16

Leia and Cilghal swam closer to the choppy surface after hours of gliding beneath the waves. Around them leathery seatrees veined with iridescent blue and red swirled in the churning current, stirred by the continuing storm.

The seatree fronds formed a tangled forest around them, filled with thousands of strangely shaped blob-fish, crustaceans, and tentacled things; most were small, but others cast large shadows as they drifted among the fronds, feeding on the air-filled fruit bladders that kept the dense weed afloat.

“When Ackbar was younger, he had a small dwelling here in the wild seatree thickets,” Cilghal said. “The fish noticed his return, and though they have short memories, they passed the word from creature to creature until it reached the mollusk knowledge bank.”

Leia’s arms and legs ached as she continued the long swim, though the wonderful clinging mesh suit seemed to revitalize her muscles. “All I want is to talk to him.”

Ahead she saw a spherical dwelling made of plasteel covered with algae and draping weed that had grown up from the spray clinging to its hull. Large valves of water-recirculation equipment, desalination devices, and round viewports dotted the open spaces on the curved walls; a bare deck looked clean and bright, as if recently scrubbed. A white utility submersible, ovoid with a mass of articulated working arms, had been lashed to the side of the deck.

Leia treaded water on the surface in the pelting rain and the whipping wind, still breathing through the symbiote. Cilghal tugged her arm, motioning for her to go down. “The entrance will be below,” she said.

They stroked down through the water. Thick seatree trunks anchored the dwelling module in place, rocking it from side to side. Traps and nets dangled beneath the water; some held tiny green fish that could easily swim through the open mesh. From inside, shafts of illumination struck down into the depths like watery spears.

On the bottom of the hull they found an opening like a wide mouth. Cilghal went first through the containment field, and Leia followed, brushing her shoulders against the metal lip. When her head plunged through into the dim interior, she stripped off the symbiote, shook herself, and looked into Ackbar’s cluttered home.

He stood up in alarm from a bench made of pitted flowstone, speechless as Cilghal and Leia eased themselves out of the water. Leia dripped for a moment, until the wondrous mesh suit absorbed and dissipated the water in its microthin layers.

Leia sighed with relief to see Ackbar, but she sensed his sudden discomfort at her presence—and something more. All her well-rehearsed speeches drained away like so much seawater splashing to the floor. They stood silently staring at each other for a long moment. Finally Leia recovered enough to speak. “Admiral Ackbar, I’m glad we’ve found you.”

“Leia,” Ackbar said. He held his hands in front of him, then withdrew them as if completely at a loss. He turned to Cilghal. “Ambassador, I believe we have met twice before?”

“It was an honor both times, Admiral,” Cilghal said.

“Please,” he said, “just call me Ackbar. I no longer hold that rank.”

His dwelling was like a large, solid bubble with extruded knobs for sitting, pedestals for tables, and cubbyholes for storage. Possessions lay strewn about, though the back of the room was neatly organized, cleaned, polished, as if he had methodically begun repairing and organizing the chaos one square meter at a time.

Ackbar gestured toward the warmly lit galley area where delicious-smelling food bubbled over a heater. “Would you join me? I would not insult a potential Jedi by asking how you found me—but I would like to know what has brought you all the way from Coruscant.”

Later they sat finishing bowls of simple but delicious fish stew. Leia chewed on the tender meat, swallowed another mouthful, and licked her lips to taste the burning sweet tingle of Calamarian spices.

She had spent the meal trying to work up her courage, but Ackbar finally addressed the question himself. “Leia, you have not yet said why you are here.”

Leia drew a deep breath, then sat up straight. “To speak with you, Admira—ah—Ackbar. And to ask you the same question. Why are you here?”

Ackbar seemed to deliberately misunderstand her. “This is my home.”

Frustrated, Leia was not ready to give up yet. “I know this is your homeworld, but there are many others who need you. The New Republic—”

Ackbar stood and turned away, gathering the empty stew bowls. “My own people also need me. There has been much destruction. Many deaths …” Leia wondered if he referred to the Imperial attacks on Calamari, or his own crash at the Cathedral of Winds.

“Mon Mothma is dying,” Leia said abruptly before she could change her mind. Cilghal sat up in the most sudden reaction Leia had yet seen from the calm ambassador.

Ackbar heaved his weary eyes to look at her. He set the stew bowls down. “How can you be certain of this?”

“It’s a wasting disease that’s tearing her apart,” Leia answered. “The medical droids and the experts can’t find anything wrong with her. She looks bad. You saw her before you left us. Mon Mothma was covering the worst with extensive makeup to hide how ill she really is.

“We need you back, Admiral.” Leia used his rank on purpose. She leaned on Ackbar’s small table and stared at him, her dark eyes pleading.

“I’m sorry, Leia,” Ackbar said, shaking his head. He indicated the newly refurbished workroom and his equipment. “I have important work to do here. My planet was badly damaged during the Imperial attacks, and there have been many tectonic disturbances. I’ve taken it upon myself to find out if our planet’s crust has become unstable. I need to gather more data. My people could be in danger. No more lives will be lost because of me.”

