the Mid Rim and the Expansion Region are fast losing faith in our ability to put an end to this war-and I use the word intentionally, since few of you seem to realize, even at this late stage, the great peril we face. Events are reaching a point where it's every system for itself."

 

A'baht gestured broadly to the holoprojectors and screens. "Even this space reflects our denial to embrace the depths of our peril. Instead of meeting openly for all of Coruscant to see, we wind up down here, as if in hiding from the truth."

 

"No one is hiding," Brand objected. "Thanks to the ineptitude of the Intelligence division, we came close to escorting two saboteurs into our midst-or doesn't it matter to you that our security has been compromised?"

 

"The saboteurs were after the Jedi, not us," Director of Fleet Intelligence Addar Nylykerka interjected.

 

A'baht swung to him. "And why? Because, until Ithor, the Jedi were the ones who were leading the campaign. Now either we assume that role, or we allow the New Republic to splinter beyond repair. We must demonstrate our commitment to stopping the Yuuzhan Vong, and we must do so before additional worlds fall."

 

He adopted a more affable tone. "I'm not saying that security isn't an issue; only that we set a proper example. By relocating to Dometown we have encouraged everyone to think in terms of concealment."

 

A kilometer-wide cavern of homes and buildings, Dometown had originally been financed by a consortium of investors, including former general Lando Calrissian. But the hundreds of thousands expected to abandon the frenetic surface for underground tranquillity had never arrived, and the enterprise had gone bankrupt. Repossessed by banks and various credit unions, the would-be community had ultimately become the property of the New Republic military.

 

"Already there are new hotels and restaurants being opened on the lowest levels," A'baht was saying, "in anticipation that those currently fortunate enough to live in Coruscant's lofty towers will have nowhere to go but down should the Yuuzhan Vong attack. And mark my words, there'll be no survival, even here. For if what is occurring at Sernpidal and Obroa-skai is any indication, the Yuuzhan Vong will remake Coruscant in their own image, entombing any who have fled to the depths."

 

"Has thought been given to just where we will go should Coruscant fall?" Ixidro Legorburu asked while most of the officers were mulling over A'baht's dire prediction. A native of M'haeli, Legorburu was director of the New Republic's Battle Assessment Division.

 

"That will never happen," Sien Sow assured, then lowered his voice to add, "Nevertheless, we're exploring options for relocating key government and military personnel to the Koornacht Cluster or, should worse come to worst, the Empress Teta system in the Deep Core."

 

"Key personnel," someone said leadingly.

 

The Sullustan admiral frowned. "It's a moot point, in any case, since most of the proposals have met with opposition by certain members of the senate."

 

Knowing glances were traded around the table.

 

"General A'baht's point about honoring our commitment to secondary worlds is well taken," Sow said, "but I'm certain that even he would be willing to concede that sending a flotilla to Gyndine wouldn't have slowed the enemy's advance."

 

When everyone looked at A'baht for confirmation, he nodded, though with obvious reluctance.

 

"The attack on Gyndine indicates a change in the enemy's battle campaign. Clearly they are probing for weaknesses, perhaps routes into the Core. At the same time, there has been a marked increase in their mining of select hyperspace routes, which has narrowed our access to several outlying sectors."

 

"In other words, they're attempting to contain us," Brand said.

 

The diminutive Sow stood and directed everyone's attention to a holomap that projected from the table's center, showing the current disposition of Yuuzhan Vong forces. "This is what we have been able to piece together from direct observation, in addition to stasis probe reconnaissance and hyperspace orbiting scanners.

 

"As you can see, their fleets are concentrated between Ord Mantell and Obroa-skai, and now between Hutt space and Gyndine. Should they move Coreward from Obroa-skai, Bilbringi, Borleias, Venjagga, and Ord Mirk are imperiled. From Gyndine, Commenor, Kuat, and Corellia are vulnerable. Analysis suggests that the conquest of Gyndine was effected to ready the way for a two-pronged attack. Logic dictates that-"

 

"You err in believing that they strategize as we do," A'baht interrupted, "when, in fact, they are waging a psychological war. The destruction of natural beauty and repositories of learning, the pursuit of refugees- such tactics are meant to confound and dishearten us. The Yuuzhan Vong are as much as saying that the civilization we have fashioned means nothing to them. All that we hold sacred is imperiled."

 

Impatience coaxed Brand out of his seat. "Spare us the rhetoric, General, and come to the point. With such keen insight into the Yuuzhan Vong, you no doubt have some foreknowledge of where they will strike next."

 

A'baht squared his shoulders. "The next targets will be Bothawui and Kothlis."

 

Everyone regarded the Dornean for a long moment. "You have evidence to support this?" Sow asked.

 

"No more than what you present to support your belief that they will push for the Core. With their forces in Hutt space, they are practically at Bothawui's door."

 

"So this is what he's been getting at," Brand muttered. "He's finally gone over to Borsk Fey'lya's side. Fey'lya the warrior, the hero of Ithor."

 

A'baht refused to speak to the remark. "I propose that elements of the Third and Fourth Fleets be relocated to Bothan space as soon as possible. Bothawui is where we should draw the line and launch our counteroffensive."

 

Brand snorted derisively. "And if you're wrong? If the Yuuzhan Vong should decide to assault Bilbringi, Kuat, or Mon Calamari instead?"

 

A'baht glowered. "Are you suggesting that those worlds are more important than Bothawui?"

 

"I'm saying precisely that. If any of our shipyards fall, the New Republic will topple."

 

"And if Bothawui falls?"

 

"We will mourn the loss, but the New Republic will survive."

 

A'baht shook his head in dismay. "Times like this make me wish that Ackbar could be persuaded to come out of retirement."

 

Sow held up his hands to silence half a dozen separate conversations. "Contrary to General A'baht's assertions, no scenarios have been ruled out. Based on current intelligence, Bothawui is just as likely to be targeted as Bilbringi. But more important, we are not simply standing by, waiting for the Yuuzhan Vong to strike. Two plans have already been put into action." He looked at Brand. "Commodore, if you would be so kind."

 

A'baht leaned forward in interest.

 

"The first plan involves inducing the Hapes Consortium to join the fight," Brand said. "The Hapans are not only well armed but well positioned to outflank the enemy. Indeed, the Yuuzhan Vong may have skirted the Hapes Cluster in order to avoid having to engage them."

 

"Then why should the Consortium worlds elect to get involved now?" A'baht asked. "Why wouldn't they secure their own space as the Imperial Remnant has, or cut a deal, as the Hutts appear to have done?"

 

"Because the Consortium has allied with us in the past," Sow explained calmly. "Following the Battle of Endor, they captured several Imperial Star Destroyers, but instead of holding on to those ships, they donated them to the New Republic. Additionally, the Hapan queen mother's homeworld of Dathomir is threatened."

 

"More to the point," Brand interjected, "the Jedi recently did the royal family a favor by foiling a coup directed against the queen mother. It is hoped that Ambassador Organa Solo can persuade the rulers of the noble houses to repay us in kind."

 

A'baht feigned a look of confusion. "The Jedi did them a favor, and yet you've asked Organa Solo to intercede. To the best of my knowledge, she is not a true member of that order. Or is it perhaps that she was once courted by Prince Isolder?"

 

Brand fielded the question. "I won't deny that that didn't influence our decision to approach her."

 

"And she has agreed?"

 

"For a price. We had to promise to back her in seeking added funds for SELCORE-refugee relief. But, yes, she has agreed. She will leave for Hapes immediately on her return from Gyndine."

 

A'baht allowed an uncertain nod. "And this other plan?"

 

Brand adjusted the fit of his collar. "We're hoping to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into attacking the Corellian system."

 

For a moment, even A'baht was too surprised to speak; then he said, "Corellia isn't Gyndine, Commodore. If it's your aim to make that system a battlefield to avoid fouling Coruscant's space lanes, you will never have my vote. Wasn't it enough that we stripped the Corellians of the ability to defend themselves after the Centerpoint Station crisis?"

 

Sow put his small hands on the table and leaned toward A'baht. "Centerpoint Station is the very reason we hope to lure the Yuuzhan Vong there."

 

Larger than the Death Star, the artifact had been discovered to be a hyperspace repulsor, used in the dim past and by an unknown race, to capture and transport planets to the Corellian system. The station was also a weapon of unparalleled power, both starbuster and interdiction field generator, and eight years earlier had been employed as s uch by a group known as the Sacor-rian Triad, in an unsuccessful attempt to achieve independence from the New Republic.

 

"Are you telling me that Centerpoint is operational?" A'baht asked in disbelief. "The last I heard, it had been shutdown."

 

"It shut itself down," Brand snapped. "But as we speak several hundred scientists are attempting to return it to operational status. If the Yuuzhan Vong can be encouraged to attack Corellia, we will use a Centerpoint-generated interdiction field to prevent their ships from going to hyperspace while our fleets attack from the rear."

 

"Much to the dismay of the species of the Corellian sector, I would imagine," A'baht said. "After all, we didn't win many friends by interceding in the system's attempts at self-governance. If memory serves, the blowback from that interference is what prompted Organa Solo to resign as chief of state."

 

Sow nodded. "But Governor-General Marcha is a New Republic appointee, and she has given her conditional approval. As a Corellian citizen, her word carries a lot of weight, not only on her native Drall but on Selonia, Corellia, and the Double Worlds. What's more, we haven't made the full extent of our plans known."

 

A'baht stared at him for a moment, then looked at Brand.

 

"As far as the Corellians know, we're readying Center-point as a defensive weapon, in lieu of stationing a flotilla there."

 

"How very noble of us," A'baht said in obvious disgust. "Here they've been supplying us with Strident-class Star Defenders, and we withhold the fact that we're planning to use their system as a battleground. Just how do you plan to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into attacking?"

 

"By making Corellia appear too attractive a target to pass up," Brand said. "By leaving the system essentially unprotected."

 

A'baht stroked his jaw in thought. "It's bold, I'll grant that much. But have Fey'lya and the Advisory Council members been apprised of this plan?"

 

"They know only what Corellia knows," Brand barked, then softened his tone to add, "Fey'lya would never sanction the rearming of Centerpoint-if only to prevent Corellia from reaping such power." He laughed shortly. "Even in the remote chance he did support us, how then could we ensure that word of the plan wouldn't leak? Once that occurred, every world in the Corellian system would rise up in revolt."

 

A'baht snorted in displeasure. "Fey'lya's isn't the only voice on the council. He can be overridden by a majority vote."

 

Brand and Sow traded looks. "From what we have been able to determine," the admiral said, "three of the council members would certainly follow Fey'lya's lead. Four of the others could very well support us."

 

A'baht considered it. In response to the clamor from far-flung sectors for increased representation, two additional senators had been appointed to the council since the poisoning of Ithor. "That's four against, four in favor. Who is the unknown quantity?"

 

"The council's newest member," Brand said, "Senator ViqiShesh."

 

"Has anyone approached her?" A'baht asked. "Unofficially, of course?"

 

Brand shook his head. "Not yet."

 

Sow pressed his hands together. "Then I suggest we do so, Commodore. Before our window closes."

 

Ixidro Legorburu spoke up. "Is there any hope that the Hutts can be persuaded to join us, actively or indirectly?"

 

"Intelligence agents on Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa have reported that the Hutts' decision to ally themselves with the Yuuzhan Vong is a ruse," Sow said. "They apparently wish to serve as conduits of information for the New Republic."

 

"You accept that?" A'baht asked.

 

"Given their history of alliances, they wouldn't align themselves with anyone without having a contingency plan in place." Sow ran his hand down his prominently jowled face. "Even the Hutts can't risk being caught on the wrong side when the Yuuzhan Vong are defeated."

 

"When, not if," Commodore Brand said around an arrogant grin. "I find such optimism refreshing."

 

A'baht frowned. "I find it wishful thinking."

 

From the waiting room of the great spired and onion-domed palace of Nal Hutta's ruling Hutt, Nom Anor gazed out on a despoiled landscape of feculent swamps, mold-covered stunted trees, and parcels of wan vermin-riddled marsh grass. Stained by a melange of industrial pollutants and spotted with flocks of ungainly birds, the sky was a brooding ceiling, frequently lamenting its wretched state with lackluster showers of grimy rain. The stilted, destitute precincts so abundant in the vicinity of the spaceport were nowhere to be seen, but the terrain itself reeked of impoverishment and decay.

 

"What a vile world this is," Commander Malik Carr commented as he joined Nom Anor at the bay window.

 

"The Hutts know it as 'Glorious Jewel,' " the executor replied nonchalantly. "But it's not without potential. The moon, Nar Shaddaa, is far worse-completely encased by buildings and technology."

 

Malik Carr grunted. "I see no potential. But perhaps your one true eye sees more clearly than my pair."

 

Nom Anor quirked a smile. "I have been in this galaxy for some time, Commander, and have learned to look beyond appearances." He turned slightly in Malik Carr's direction. "Imagine Nal Hutta as, say, a laboratory for genetic experimentation."

 

4O

 

Malik Carr smiled slowly. "Yes, yes, even I can envision that."

 

Taller than Nom Anor, the commander was displayed in all his glory, without ooglith masquer or cloaker. Malik Carr's incised face and bare upper torso told of an illustrious military career. Cinched around his backward-sloping forehead was a vibrant head cloth whose tassels were braided into lustrous black hair, forming a tail that hung nearly to his waist. Recently arrived from the galactic edge, where argosies waited eagerly for the warrior caste to complete the invasion, the commander had been charged by Supreme Commander Nas Choka with overseeing the next phase of the conquest.

 

To keep his own identity concealed-even from the Hutts-as well as in deference to Malik Carr, Nom Anor wore an ooglith masquer that obscured the scars, augmentations, and like evidence of his sacrifices to the gods, along with a prosthesis in the empty eye socket that normally housed a venom-spitting plaeryin bol.

 

Malik Carr swung from the window and planted his fists on his hips in anger. "How dare this creature keep us waiting. Is he completely unaware of what he risks for himself and his pathetic world?"

 

"She, Commander," Nom Anor corrected. "Currently, at any rate. Hutts are said to be hermaphroditic. That is to say, male and female characteristics are combined in each."

 

Malik Carr looked at him askance. "And just now this one is female?"

 

"Fully female, as you will see. As for the prolonged wait, it's nothing more than tradition."

 

"But the precedent-"

 

"Don't concern yourself with precedent. I have a plan for dealing with this outmoded formality."

 

As the two Yuuzhan Vong walked toward the center of the antechamber, an entourage of ten honor guards and as many attendants snapped to attention. The guards wore vonduun crab armor and carried living amphistaffs and doubled-edge coufee knives. The female attendants were attired in veils, tunics, and cloaks that left visible only the sinuous markings that adorned their bared arms.

 

Malik Carr acknowledged the guards' brisk salutes and sat down on a cushioned bench. Nom Anor remained standing. The waiting room's high ceiling was supported by a dozen stately if moldy pillars. The floor was made of cut stone polished to a dazzling sheen, and woven textiles of intricate design graced the walls.

 

A bright-green, orb-eyed biped of medium size entered the antechamber. The creature's lumpy head featured twin hornlike appendages, pointed ears, and a narrow crest of yellow spines. Its long, tapered fingers appeared to be equipped with suction cups.

 

"A Rodian," Nom Anor supplied quietly. "A bellicose species given to warfare and bounty hunting. This one is the Hutt's majordomo, Leenik."

 

Leenik approached his master's guests, his stubby snout twitching. "Borga the Almighty is prepared to grant you audience now," he said in Basic.

 

Malik Carr shot Nom Anor a vexed glance. The entire Yuuzhan Vong entourage stood and began to trail the Rodian through an enormous doorway flanked by thickset churlish guards, whose pointed lower teeth and forehead tusks were perfectly matched.

 

"I suggest you take a deep breath before we enter," Nom Anor advised the commander.

 

"Is the Hutt odor so unbearable?"

 

"Picture bathing in a reopened grave."

 

Malik Carr grimaced and sucked in his breath.

 

The vaulted ceiling of the opulent court was even higher than that of the antechamber, and floating midway to the ceiling on a bolstered antigravity couch was an outsize, bulbous-headed slug whose disproportionately short arms might have been vestigial were the small hands they ended in not beckoning imperiously to Malik Carr and Nom Anor.

 

Atmosphere exchangers were working overtime, but there was enough residual rankness in the air to make the commander's eyes water. Sybaritic toadies sprawled about on couches and carpets-musicians, gunsels, and scantily attired dancers, all of diverse species. Chained to one wall, though obviously a pet, was a ferocious-looking beast Nom Anor knew to be a Kintan strider.

 

Borga favored Nom Anor with a look. "How pleasant to see you again," her deep voice boomed. "Come and sit beneath me."

 

Nom Anor-whom Borga knew as Pedric Cuf, and who claimed to be nothing more than an intercessor between the Yuuzhan Vong and the Hutts-smiled without showing his teeth and remained where he was, a good distance from the repulsor platform. At his hand signal the attendants conveyed to the center of the room several ornate boxes of the sort that might contain tribute. Nom Anor went to the closest box and opened the lid. Almost immediately the levitated couch gave a shudder and crashed loudly to the stone floor, nearly spilling Borga the Almighty into her coterie of shocked sycophants.

 

"I'm terribly sorry," Nom Anor said, as the chagrined Hutt struggled to regain her former composure. "I didn't realize that the Yuuzhan Vong had brought along a finely tuned dovin basal for your amusement. The creature was apparently offended by your couch's attempt to outwit gravity and decided to rectify the imbalance by catching hold of it."

 

Nom Anor was proficient at mimicking the subhar-monics that furnished the Hutt language with nuance. Even so, Borga had difficulty establishing the sincerity of the apology. Her oblique, heavy-lidded eyes blinked in confusion, then she quickly propped herself up, putting a curl in her muscular purple-patched tail, and gestured for two of her attendants to bring chairs for her guests.

 

The commander and the executor seated themselves with decorum, careful not to demonstrate too much smugness over their small victory, though a fleeting smile did escape Malik Carr.

 

"The Yuuzhan Vong have brought other wonders, as well," Nom Anor said finally.

 

Once more at his signal two attendants placed an aquarium well within Borga's limited reach, its murky waters hosting a variety of fist-sized life-forms, the likes of which the Hutt had never seen. Borga whispered something to Leenik, and the majordomo fished one of the creatures from the tank, sniffed at it, and took a cautious bite.

 

At the Rodian's mildly enthusiastic nod, Borga snatched the thing from Leenik's long-fingered hands, swallowed it whole, and loosed a resonant and lengthy belch of satisfaction.

 

"Another," she ordered.

 

This time Borga opened her jaws so wide that Nom Anor could almost hear the living morsel plop into her enormous stomach cavity. She belched again and ran her powerful tongue over her lips and nostrils.

 

"A bit like a Carnovian eel-pup, but with just a hint of the resistance one expects from the finest nala-tree frogs supplied by Fhnark and Company," she said, as only a gourmand could. "All in all, on a par with some of the classic droch appetizers fashioned by Zubindi Ebsuk." She turned her gaze on Nom Anor. "How did you come by these, Pedric Cuf ? On which world can they be found?"

 

"None in this galaxy." Nom Anor smiled pleasantly. "They are bioengineered."

 

The Hutt glanced at Malik Carr. "He created them?"

 

"Not personally. A Yuuzhan Vong shaper did so."

 

"And this... this shaper could replicate the product?"

 

"I'm certain he could." Nom Anor stood and gestured respectfully to Malik Carr. "Borga, permit me to introduce Commander Malik Carr, who will be overseeing this sector of space."