Cilghal turned her head from side to side, watching the debate but saying nothing.

“Admiral, you can’t just let the New Republic fall apart because of your guilty conscience,” Leia said. “Many lives across the galaxy are at stake.”

But Ackbar moved about uneasily, as if trying to shut out Leia’s words. “There is so much work to do, I cannot delay another moment. I was just preparing to set some new seismic sensors.” He shuffled toward a shelf filled with packaged electronic equipment. “Please, leave me in peace.”

Leia stood up quickly. “We’ll help you set out your sensors, Admiral.”

Ackbar hesitated, as if lonely but afraid to have their company. He turned to meet Leia’s eyes, then Cilghal’s. “Yes, I would be honored to have your assistance. My submersible can carry the three of us.” He blinked his large, sad eyes. “I enjoy your company—even though your requests are most difficult.”

Strapped into one of the seats in the cramped utility sub, Leia watched as water sloshed around the upper ports. The sea swallowed the craft, and they descended into the isolated seatree forest until the ocean around them looked like panels of dark-green smoked glass. Leia watched in awe as Ackbar picked a course through thick ropy strands and wide pillars.

Underwater, the seaflowers blossomed in shimmering reds and blues to attract darting creatures that flitted in and out of the fronds. As one of the small fish came too close to a brilliant flower, the petals suddenly contracted like a fist, snatching its prey and swallowing it whole.

“I have only begun deploying my seismic network,” Ackbar said, as if to divert the conversation. “I’ve set up the baseline grid beneath my dwelling, but I need to extend into the seatree forest to get higher-resolution soundings.”

Cilghal said, “I am pleased with the important work you are doing for our planet, Admiral.” Leia was amused at how the ambassador continued—whether consciously or unconsciously—to use his military title.

“It is necessary to do important things with your life,” Ackbar said, then said no more, walling himself off with silence. Behind them, stowed seismic equipment rattled beside the empty nets and sea-harvest baskets.

Leia cleared her throat and spoke, keeping her voice gentle. “Ackbar … I understand how you must feel. I was there too, remember?”

“You are kind, Leia. But you do not understand how I feel. Were you piloting the B-wing that crashed? Are you responsible for hundreds of deaths?” He shook his head sadly. “Do you hear their voices in your dreams each night, calling out to you?”

Ackbar switched on the sub’s depth lights, and a bright cone-shaped beam sliced through the water. The funnel of illumination glanced off colorful fish and strips of seaweed.

Leia spoke more from intuition than from knowledge. “You can’t hide on Calamari forever.”

Ackbar still would not look at her. “I am not hiding. I have my work. Important work.”

They drifted toward the silty ocean bottom near one of the gnarled seatree boles. Rounded hummocks of dark rock thrust out from the milky sand. A coating of algae smoothed every surface, making the sea floor appear soft and soothing. Ackbar hunched forward to stare through the murk, searching for a stable place to implant another seismic sensor.

“Important work, perhaps,” Leia said, “but not your work. Many Calamarians would gladly help with that research, Admiral. Are you equipped to handle such a task by yourself? Remember that old proverb you used to quote when I complained about all those senseless Council meetings? ‘Many eyes see what one alone cannot.’ Wouldn’t it be best to share your concerns with a team of specialists?”

Cilghal interrupted, leaning forward to indicate some curved half-buried sections of metal, like the ribbed shell of some sort of escape pod. “What’s that?”

The edges had corroded, and tracings of algae grew in the protected crevices. “Perhaps a wrecked ship,” Ackbar said.

Cilghal nodded. “We fought back when the Imperials tried to enslave us. Many of their ships lie beneath our waters.”

Ackbar inserted his hands into the waldo control gloves for the automated metallic claws that extended from the front of the small sub. The sharp jerky motions reminded Leia of the vicious krakana monster near the mollusk knowledge bank.

“If that wreckage has been stable here for years,” Ackbar said, “this is a good place to deploy another set of sensors.”

Watching the external metal arms, Leia saw Ackbar remove a canister from the external storage bin on the submersible. Ackbar lowered the craft until plumes of pale sand drifted up from the disturbance like a slow-motion Tatooine dust storm. The nimble robotic claws positioned the cylinder upright in the soft silt.

Reversing propellers, Ackbar lifted them away. Craning his neck so he could see better through the front viewport, Ackbar pushed the ACTIVATE button. With a vibrating thump that Leia could feel through the sub’s hull, the seismic canister detonated its tiny explosive. A long rod plunged deep into the ocean floor while spraying out a web of secondary detectors symmetrically around the core like a shooting star.

“Now we’ll send a test signal,” Ackbar said. With a whirr he lifted the sub through the densely tangled seatree forest, moving slowly enough so the fronds could be nudged out of the way, slithering over the rounded hull.

Leia fidgeted, swallowing numerous phrases that sounded flat to her. “Admiral, you know better than anyone on this world how important it is to have the right leadership, to have everyone working toward a common goal. You helped lead a band of Rebels from a hundred different planets, turned them into a united fleet that was able to defeat the Empire, and you guided them as they formed a new government.”