 

The Hutt blinked. "Overseeing?"

 

Head canted slightly to one side, Malik Carr regarded her for what seemed an eternity. "You speak for all of your kind?" he asked in passable Huttese.

 

Borga's blubbery body stiffened proudly. "I do. And I have been vested with the power to negotiate with your species."

 

"By whom have you been vested?"

 

"By the leaders of the voting kajidics, as well as the Grand Council."

 

"Kajidics?" Malik Carr said to Nom Anor.

 

"Criminal syndicates," Nom Anor told him in their own tongue.

 

Malik Carr continued to appraise Borga openly. "Yours is the ruling kajidic, then?"

 

"I am Borga Besadii Diori, cousin of Durga Besadii Tai, son of Aruk the Great, brother of Zavval. Wealthiest and most powerful of the Besadii kajidic, I lord over the Desilijic, the Trinivii, the Ramesh, Shell, and all other clans. All the three billion of this world pay obei-"

 

"You are male or female?" Malik Carr cut her off.

 

Borga blinked. "Just now I am with child." She indicated a pouch, low in her bulging abdomen.

 

"You birth live offspring?" Malik Carr said in obvious astonishment. When Borga nodded, the commander's jaw dropped ever so slightly. "Like one of our lowliest caste women," he remarked to Nom Anor. Borga's broad forehead wrinkled in uncertainty. "Let us talk business," Malik Carr said abruptly. "As . . . Pedric Cuf has undoubtedly apprised you, the Yuuzhan Vong have need of some of your worlds-for purposes of resource gathering. To effect this, we may be required to remove entire populations, and in some cases remake those worlds we select."

 

"Yes, so Pedric Cuf has explained," Borga said after a long moment. "In fact, we Hutts know a good deal about remaking worlds. When we arrived here from Varl, for example, Glorious Jewel was not the paradise you see now, but a primitive world of dense forests and untamed seas. There was even an indigenous species called the Evocii, who we were obliged to relocate on Glorious Jewel's moon, where the pitiful creatures gradually died out. By then, of course, we had replaced all Evocii structures with proper palaces and shrines ..."

 

Malik Carr glanced at Nom Anor while Borga prattled on. "She looks like something our shapers might have cooked up."

 

Nom Anor laughed shortly. "It's true. I thought the same thing when I first laid eyes on her."

 

Borga had stopped talking and was eyeing Malik Carr with misgiving. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Commander," she said, with cheerful servility. "While I've made some progress in the tutorials Pedric Cuf supplied, I'm not yet fully conversant with your language."

 

Nom Anor cleared his throat. "The commander was just saying that he loves what you've done with the place."

 

Borga managed a dubious smile. "In that case, let us return to talking business, as you say."

 

Malik Carr nodded politely.

 

"In exchange for granting you the use of certain worlds-one of which we have already provided, as a demonstration of good faith-we Hutts are obliged to ask the Yuuzhan Vong to keep clear of Rimward Hutt space in general, as well as to avoid the worlds Rodia, Ryloth, Tatooine, Kessel, and certain planets in the Si'klaata Cluster and Kathol sector."

 

Borga raised her voice in anticipation of objections. "I'm well aware that you have a fleet of ships anchored at the edge of the Y'Toub system, but we Hutts are not without our resources and weapons, and a war against us would only sidetrack you from your principal goal of defeating the New Republic." She stopped herself. "That is your goal, is it not?"

 

Malik Carr and Nom Anor exchanged brief looks of bemusement before the commander replied. "Our goals should not concern you at this point. Furthermore, it would be premature to decide which of us has rights to which worlds when we have yet to see whether our partnership will succeed. That decision, in any event, will ultimately be made by Supreme Overlord Shimrra. In the meantime, I suggest you broach the matter with my direct superior, Supreme Commander Nas Choka, who will certainly wish to meet with you when he arrives in Hutt space, some days from now."

 

Borga nodded. "I will gladly grant him audience, and I will do as you suggest and discuss terms with him. I do, however, wish to propose something for your immediate consideration. In addition to other enterprises, we Hutts have both a fondness for and a long history of slave trading. With our expertise and our well-established network of space lanes and hyperspace routes, it occurs to me that we might best serve the interests of the partnership, as you say, by overseeing the transportation of captives, laborers, servants, and fodder for sacrifices-a task for which we are uniquely suited. That way, the Yuuzhan Vong needn't employ their own ships for the lowly purpose of conveying inferior beings to their well-deserved castigation, enslavement, or immolation."

 

"In return for what?" Malik Carr asked mildly.

 

"Your promise not to interfere with the movement of spice and other proscribed goods."

 

"Spice?" Malik Carr asked Nom Anor.

 

"Recreational euphoriants-some of which are arachnid by-products."

 

Borga followed the exchange, then clapped her hands. Human servants appeared bearing trays mounded with crystalline powders, varying in both composition and color.

 

"Here you see examples of glitterstim and the kor grade of the mineral ryll," Borga said, indicating one mound after the next. "And there you see carsunum, lumni-spice, gree spice, and andris." She paused to regard Malik Carr. "If you would care to sample any one of them..."

 

Malik Carr lifted his hand in a negative gesture.

 

"Some other time perhaps," Borga said graciously. "But what of my proposal?"

 

Nom Anor turned to Malik Carr with purposeful excitement. "It does suit Supreme Commander Nas Choka's plan to gather resistant populations onto a few select worlds for indoctrination and security, Commander."

 

Malik Carr nodded noncommittally, then looked at Borga. "You have no qualms about betraying the sundry species who embrace the tenets of the New Republic?"

 

Borga loosed a sinister guffaw. "Certainly no more than Pedric Cuf has. After all, Commander, business is business, and if anyone is to profit from the galaxy's new circumstances, it may as well be the Hutts."

 

"So be it," Malik Carr said with finality.

 

Borga grinned broadly. "One more small item, Commander. Since it would be to our mutual advantage that Hutt supply ships refrain from unintentionally bumbling into your operations, is it too much to ask that we be advised of any imminent, uh, activities?"

 

Malik Carr cut his eyes to Nom Anor. "Exactly as you predicted."

 

Nom Anor returned a barely perceptible nod. "Negotiation is also part of their tradition."

 

"You do have a keen eye, Executor."

 

"A practiced one, Commander."

 

Borga watched them without comprehending.

 

"We were just discussing the terms," Nom Anor explained.

 

"Consider our request an accommodation," Borga said offhandedly. "A show of confidence."

 

"What you ask seems harmless enough," Malik Carr allowed. "As you say, Borga, we certainly wouldn't want your spice vessels inadvertently disrupting our activities."

 

"As I say, Commander."

 

"Until further notice, then, you may want to consider avoiding the Tynnani, Bothan, and Corellian systems. Tynna, especially so."

 

Borga's broad grin returned with interest. "Tynna, Bothawui, and Corellia ... As it happens, Commander, we do limited bus iness in all of those systems."

 

Malik Carr sniffed arrogantly. " I suggest you reduce your business to zero."

 

No sooner had the Yuuzhan Vong entourage left the palace than three Hutts hurried into Borga's court. A young Hutt, uniformly tan in color, slithered in on his own power; an older one, with a stripe of green pigmentation running down his spine and tapered tail, was borne in on a litter supported by a dozen leathery-skinned Weequays; and an even more aged one, sporting a wispy gray beard, made use of a hoversled.

 

The latter Hutt, Pazda Desilijic Tiure-uncle of the celebrated Jabba Desilijic Tiure-was the first to voice his outrage.

 

"Who do they think they are, making demands of the Hutts, as though we were some trifling species concerned only with escaping bloodshed? That Malik Carr, he reminded me of the worst of Palpatine's Imperial moffs. And the one who calls himself Pedric Cuf was equally treacherous-speaking out of both sides of his mouth."

 

Pazda showed Borga his most austere expression. "The Desilijic would never have permitted such indignities to take place in their court. Jabba would have fed Malik Carr and Pedric Cuf to a rancor and taken his chances with the Yuuzhan Vong fleet."

 

"Like he took his chances with Jedi Master Sky-walker?" the young Hutt, Randa Besadii Diori, remarked. "Personally, I always felt that Tatooine's aridity wreaked havoc with Jabba's judgment." Elevating himself on his powerful tail, he nodded at his parent, Borga. "You handled them expertly."

 

"Impertinent pup," Pazda wheezed. "What do you know of judgment or strategy, growing up as you have in wealth and privilege?"

 

"One thing I know, old Hutt, is that I will never lose my wealth and privilege," Randa told him now.

 

"Enough of this," the littered Hutt, Gardulla the Younger, chimed in, impaling Randa with his gaze. "Respect your elders-even when you don't agree with them." He ordered his muscular bearers to steer him closer to Borga, nodding in regard as he neared the chief Besadii's levitated couch. "To deceive an enemy, pretend to fear him."

 

The grin Borga had worn for Malik Carr and Nom Anor had been replaced by a look of narrow-eyed fury. "Better to have the Yuuzhan Vong overestimate our subservience than our shrewdness."

 

Gardulla laughed without mirth. "You succeeded in tricking them into revealing their next targets."

 

"As I promised you I would."

 

"Such intelligence is potentially invaluable. Do we now inform the New Republic of the invaders' designs?"

 

Borga shook her head. "New Republic Intelligence operatives have already been making overtures. Let us wait and see what they bring to the bargaining table."

 

"It had better be an offer of great worth," Randa said.

 

Gardulla ignored the comment. "No doubt the Yuuzhan Vong will expect us to reveal their plan."

 

"No doubt," Borga agreed. "That's why we will make no move. The New Republic will have to come to us."

 

She lowered the couch to the floor. "When Xim the Despot and his droid legions attempted to invade Hutt space, the great Kossak defeated them at Vontor and sent them fleeing for the Tion Hegemony. And when Moff Sarn Shild attempted to blockade Nal Hutta and destroy our moon, the great clans set aside their differences to manipulate weak Imperials and send their forces fleeing, as well."

 

She paused to glance in turn at Pazda, Randa, and Gardulla the Younger. "We have weathered many storms, and we will weather this one, as well. With care, we can play the New Republic against the invaders for the betterment of the Hutts."

 

"And we won't need a bungled Death Star to do it,"

 

Pazda muttered, in reference to Durga's failed Darksaber Project.

 

Borga glowered at him. "Insult my family again, and this court will no longer be available to you."

 

Pazda mustered a chastised look. "Excuse the grumbling that comes with advanced age, Your Highness."

 

Gardulla shook with sinister laughter. "As my parent used to say, 'There's always enough to divide-enough to keep, enough to spread around, enough to be stolen- as long as you're first to get to it.' "

 

Borga laughed with him. "For the time being, let the word go out to our subcontractors to exercise caution in their transactions and deliveries." She glanced at Leenik. "Who manages our affairs in the targeted systems?"

 

The Rodian dipped his head in a curt bow. "Boss Bunji oversees shipments to Corellia; Crev Bombaasa to Tynna andBothawui."

 

Borga licked her lips. "Inform them to suspend all business to the threatened systems-and to double their efforts elsewhere." She clapped her hands loudly, awakening those sycophants who had dozed off. "Let us have music and dancing in celebration of this day!"

 

 

FIVE

 

 

Leia paced from bulkhead to bulkhead in her cramped cabin space aboard the New Republic transport. Head moving back and forth, servos whining and whirring, C-3PO tracked her movements, while Olmahk and Leia's second bodyguard, Basbakhan, stood vigilantly to either side of the curved hatch. An illuminated planetary crescent of blue and brown dominated the view from the cabin's transparisteel observation bay.

 

A tone sounded from the communications suite, bringing Leia to a sudden halt.

 

"Ambassador," a raspy voice said, "we have the Rall-tiiri minister on channel one."

 

C-3PO pressed a lighted tile on the console, and the head and shoulders of a gray-haired man resolved in life-size holo. "Madam Ambassador," the man said as Leia positioned herself for the visual pickup. "To what do I owe this honor?"

 

Leia frowned in anger. "Don't trifle with me, Minister Shirka. Why have we been refused landing privileges at Grallia Spaceport?"

 

Shirka's deeply lined face twitched. "I'm sorry, Ambassador, I thought you'd already been informed."

 

"Informed of what?"

 

"The Ralltiiri Secretariat has vetoed the proposal that would have allowed us to accept any displaced peoples."

 

"I thought so," Leia fumed. "And just what am I supposed to do with the six thousand refugees who were promised temporary shelter on Ralltiir?"

 

"I'm afraid that's not for me to decide."

 

"But the Secretariat agreed to this last week. What could have changed since then?"

 

Shirka looked uncomfortable. "It's rather complicated. But to be concise, the idea of accepting refugees didn't sit well with several of our more influential off-world investors. That, of course, led the central banks to pressure the Ministry of Finance, and-"

 

"I assured you that the New Republic Senate had approved the allocation of funds for Ralltiir."

 

"So you did, Ambassador, but the promised funds have not arrived, and to be frank there is rampant talk that they never will. As it is, investor confidence has been shaken. And as I'm sure you're aware, what happens on Ralltiir affects market response all along the Perlemian Trade Route."

 

Leia folded her arms. "This isn't some stock issue, Minister. This is about everyone pulling together to help. What's happening in the Mid Rim might not seem of pressing importance here in the Core, but you're fooling yourself if you think you can hide from this. Have you already forgotten what the Emperor did when Ralltiir lent its support to the Alliance?"

 

Shirka bristled. "Is that meant to be a threat, Ambassador?"

 

"You misunderstand. I'm only suggesting that you consider the heinous actions of Lord Tion and Governor Dennix Graeber as prelude to what the Yuuzhan Vong are capable of doing-and without provocation. Remember what it was like to be denied relief, Minister? Remember what Alderaan risked for Ralltiir?"

 

Shirka worked his jaw. "Your mission of mercy at that time has not been forgotten. But, then, the Alliance did receive something in return ..."

 

Shirka's allusion was clear. A wounded Imperial soldier Leia rescued had been the first to tell of Palpatine's superweapon, the Death Star.

 

"Regardless of who gained what," she said after a moment, "is it Ralltiir's intention to remain neutral in the coming storm to avoid disturbing the privileged lives of its wealthy residents and investors?"

 

Anger mottled Shirka's face. "This conversation is over, Ambassador," he said, and terminated the connection.

 

Leia glanced at C-3PO and blew out her breath. "Of all the-"

 

"Ambassador," the same raspy voice interrupted. "Governor-General Amer Tariq of Rhinnal on channel four."

 

C-3PO pressed another tile, and a miniature image of Tariq rose from the holoprojector.

 

"Leia," the elder statesman and noted physician began, "I'm so glad to see you safe and sound." Tariq wore an impeccably tailored suit, whose mix of colors was too vivid for the holo.

 

"Thank you, Amer. Did you receive my message?"

 

"I did, Leia. But I'm sorry to report that I don't have encouraging news. Rhinnal cannot possibly accept additional refugees at this time, even on a temporary basis."

 

Leia was confounded. "Amer, if this is about funds-"

 

He gave his head a firm shake. "Don't confuse Rhinnal with Ralltiir, my dear. It's simply that the ten thousand refugees we received from Ord Mantell have strained our resources to the breaking point. Just yesterday we were forced to reroute more than two thousand to the Ruan system."

 

Leia's eyebrows went up. "Ruan is still accepting exiles?"

 

"More than accepting; Ruan is actually soliciting. In fact, I'm certain that Ruan would be willing and able to accommodate everyone you evacuated from Gyndine."

 

One of a host of agricultural worlds managed by Sal-liche Ag Corporation, Ruan, on the edge of the Deep Core between Coruscant and the Empress Teta system, was by galactic standards only a short jump away.

 

"Let's hope so, Amer," Leia said.

 

"My humblest apologies, my dear."

 

The transmission ended abruptly, and Leia collapsed into a chair. She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. "Maybe I'll get some rest after Ruan," she started to tell C-3PO when the comm tone sounded again.

 

"Yes?" she directed to the audio pickup.

 

"A transmission of unknown origin, relayed from Bilbringi."

 

Leia sighed wearily. "What now?"

 

"I believe it's your husband, Ambassador."

 

A snowy image appeared on the communication console's display screen. Leia recognized the forward cargo hold of the Millennium Falcon, though it took her a moment to recognize Han behind the beard.

 

"How do you like my new look?" he asked, stroking the salt-and-pepper growth.

 

"Han, where are you?"

 

He swiveled the navicomputer chair. "I'd rather not say just now."

 

She nodded in a galled but knowing way. "How did you know where to find me?"

 

"I heard about Gyndine. Wasn't too difficult after that. You're still well known, whether you like it or not."

 

"So are you, Han. And for all anyone knows, the Yuuzhan Vong could be hunting for you or the Falcon."

 

Han's brows beetled and his mouth formed a puckered O. "I'm not a complete blockhead, you know. That's why I grew the beard and had the Falcon painted."

 

Leia's eyes widened. "Painted?"

 

"Anodized, actually. A lovely shade of matte black. She looks like a mortician's delight."

 

"What system are you planning to sneak into this time?"

 

"Sneak?"

 

"You heard me."

 

"Oh, I get it. You mean maybe instead of frolicking around out here, I should be devoting my time to saving planets."

 

Leia huffed. "I'm not interested in saving planets, Han. I'm interested in saving lives."

 

"Well, what'd you think I'm trying to do? This is all about finding Droma's relatives and Roa, Leia. It has nothing to do with Ord Mantell or Gyndine or anywhere else. Besides, a man's good for only one promise at a time, and I gave mine to Droma."

 

Leia exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry, Han. I understand what you're doing." She smiled thinly. "At least we still have something in common."

 

Han averted his gaze momentarily. "Speaking of which, was it you who arranged for Ord Mantell's refugees to be transferred to Gyndine?"

 

"Yes-regretfully."

 

Han gave her a lopsided smile. "You're complicating my search, sweetheart."

 

Leia's frustration returned. "Am I? And who created such a muddle on Vortex that the local governor decided to renege on his promise to accept any refugees whatsoever?"

 

"I was only trying to-" Han's image suddenly tilted to one side, as if the Falcon had been stood on end. "Hey, Droma, watch what you're doing up there!" He turned back to the cam, jerking a thumb in the direction of the Falcon's outrigger cockpit. "Guy claims to be a pilot, but you'd never know it by the way he handles a ship."

 

Leia took her lower lip between her teeth in disquiet. "How are you two getting along?"

 

He snorted. "If I didn't owe him my life, I'd probably jettison him right here."

 

"I'm sure," Leia said quietly.

 

"By the way, you might want to pass along to the fleet office that a flotilla of Yuuzhan Vong ships was spotted near Osarian. Couple of destroyer analogs and-"

 

"Han," she said, cutting him off. "Droma's sister is on Gyndine."

 

He sat bolt upright. "What? How do you know that?"

 

"Because some of his clanmates are among the group evacuated from Gyndine. There wasn't time to take everyone, and his sister was one of at least six Ryn I was forced to leave behind. I didn't know until we'd already transferred everyone to the transports."

 

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Han demanded.

 

"Because there's nothing either of us can do about it. Gyndine's occupied."

 

"There are ways around that," Han mumbled distractedly.

 

Leia compressed her lips. "You are infuriatingly predictable."

 

"And you worry too much."

 

"Someone has to."

 

"Leia, will you be there for a while-on Ralltiir?"

 

She shook her head. "We'll be leaving for Ruan, if I have any say in the matter. Then I'm going to Hapes."