Ackbar let the sub drift and turned to meet her gaze. She continued rapidly, hoping to cut off any arguments. “At least come with me to Coruscant and talk to Mon Mothma. We’ve been part of the same team for many years, you and I. You won’t stand by and watch the New Republic fall apart.”

Ackbar sighed and gripped his controls. Seatree branches flapped against the viewing windows. “It seems you know me better than I had thought. I—”

A pinging alarm beeped from the control panel. Ackbar reacted smoothly and swiftly, slowing the sub. He peered into his widely set stereoscopic sensor displays. “This is interesting,” he said.

“What is it?” Leia said.

“Another large metallic mass tangled in the weeds right above us.”

“Maybe it’s part of that crashed ship,” Cilghal said.

“If something fell into the seatree forest, it could have been swallowed up for eternity,” Ackbar said. He eased the sub ahead.

As Leia saw the outline of a large multilegged thing wrapped with seatrees and overgrown with algae, she thought it was some kind of alien life-form. Then she recognized the squashed elliptical head, the segmented body core trailing jointed mechanical arms, its nonreflective black surface.

She had seen something like this on the ice planet Hoth, when Han Solo and Chewbacca had stumbled upon the Imperial probe droid. “Admiral—” Leia said.

“I see it. Arakyd Viper Series Probot. The Empire dispatched thousands to all corners of the galaxy to hunt down Rebel bases.”

“It must have landed years ago on Calamari,” Cilghal said. “The wreckage we found below was its landing pod.”

Ackbar nodded. “But when the probe droid tried to rise to the surface, it tangled in the seaweed. It must have shut down.” He nudged the sub closer, shining his depth light on the outer surface.

But when the beam struck the probot’s rounded head, its entire bank of round eyes blinked to life.

“It’s been activated!” Leia said. She could hear the high-pitched vibrating hum of powerful generators as the probe droid began to move again. The head swiveled and directed its own glowing beam at the sub.

Ackbar pushed the propellers into reverse; but before the sub could move away, the probot launched out with its spiderlike claws. Mechanical arms latched on to one of the sub’s rounded fins. The head of the probe droid rotated slowly, trying to bring its built-in blaster cannons to bear, but the seatree fronds tangled its joints.

Ackbar threw all the sub’s power into pulling away and succeeded only in yanking the probe droid along with him, tearing it free of ancient strands of weed.

Ackbar dug his flippers into the wide gloves that controlled his sub’s articulated arms. He brought up two of the segmented mechanical tools, wrestling with the probe droid’s gripping black claws.

Through the speakers of the comm unit, a sudden static-filled burst of subspace gibberish blasted out from the probe droid in some kind of powerful coded signal. The long chain of data shouted toward space even as the deadly probot wrestled with Ackbar’s sub.

The black droid finally succeeded in rotating its head, bending its laser cannons toward the sub.

Ackbar fired the lateral jets, wrenching them and the probe droid sideways as a volley of vicious laser blasts screamed past them, plowing a tunnel of sudden steam through the water. He tugged at the waldos and brought another of his equipment arms to bear, a small cutting laser.

Its tip heated to incandescent red-white as he slashed through the probe droid’s gripping metal claw, severing the plasteel and breaking them free. Ackbar pulled the sub away and brought the cutting laser to bear again just as the probe droid turned to fire a second time.

Leia knew it was hopeless. They couldn’t get away, and the cutting laser would do nothing against the far-superior weapons of the probot. And unlike Luke, she had not mastered Jedi skills enough to mount even a feeble defense. But Ackbar, still looking cool and in control, fired two blasts from the cutting laser at the head of the probe droid, attempting to blind its optical sensors. The feeble beams struck—

The probot detonated in an unexpected explosion. Bright concentric waves of light hurled the sub back, tumbling it end over end. They were thrown backward; Leia felt the chair’s restraints automatically tighten around her. The shock wave rang against the hull, sending a sound like a gong through the enclosed sub. A fury of bubbles and drifting debris surged around them. Large splintered seatree trunks sank to the ocean bottom.

“The probe self-destructed!” Cilghal said. “But we didn’t stand a chance against it.”

Leia remembered Han’s conjecture on Hoth. “The probe droids have programming to destroy themselves rather than risk letting their data fall into enemy hands.”

Ackbar finally managed to stabilize the spinning submersible. Four of the mechanical arms extending from the front of the sub had been snapped off, leaving only frayed edges of broken metal and dead circuitry.

Ackbar blew one of the ballast tanks, and the sub rose toward the surface. Leia noticed three hairline cracks in the transparisteel windowport and realized how close they had come to being crushed by the shock wave.

“But the probot already sent its signal,” Cilghal said. “We heard it before the self-destruct.”

Leia felt a cold fist of fear close around her stomach, but Ackbar tried to dismiss the peril.

“This probe droid has been here for ten years or more, and that would have been a very old code, almost certainly obsolete,” he said. “Even if the Imperials could still understand its message, who would be out there listening?”