 

"Hapes?" Han said in incredulity. "And you accuse me of putting myself in the thick of things? Why there of all places?"

 

"With any luck, to enlist the Consortium's help. The New Republic fleets are spread too thinly to defend the Colonies, let alone the Core. And now with Bilbringi, Corellia, perhaps even Bothawui endangered, we need all the support we can rally. Which reminds me, Han, Admiral Sow has asked Anakin to go to Corellia to help in reenabling Centerpoint Station."

 

He snorted. "It's about time the New Republic started considering Corellia's defense."

 

"Then you're all right with his going-without either of us?"

 

"How old were you when you agreed to carry the technical readouts of the Death Star? Which of us is watching over Jaina when she flies with Rogue Squadron?" "But-"

 

"Besides, Anakin's a Jedi."

 

"I suppose you're right," Leia said, clearly unconvinced.

 

Han smiled ambiguously. "Be sure to say hello to Prince Isolder for me."

 

"Why don't you come with me to Hapes and tell him in person?"

 

He laughed at the idea. "What, and spoil your fun?" "What's that supposed to mean?" He started to reply but bit back whatever he had in mind to say, and began again. "Is there any hope for the folks you couldn't extract from Gyndine?"

 

Leia shut her eyes and shook her head. "I'm not sure any of them even survived."

 

"I am Chine-kal, commander of^the vessel you find yourselves aboard," the Yuuzhan Vong officer announced in expert Basic as he meandered slowly among the immobilized and shackled beings captured on Gyndine.

 

Slender and of towering height, he wore a turban in which a winged creature was nested, its round black eyes mere centimeters above Chine-kal's own and identical to them. His command cloak, too, had a mind of its own, not so much trailing along the hold's pliant deck as in tow. The designs that twined around his forearms were of a decidedly beastly motif, though of a menagerie unknown to any of the captives, and the fingers of his elongated hands sported curving talons.

 

"This vessel, which answers to the name Creche in your traders' tongue, is to be your world for the foreseeable future. In time, the purpose of its sphere cluster design will be made clear to you. But even while you grapple with its mysteries, I want you to think of it as your home, and of myself and my crew as your parents and teachers. For you, all of you, have been selected from Ord Mantell's and Gyndine's defeated multitudes to execute a singular service."

 

Chine-kal stopped in front of Wurth Skidder, perhaps by chance, though Skidder preferred to think that some of his true nature, a touch of the Force, bled through the mental blanket he'd thrown over his identity. Behind the commander walked the tunic-wearing priest who had supervised prisoner selection on Gyndine's surface, as well as the immolation of thousands of droids.

 

Skidder and the hundreds of unclothed others in the ship's cavernous, organic hold were literally fixed in place by dollops of binding blorash jelly and fettered by the pincers of living creatures. To his right stood an elderly man-clearly a captive of some earlier campaign- made to appear younger than his years by cosmetic treatments; to his left, two of the half-dozen Ryn who had also been selected for "singular service" aboard the Yuuzhan Vong ship, which, from space, had resembled a bunch of grapes. Elsewhere were other veteran captives, some left haggard, some strengthened by whatever ordeals they had been put through.

 

"You have no doubt heard rumors of what occurred on the worlds you know as Dantooine, Ithor, and Obroa-skai," Chine-kal said, back in motion, "and you have no doubt heard rumors about how the Yuuzhan Vong treat their prisoners. I can assure you that all you have heard are lies and exaggerations.

 

"We are only trying to bring you a truth you sadly overlooked in your climb from the primal muck. Met with resistance, we have been left with no option but to force that truth on you; met with acceptance, we have been far more charitable than your New Republic overseers would have been to us.

 

"Because of political affiliations and other alliances, worlds don't often have a choice in whether to accept or decline our offer of enlightenment; the voice of a few decide the destiny of the many. But on this vessel you are individuals first, and each of you has an opportunity to decide for yourself whether to resist or to accept. You have a hand in determining your destiny-in governing your fate."

 

Flanked by well-armed guards and still trailed by the priest, Chine-kal came to a halt alongside a tall statue of a creature that could only have sprung from some Yuuzhan Vong bestiary. Its convoluted body might have been modeled on a human brain, and yet the body possessed two large eyes and what appeared to be a mouth or wrinkled maw. Arms or tentacles extended from its base, some stumpy, others gracile.

 

"I don't want you to think of yourselves as captives or slaves, but rather as collaborators in a grand enterprise," the commander continued. "Serve me well, put your hearts into your work, and you will be rewarded with your lives. Fail me out of weakness, and I may be willing to forgive; but fail me with design, and punishment will be meted out swiftly and without mercy. In either case, I will be rewarded by the gods, though I'll be forced to look elsewhere for collaborators."

 

Skidder cut his eyes to the man beside him. "How long have you been aboard?" he asked out of the corner of his mouth.

 

"Losing track," the captive answered in a low voice. "A couple of standard months." With subtle movement of his chin he indicated the emaciated man to his right. "My friend and I were captured on the Jubilee Wheel at Ord Mantell. Got sucked out of the facility by some kind of space worm. First we were taken aboard a slave galley. Thought for a while we were going to be launched into a star and sacrificed. Then we were transferred to this vessel." The man shot Skidder a glance. "You?"

 

"Captured on Gyndine."

 

"Soldier?"

 

"Indigenous ground force."

 

The man turned ever so slightly in Skidder's direction. "But you're not native to Gyndine. From the Core, I'd say."

 

"On what basis?"

 

"Hairstyle, for one thing. The way you carry yourself. Intrusion specialist? Intelligence officer?"

 

"Neither."

 

The man glanced downward. "Those aren't the feet of an infant ry soldier."

 

"I didn't say I was. Operated an AT-ST scout."

 

The man nodded. "Okay, have it your way."

 

"What's your name?" Skidder asked.

 

"Roa. My friend is Fasgo. You?"

 

"Keyn. Any idea where we're headed, Roa?"

 

"None."

 

"What about this 'singular service' ?"

 

Roa snorted softly. "You'll see soon enough, Keyn."

 

Chine-kal's preamble had resumed. "It's time you had a look at the centerpiece of our endeavor," he was saying. "Think of it for the moment as a work in progress, but one that all of you will help to complete."

 

Behind the commander rose a membranous partition, beyond which-Skidder was certain-lay the nucleus of the ship. When Chine-kal turned, the membrane parted like a stage curtain.

 

Though Skidder had never seen one in the flesh, he knew immediately that he was gazing at the living model for the statue that adorned the hold a maturing war coordinator-the grotesque biogenetic creature the Yu-uzhan Vong called a yammosk.

 

 

SIX

 

 

A cool mist obscured the flowering crowns of Yavin 4's tallest trees. The steep stairways of the ancient temples the Rebel Alliance had claimed so many years before and that had since become a training ground for the Jedi Knights climbed into the mist and vanished. Chucklucks and chitterwebs, ordinarily raucous at that time of the morning, perched on the low branches of Massassi trees, waiting for the sky to clear. Stinger lizards and stintaril rodents sat motionless as statues. Even the gas giant Yavin was not to be seen, though it backlighted the mist a deep orange color.

 

Stopped in a pathway that meandered to the Great Temple, Luke Skywalker drank in the stillness. The Force, ordinarily lucid, seemed blanketed by the mist, as well, and could manage little more than a whisper.

 

Somewhere in the ghostly, virid surroundings a belly-bird cooed. But Luke knew that what struck his ear as melodic was only the bird proclaiming its territory, warning others away. He listened more intently, catching the sounds of creatures foraging or on the hunt for food. It was the way of the Force that some should survive and others perish. Death without malicious intent, for nature didn't have a dark side. One couldn't compare the crystal snake's search for prey with what the Emperor had done during his cruel reign and what the Yuuzhan Vong were doing now. But Luke had been asking himself, almost since the start of the invasion, how did life reveal itself to Yuuzhan Vong eyes and ears?

 

He stared into the mist. It was as if someone had thrown a gauzy veil over his eyes. Images came to him of insects disguising themselves as leaves, twigs, and flower blossoms, and of small animals mimicking the variegated litter of the forest floor. Camouflage, Luke thought.

 

Deception, stealth, misdirection . . .

 

The Yuuzhan Vong had swept into the galaxy like one of the unpredictable storms that blew across Yavin 4. Their faith in their gods was like Palpatine's faith in the dark side of the Force. And yet, for all the evil they embodied, they were not Sith; they were not emissaries of the dark side. Blind obedience provided justification for even their most hideous actions. What made them servants of evil was not their faith but their need to force that faith on others and to destroy wantonly any who stood in their path. They failed to recognize light or dark because in some sense they saw existence as an illusion. Lacking any intrinsic value, life was to be lived in service to the gods, and the reward for that service waited in a life beyond.

 

When Luke or other Jedi had tried to peer into them, the Yuuzhan Vong had been found to be voids in the Force, absent the animated luminosity that embraced all living things. But if the Force did not flow through them, was it possible that the Force was likewise nonexistent in the galaxy in which they had evolved? Could the Force be specific to one place and not another, as if the result of an evolutionary occurrence unique in the universe? Or was it rather that the Force was lacking only in the Yuuzhan Vong-and in their living weapons, of course, which were little more than extensions of themselves?

 

In all likelihood Mara had fallen victim to one of those weapons-an illness the Yuuzhan Vong had introduced-and while her strength in the Force had held the illness in check where it had overwhelmed others, Luke wasn't absolutely certain that the Force would have been the ultimate victor in Mara's battle. Not when her recent return to better health owed to an antidote introduced indirectly by the Yuuzhan Vong.

 

Deception, stealth, misdirection .. .

 

For all his intense curiosity, Luke understood that it was imperative that the invaders be defeated. If defeat could be accomplished short of exterminating the Yuuzhan Vong, so much the better, for then some of his questions might one day be answered. But until such time the Jedi were obligated to aid and abet in the war that had been thrust upon the galaxy. How best to execute the Jedi obligation to peace and justice was an issue he was still grappling with.

 

The cryptic murmuring of the Force returned him to the moment. He recognized that his visitor had ceased talking some time ago, and he swung to face him now.

 

"I'm sorry, Talon, you were saying?"

 

Talon Karrde smiled faintly. But instead of picking up where he'd left off, he smoothed the ends of his dark mustache and continued to observe the Jedi Master with candid interest.

 

"You know, Luke, I can't tell you how often I've wondered what the universe looks like through the eyes of a Jedi. I used to tell myself that you weren't all that different from an H'kig priest or an Ithorian who had heard the call, only instead of revering H'kig or nature you looked to the Force. But the comparisons never held up. You see things the rest of us don't see-or can't see-and those things aren't just the products of a mind-set the Jedi have cultivated as a separate reality. You see into the heart of reality, and that ability informs your actions."

 

Karrde's blue eyes sparkled. "I've seen you make decisions I couldn't fathom at the time, but later turned out to be the right decisions. I used to watch Mara do the same thing. And as someone who has always prided himself on making use of privileged information, I had to ask myself whether those decisions were based solely on data I didn't have access to, or if the Force gave you the ability to tug reality this way or that as needed-as required by your visions.

 

"I sense the latter's true with you, but I'm not sure if it applies to Mara." Karrde uttered a short laugh. "I'm sorry I never knew you when you were fresh off Tatooine-before you turned into a deep thinker. I'm not saying that Mara isn't a deep thinker, but the Force seems to compel her to act more on intuition than deliberation."

 

Ceremoniously, Luke lowered the cowl of his Jedi robe. "Mara and I are different but complementary-in the same way Anakin and Jacen are. There are different aspects to the Force, and not all Jedi focus on the same one. My Masters admonished me for always looking toward the future without really seeing it."

 

"Could your father see the future?" Talon asked carefully.

 

"My father was not the seer but the lens." Luke grew introspective for a moment, then smiled enigmatically. "By the way, if Mara had known you were coming to Yavin 4, she would have postponed her visit to Coruscant."

 

"Another evaluation?"

 

"On the contrary. She refuses to be scanned, examined, or evaluated by anyone."

 

"Then it actually cured her-this magic elixir Solo was given?"

 

"Not an elixir-tears. And no one will use the word cure, even Mara. I urged her to hold off on taking the antidote until we could be sure it wasn't potentially dangerous, but she refused. She insisted on taking the risk."

 

Talon nodded. "Her intuition. But you're not convinced?"

 

Luke gazed at the jungle. "The Yuuzhan Vong priestess who claimed she wanted political asylum was a weapon sent to assassinate as many Jedi as she could gather. The being who traveled with her, Vergere, was not Yuuzhan Vong, but that doesn't mean she wasn't serving their interests. "

 

"The elixir could have been part of the plot," Talon said. "The Yuuzhan Vong could have wanted to make it appear this Vergere was on our side, to erase doubts about the substance she gave Han."

 

Luke said nothing.

 

"But Mara's better."

 

"Healthier than she's been in almost a year," Luke admitted. "Joyous-as I am."

 

"If she does slide, if the effect turns out to be temporary..."

 

"Whatever is contained in Vergere's tears can't be replicated. The chemical action is as puzzling as anything we've seen from the Yuuzhan Vong. We can only hope the effect is permanent."

 

Karrde considered it. "You know I'd do anything to help Mara. I'll track down Vergere. I'll wring more tears out of her if I have to."

 

Luke smiled. "I appreciate that, Talon. I'll tell Mara you said so, though I suspect she already knows."

 

They resumed their walk to the Great Temple. Off to one side of the path a dozen young Jedi, varying in age from four to twelve, were watching Tionne and Kam So-lusar demonstrate a Force technique. Luke paused to observe one of the older children, Tahiri, attempt to mimic one of Kam's manipulations.

 

"Yavin 4 has remained undetected, but with the Yuuzhan Vong as close as Obroa-skai, we may be forced to remove everyone to safer surroundings."

 

"I'm surprised they haven't targeted Yavin already."

 

Luke turned to him. "We're projecting an illusion. Something I learned from the Fallanassi."

 

Talon's eyes narrowed in revelation. "So that's why you insisted on guiding me into the Yavin system."

 

"Your eyes would have contradicted what your ship's instruments were telling you."

 

Talon put his tongue in his cheek and laughed. "If I'd had a line on that technique, I wouldn't have had to base out of Myrkr, where the trees had a way of tricking scanners." He grinned broadly. "But of course you remember that..."

 

"Yes," Luke said flatly. "And even then, Grand Admiral Thrawn found you out. As Jedi commitment to the conflict increases, there won't be enough of us here to maintain the illusion. The children will have to be sent elsewhere."

 

Talon glanced at the kids. "Let me know if you ever need help with that."

 

"I will."

 

They hadn't gone another ten paces when Karrde asked, "Is it true a Jedi died on Gyndine?"

 

"You're referring to Wurth Skidder," Luke said. "But we don't know for certain that he's dead. Leia was there to the end. She insists that Wurth deliberately remained behind."

 

"To allow himself to be captured?"

 

"Perhaps to go undercover on Gyndine."

 

Karrde shook his head. "I don't know Skidder, but I've heard rumors. Is he the person for the job?"

 

"He's skillful."

 

"Skill's good, but is he lucky?"

 

Luke didn't answer the question. "Just now, like so many of us who have lost friends and family, he's driven by vengeance. He was close friends with both Miko Reglia and Daeshara'cor."

 

"Well, there's nothing wrong with being motivated by vengeance if it gets you results."

 

Luke's expression said otherwise.

 

"Wrong?"

 

"Let's just say that we don't see the world in precisely the same way."

 

They continued walking. Over the cascading sounds of the river that flowed past the Great Temple came voices raised in impassioned debate or argument.

 

"Sounds like there's some division in the ranks," Talon remarked as they neared the temple's common room.

 

"That would be Jacen and Anakin."

 

"Complementing one another, no doubt."

 

Jaina, with arms outstretched, was positioned between her brothers when Luke and Karrde entered the dimly lighted space. A handful of other Jedi, including Kyp Durron, Ganner Rhysode, Streen, Lowbacca, Kenth Hamner, and Cilghal, looked on. Sensing Luke, R2-D2 began to bounce from foot to foot, chirring and warbling.

 

"They were just. . . discussing Anakin's invitation to visit Centerpoint Station," Jaina explained.

 

Luke glanced from Jacen to Anakin and back again. "Finish the discussion."

 

Jacen scowled at his younger brother. "I'll say it once more, then I'm done with it Centerpoint is this"-he grasped the hilt of the lightsaber that hung from his belt-"on a gargantuan scale. Assuming the station can even be made operational, it should be used only for defense."

 

Anakin exhaled wearily. "And I'll say this one last time I completely agree."

 

"Then keep away from Corellia," Jacen said. "Don't have anything to do with enabling Centerpoint or any of the hyperspace repulsors. You were a kid the first time- we all were. You didn't know any better."

 

Anakin snorted. "You're leaving out that my ignorant actions ended up foiling the Triad's plans to detonate another star and annihilate every ship the Bakurans sent against them."

 

"That was defensive! Your tinkering with the repulsor on Drall prevented Centerpoint from firing!"

 

"Tinkering," Anakin repeated, snickering. "Let me ask you something Are you against Jaina flying with Rogue Squadron?"

 

Jacen glanced at his twin sister, who was on temporary leave from the squadron she had joined only four months earlier. "Not in theory."

 

"Are you against Mom and Tenel Ka going to Hapes?"

 

"Not in principle."

 

"Not in principle? The New Republic is hoping to bring the Consortium into the war. If you think of Rogue Squadron or the Hapans as weapons-an extension of that," Anakin said, gesturing to Jacen's lightsaber, "then what's the difference between what Jaina or Mom are being asked to do and what I've been asked to do at Corellia? I said I'd help enable the station. I didn't say anything about firing it."

 

Jacen made an exasperated sound and swung to Luke. "Where do you stand on this, Uncle Luke?"

 

Luke folded his arms. "As I told the Defense Force command staff, I'm opposed to reenabling Centerpoint on the grounds that its power is too unmanageable. And you all know that I was against Daeshara'cor's attempts to resurrect another Eye of Palpatine. But if there's even a chance that Centerpoint Station can be used to defend Corellia and spare the fleets for service elsewhere, we're obliged to do what we can to help make it operational."

 

Jacen pressed his lips together and swung back to his brother. "All right, Anakin, have it your way. But I'm going with you."

 

Anakin shrugged. "Glad to have you along."

 

The debate decided for the moment, the teens settled down and everyone gradually formed a loose circle around Luke and Karrde.

 

"Talon has a proposition for us," Luke said. "I haven't heard it yet, but knowing him as I do, I'm sure it will be interesting."

 

"Or at'least entertaining," Kyp Durron mumbled, drawing laughs.

 

Karrde took the jesting in stride. "As I'm sure you know, the Hutts have struck some sort of bargain with the Yuuzhan Vong. By bargain, I mean just that, since the Hutts would sooner go to war than roll over for an enemy, no matter how commanding. So it stands to reason that in exchange for allowing the Yuuzhan Vong into their space, the Hutts asked for and got something in return. To figure out what that is, all anyone needs to do is follow the spice."

 

Karrde paused briefly. "I've been doing just that, and I haven't noticed any signs of interruption in the flow of spice-except in three systems Tynna, Bothawui, and Corellia."

 

He waited until the murmuring died down before continuing. "The Hutts wouldn't suddenly cease deliveries to three profitable sectors unless there was good reason to avoid them. I'm willing to bet that the reason has to do with intelligence the Yuuzhan Vong provided as their part of the deal. Namely, that those systems have been targeted for invasion.

 

"The fact that no one has moved in to pick up the slack suggests that the Hutts have advised all their partners and subcontractors to steer a wide berth around Tynna, Bothawui, and Corellia. But even this doesn't add up to a case good enough to present to the New Republic. To do that would require proof positive that avoiding those worlds isn't just the result of the Hutts speculating about where the Yuuzhan Vong will strike."

 

"Why not approach the Hutts and ask them directly?" Kenth Hamner asked. Tall and wellborn, Hamner had been a Defense Force colonel before resigning from military life to follow the Jedi way.

 

"Easier said than done," Karrde said, "and in fact, the New Republic is trying to do just that. But if someone outside the military could furnish corroborating evidence, the Defense Force would have what they need to catch the Yuuzhan Vong completely by surprise."

 

"Why do you come to us with this?" Streen asked. "You've been liaison between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic since the peace accord. You certainly don't need us to get the attention of Admiral Sow."

 

"I know why he's come to us," Kyp Durron said, keeping his eyes on Karrde. "Because the New Republic left him out of the loop when they asked Leia to approach the Imperial Remnant about joining the fight."

 

Karrde snorted. "It wasn't my place to approach the Remnant assembly. I'm a broker, Kyp, not an ambassador."

 

"Then what makes you think it's your place to approach us?" Kyp retorted.

 

"The fact is, I don't know who else to trust with this. Judging by the way New Republic Intelligence handled that bogus Yuuzhan Vong defector, I'd venture to say that the Intelligence division, maybe even the Advisory Council itself, has been infiltrated. What's more, the Defense Force can't act without the approval of the senate, and the Security and Intelligence Council isn't likely to back Admiral Sow on the word of an ex-smuggler."

 

"You still haven't clarified why you need us," Ulaha said. A Bith, she was delicate-looking and musically gifted. "After Ithor, we're hardly in good stead with the senate ourselves."

 

"That's the point you need to get them listening to you again. You'd think they would have learned their lesson from Ithor, but old habits die hard and they're still reluctant to trust you. They don't want to be perceived as indebted to the Jedi. It smacks of Old Republic thinking."

 

Ganner grimaced, wrinkling the facial scar he had incurred at Garqi. "It warms my heart to see that you're thinking about us, Karrde, but the Jedi don't need a public relations person."

 

"You're wrong, Ganner. You're too trusting. Anti-Jedi sentiment is spreading. Some folks think you're holding back, others think you're incompetent. A lot of people wish that Emperor Palpatine was still around, because they feel he'd know how to deal with the Yuuzhan Vong. If you want to go back to being monks, that's your choice. But if you want to serve peace and justice, you need to smarten your image, and one way to do that would be to provide intelligence that ends up giving the New Republic a major victory. The best defense against treachery is treachery."

 

"What role could we play in this?" Jacen asked impatiently.

 

Talon looked at him. "I can facilitate a meeting with one of the Hutts' spice smugglers. We can find out for ourselves why no one is willing to deliver to Tynna and the rest."

 

Jacen rolled his eyes. "This is Centerpoint all over again." He glanced at Luke. "The Jedi shouldn't have any part in this. It demeans us."

 

"It doesn't demean anyone," Anakin argued. "We can help without having to raise a hand-or a lightsaber. You, if anybody, should be in favor of that."

 

Everyone looked to Luke.

 

Images came to him of insects disguising themselves as leaves, twigs, and flower blossoms, and of small animals mimicking the variegated litter of the forest floor. The Force whispered to him once more Deception, stealth, misdirection. . .

 

He realized that he needed to tread carefully, for fear of dividing the Jedi further. Where many lauded Corran Horn's individual actions at Ithor, others favored Kyp Durron's stance that aggression should be answered by aggression. What's more, at Ithor Luke had renounced responsibility for spearheading the Jedi Knights.

 

"I'm not interested in repairing our tarnished image," he said at last. "The New Republic isn't eager to sanction our actions, in any case. But if we can help provide information that will prevent the fall of another world, the choice is clear."

 

"I'm willing to go with Talon," Jaina said.

 

Kyp made a face. "A seventeen-year-old spice buyer? I doubt the Hutts' people will buy it." He looked back at Karrde. "I'll go. You'll need someone to sort the truth from the lies."

 

"Unlikely," Karrde said, "but I appreciate the offer." "Then count me in, as well," Ganner said. He glanced at Kyp. "Just to be certain we're getting the full truth."

 

Karrde glanced around him. "It's settled then?" Only Jacen remained unconvinced. "Centerpoint, enlistment, espionage ... I never thought we'd come to this."

 

Kyp Durron grinned and clapped him hard on the shoulder. "Cheer up, kid. Things are bad all over."

 

 

SEVEN

 

 

The sign hovering between formidable guard towers read welcome to ruan refugee facility 17. But just below the greeting someone had scrawled, in a tiny almost undetectable hand, last chance to turn back.

 

Crushed in among the rerouted mixed-species thousands off-loaded from the transport ships, and still wet and possibly poisoned from Ruan's cursory decontamination process, Melisma read the sign aloud and aimed a worried glance at Gaph, who had Droma's nephew balanced atop one of his shoulders.

 

" 'Last chance to turn back'?"

 

"Someone's idea of a joke," Gaph said in dismissal. "Come, child, how bad can it be? We have pleasing countryside all around, fresh air in place of scrubbed oxygen, the promise of food and drink, ten thousand melancholy sentients for company." He grinned and lowered his voice to add, "And where there are melancholy sentients, there are opportunities galore for the Ryn."

 

Melisma smiled uncertainly, though what Gaph said about the surroundings was undeniably true, for Ruan was nothing if not one of the Core's beauty marks.

 

One of eighteen agricultural worlds administered by Salliche Ag, Ruan-or at least that part of the planet the refugees had been delivered to-had the manicured look of a park. The undeviating road that linked the planet's bustling spaceport to Refugee Facility 17 was bordered by tall, topiary hedges, and beyond those hedges, as far as the eye could see, stretched scrupulously maintained fields of crops, in varying states of maturation. Unlike Orron III, Ukio, Taanab, and most of the other breadbasket worlds on which the Ryn had sought employment from time to time, Ruan did not merely rely on axial tilt and fertile soil, but was climate controlled and agriformed to maximize output. Also there were far fewer harvester droids, agribots, and work droids than Melisma had expected to see, which meant more occupational opportunities for sentients.

 

She breathed deeply of the sweet air. Gaph was right. Arriving on Ruan, especially after spending more than a standard week in the cramped and fetid living conditions aboard the transport, was like being delivered to paradise itself. But vague concerns continued to rankle her. How long would they be required to remain on Ruan, and where would they end up afterwards? Princess Leia had made it clear that their stay on Ruan would be temporary, but with the Yuuzhan Vong already in the Expansion Region, how long before they carried their invasion into the Core? And what then?

 

Processing the newly arrived exiles was a painfully tedious business. With everyone pressed so tightly together there was nowhere to sit much less recline, and no escape from the potent sunshine that climate supervision had apparently ordered for the day. The crowd seemed to extend endlessly to the front and rear. But at last the five of them-Gaph, Melisma, her two female clancousins, and the infant-reached a processing checkpoint attended by armed security guards sporting Salliche Ag arm badges.

 

A human male with a scarred jaw appraised them from the window of the checkpoint booth. "What in the galaxy are these?" he asked someone out of view.

 

Instantly, a no-less-sinister-looking uniformed female appeared at the window and aimed a spherically shaped optical scanner directly at Melisma. "Could take the system a moment to recognize them," she told the first guard. When the scanner emitted a single tone, she glanced at its display screen. "Ryn."

 

"Ryn? What rock are they from?"

 

The woman shook her head. "Planet of origin unknown. But what's the difference, they arrived from Gyndine. See if we've got any more like them."

 

Melisma's misgivings returned. SELCORE advocates and Ruan officials at the spaceport had been cordial and accommodating, but these guards, both in their bearing and manner of dress, brought to mind the Espos who, years back, had policed many of the Corporate Sector worlds.

 

"Yeah, we actually do have some others," the first guard was saying. "Thirty-two, at last count." He sneered down at Gaph. "Sec 465, Ryn. Behind the communal refreshers."

 

Gaph heard Melisma's sharp intake of breath and turned to her. "All right, so forget what I said about fresh air. We'll still have food and drink to slack our appetites and a roof over our heads."

 

"We could have all that in jail," Melisma groused.

 

Gaph wagged his forefinger. "Trust me, child, jail is no place for the Ryn. Here, at least, we'll be able to sing and dance and revel in our good fortune."

 

"Follow the droid," the guard barked. "And no lingering or wandering off, or you'll have me to answer to."

 

"Ah, good fortune," Melisma said sarcastically. "Let's just hope for a roof, Gaph."

 

The droid, a squeaking, limping protocol model, ushered them into a warren of ramshackle dwellings slapped together from aged harvester and spaceship parts-bulkhead hatchways, harvester blades, foils, and the like. Elsewhere were prefabricated duraplast huts anchored to slabs of ferrocrete, tents and A-frames, primitive lean-tos, self-standing blister shelters, elliptical huts sided with animal hide, and conical ones wrapped in lubricant-stained tarpaulins.

 

"Facility 17 was built on the site of a former junkyard," the droid said proudly. "Everyone has been very inventive in the use of obsolete equipment."

 

In unlighted interiors or on muddy ground or patches of lifeless trampled grass sat species native to sectors as remote as the Imperial Remnant and as close as the Koornacht Cluster, all uprooted from the worlds they had called home, some of which the Yuuzhan Vong had rendered uninhabitable or destroyed outright. In a half-circle scan, Melisma's eye fell on Ruurians, Gands, Sa-heelindeeli, Bimms, Weequays, Myneyrshi, Tammarians, Gotals, and Wookiees. Absent, though, was any indication of fellowship; in its place a sense of impending riot tainted the air. Beings glowered at one another or stood sullenly with jaws clenched and hands balled into fists.

 

As if reading her concerns, the protocol droid provided commentary, in Basic.

 

"With everyone crammed together without regard to differences and distinctions, some suppressed prejudices and hostilities have on occasion boiled to the fore, resulting in contentious seizures of territory or sustenance, or melees that have spread throughout the facility. But, of course, those incidents were quickly quelled by Sal-liche Ag's well-trained staff, who employ physical force only when absolutely necessary."

 

As had happened on the transport, the Ryn met with looks of suspicion and repugnance from all sides. Fathers safeguarded family valuables, and mothers gathered children within arm's reach. Some made religious gestures of self-protection, and others voiced outrage that Ryn had even been allowed into the camp.

 

Melisma stared straight ahead. She was accustomed to such treatment, and she understood that the Ryn's penchant for wanderlust and secrecy was at least partly responsible for the fictions that had grown up around them. Ostracized by many societies, the Ryn had grown only more transient, secretive, and self-sufficient over time, and as outsiders they had become keen observers of the behaviors of other species-second-guessers of what many beings, humans especially, often had in mind to say. And so their fondness for song, dance, and spicy foods, and their adeptness at forgery and fortune-telling-lacking any true psychic abilities. The gambling game that had come to be known as sabacc had its roots in a deck of cards the Ryn had invented as a means of disguising their mystical doctrines.

 

"We're now approaching the distribution center," the droid announced.

 

"I wondered what that smell was," Melisma said to Gaph, who chided her for being overly critical, only to change his tune when they got a good look at the situation.

 

Queued sinuously at makeshift stalls, hundreds of beings were waiting to receive squirts of an off-color, pastelike synthfood squeezed by droids from enormous, pliant containers. Other lines snaked to the patched-up hulls of vintage riverboats filled to the gunnels with foam-covered water.

 

"For paltry sums," the droid remarked, "many of Salliche Ag's well-trained staff will gladly provide foodstuffs to please the most discriminating palates. Superior housing can also be secured for reasonable fees, as evidenced atop Noob Hill."

 

Melisma followed the droid's metal finger to a parcel of high ground surrounded by stun fencing. Isolated from the rest of the facility, twenty or so Ithorians could be seen going about their business in open-sided, thatch-roofed pavilions. To one side deep drainage ditches separated them from a waddle of Gamorreans, who were living in bungalows made of sun-baked bricks. To the other side, beyond a wall of thorned shrubs, a rumpus of Wookiees had constructed a log tree house.

 

Deeper in the camp things were even worse. The mud that had been a nuisance earlier on became ankle-deep for long stretches, and the shelters-a ghetto of unroofed sheds and slat-sided shanties-clustered at the base of a hill that saw scant sunlight and funneled runoff rainwater directly into the food distribution area. I n place of prefab tents and blister huts stood hovels more suitable for livestock than sentients. Here a trove of resourceful hollow-boned Vors had made use of starship maneuvering vanes to construct a kind of stilted bower for themselves; and there a nest of batrachian Rybet had fashioned a spacious hutch from empty cargo crates and support pylons off Y-wing engine nacelles.

 

Nearly everyone else was living in filth.

 

A new stench in the air told Melisma that they were nearing the communal refreshers. "Maybe it's only when there's no wind," Gaph remarked.

 

"Then maybe we should petition climate supervision to whip up a hurricane," Melisma said from behind the hand she'd clamped over her mouth.

 

As promised, just past the refreshers was Section 465, announced by a sign, to which someone had added the words Ryn City.

 

More than half the thirty-two were on hand to greet Gaph and Melisma's quintet as they trudged into a courtyard that might have struck some as uncommonly sanitary but was in fact normal for the Ryn, who were by nature almost ritualistic about order and cleanliness.

 

The leader among the ensconced group, a tall male named R'vanna, welcomed them with bowls of tasty Ryn food and a slew of questions about the circumstances that had brought them to Ruan. Gaph started at the very beginning, explaining how they had just fled the Corporate Sector when their caravan of ships had been set upon by a Yuuzhan Vong patrol. Scattered far and wide as a result of emergency hyperspace jumps, many had ended up at Ord Mantell's Jubilee Wheel, where they had been caught up in another Yuuzhan Vong attack. Refugees by then, some had found transport to Bil-bringi, others to Rhinnal, and still others to Gyndine.

 

Then R'vanna told his story, which, while it began in the Tion Hegemony, had much in common with Gaph's tale of woe.

 

One of the women showed Melisma and her cousins to a dormitory. Leaving the infant in the care of her cousins, Melisma rejoined Gaph and R'vanna, who was in the midst of painting a vivid picture of life in Facility 17.

 

"Though water is rarely a problem-our overseers simply create rainstorms as needed-food shortages have begun to occur on a regular basis and disease is rampant. The diseases could easily be eradicated, of course, and Ruan is capable of supplying all the food needed just from what the labor droids allow to rot in or on the ground, but it's to Salliche Ag's advantage that everyone in camp remain as miserable as possible."

 

"How is that to Salliche's advantage?" Melisma asked. "And why would Princess Leia praise the company for its unconditional generosity if we're a burden to everyone?"

 

"Salliche is desirous of refugees, child, but not for the camps. They want us in the fields."

 

"As workers?"

 

"Of a sort." R'vanna paused to tap a wad of charred t'bac from the bowl of a hand-carved pipe. "The New Republic is genuinely committed to relocating everyone to populous worlds, but with the war and all, the chances of relocation are slim-even though you won't hear mention of this in the familiarization classes."

 

"Familiarization?" Melisma said. "For what?"

 

"Why, to prepare us for our new lives among the civilized peoples of the Core. You'll soon see for yourself. But as I say, chances are slim. Some of those living on Noob Hill can afford to purchase forward passage with private transport companies, but not everyone is so fortunate. In any event, no one wants to be here any longer than necessary, so many have accepted offers by Salliche Ag to work their way off Ruan."

 

"In the fields," Gaph said.

 

R'vanna nodded. "Except that very few manage to earn enough to purchase onward passage. Most of the camp's earliest arrivals have been forced into indentured servitude, here on Ruan or on other Salliche-administered worlds, and rumors persist that those who refuse Salliche's benevolence often disappear."

 

"But it makes no sense," Melisma said. "Sentients will never replace droids as workers. Sentients need more than the occasional oil bath and data upgrades. Not to mention that production would be drastically reduced."

 

R'vanna showed her a patient smile. "I said as much to a Salliche representative who visited Ryn City only last week. And do you know what he told me? That the hiring of sentients not only eases the refugee problem but allows the company to advertise its products as retaining 'handpicked freshness.' "

 

Gaph mulled it over for a moment. "So our options, for the moment, are either to go to work for Salliche Ag or remain mired here."

 

Melisma glanced around the courtyard, and at the masterfully built dormitories and kitchens. "How have you managed to do so well? Walking through the camp, I was afraid we were going to be attacked and killed. If folks could find a way, I'm sure they'd hold us accountable for the Yuuzhan Vong invasion."

 

R'vanna smiled sadly. "Life has always been thus for the Ryn. But not everyone fears or distrusts us. It's thanks to those few that we've done so well."

 

"Charity?"

 

"Bite your tongue, child," Gaph said theatrically. "The Ryn do not accept charity. We work for all we get."

 

Melisma looked at R'vanna. "What sort of work can we do here?"

 

"The sort we're best at apprising people of their options, allowing them to see the error of their ways, providing them with helpful tips to see them through the complexities of daily life."

 

"Telling fortunes," Melisma said, mildly disdainful. "Reading sabacc cards."

 

Gaph was grinning broadly. "Singing, dancing, the rewards that come to those who dispense good advice . . . Life could be worse, child. Life could be much worse."

 

"Aren't you the one who said that help had arrived?" the red-maned Ryn named Sapha asked Wurth Skidder aboard the slave ship Creche.

 

"I might have said something to that effect," the Jedi was willing to concede. "Heat of the moment, and all that."

 

Roa regarded Skidder with interest, then glanced past him at Sapha. "When was this?"

 

"On Gyndine," she told him, "when he rushed to be captured by the multilegged creature that was herding us together. He said, 'Take heart, help has arrived.' "

 

Roa looked at Skidder once more. "He rushed?"

 

Sapha shrugged. "It looked that way from where I stood."

 

Side by side, the three of them were standing to their waists in the viscous sorrel-colored nutrient in which the young yammosk marinated, like an excised brain in an autopsy pan. The cloying odor-like garlic roses bathed in nlora perfume-had taken some getting used to, but by now almost all the captives were beyond the retching stage, though a male Sullustan had fainted moments earlier and had had to be carried out.

 

One of the more gracile of the creature's manifold tentacles floated in front of Skidder and his comrades, and their hands were busy massaging and caressing it, the way the Bimms did with certain breeds of nerf to assure steaks of extraordinary tenderness. Roa's worrisomely wan pal, Fasgo, and two Ryn were doing the same to the other side of the tentacle. The arrangement of six to a tentacle was repeated throughout the circular basin, except at the yammosk's shorter, thicker members, where two or three captives sufficed.

 

"He rushed," Roa said, more to himself this time; then he fixed Skidder with a gimlet stare. "Sapha almost makes it sound like you wanted to be captured, Keyn."

 

"To wind up here?" Skidder said. "A guy would have to be either deranged or dauntless."

 

Smile lines formed at the corners of Roa's eyes. "I've known a few in my day who were both. I can't put my finger on it, but something tells me you fit the bill."

 

Two hose-thick, pulsating ducts projected from the yammosk's bulbous head to disappear into the arching, membranous ceiling of the hold. Skidder assumed that at least one of them furnished the creature with a required mix of respiratory gases, though Chine-kal assured that yammosks became oxygen breathers as they matured into actual war coordinators.