11

After eight seemingly random hyperspace jumps to shake any possible pursuit, Ackbar took his B-wing fighter along the correct vector to the hidden planet Anoth. Terpfen had “borrowed” the fighter for him, claiming to have purged the records of its existence; Ackbar didn’t want to know how his mechanic had gotten through the security systems so easily.

For years isolated Anoth had been a haven for the Jedi children, protected by its perfect obscurity and anonymity. The twins had gone home to Coruscant only a month or two before, but the youngest child—one-year-old baby Anakin—remained under the protection of Leia’s devoted servant Winter, far from prying Imperial eyes or dark-side influences that could corrupt the baby’s fragile Force-sensitive mind.

As space snapped into sharp focus, Ackbar saw the clustered multiple planet of Anoth. The world was composed of three large fragments orbiting a common center of mass. The two largest pieces hovered nearly in contact, sharing a poisonous stormy atmosphere. The third and more distant fragment orbited in a precarious, almost-safe position where Ackbar, Luke, and Winter had set up a hidden stronghold.

Skittering electrostatic discharges danced from the two touching pieces of Anoth, and the ionized fury bathed the habitable chunk in electrical storms that served to mask the planet from prying eyes. The entire system was unstable, and in a blink of cosmic time it would destroy itself, but for the last century or so it had been possible for humanoid life to establish a foothold there.

Ackbar brought his B-wing in on close approach through the deep-purple skies of Anoth. Sparks discharged from the wing of his fighter, but he felt no threat. This was not like flying through the storms of Vortex.

Inside the cramped B-wing, Ackbar wore only a flightsuit over his big frame, not his admiral’s uniform. Later he would leave the “borrowed” fighter in the Calamarian shipyards, where a New Republic pilot could shuttle it back to Coruscant. Ackbar would not be flying a starfighter again, so he had no need of it.

He sent a brief signal to inform Winter of his arrival, but he did not respond to her surprise or her questions. Switching off the fighter’s comm unit, he rehearsed how he would tell her all that had happened. Then he concentrated on guiding the B-wing in for a landing.

Below him the surface of Anoth was a craggy forest of rocky spires, sharp ledges, and clawlike peaks that were riddled with caves left behind when volatile inclusions in the rocks had evaporated over the centuries, leaving only glasslike rock.

Inside the labyrinth of smooth tunnels Winter had made a temporary home with the Jedi babies. Now she had only one child left to care for; and in another year, when Anakin reached the age of two, Winter could return to Coruscant and to active service with the New Republic government.

The small white sun never brought much daylight to Anoth, bathing the world in Gothic purple twilight lit by stark flashes of interplanetary lightning discharges. Ackbar and Luke Skywalker had found this planet, choosing it from among the possibilities as the safest place to hide the Jedi children. And now Ackbar had come one last time before returning to his homeworld of Calamari.

He felt sympathy for baby Anakin, who had not known a more welcoming place during his first year. Ackbar had always felt a close attachment to the third child, but he had come to say goodbye before fading from public view forever.

He flew the B-wing in among the spired forests and rock outcroppings. It reminded him of the tall fluted towers of the Cathedral of Winds on Vortex. That thought gave him a stab of pain, and he tried not to think of it further.

He cruised the ship in among the rocks, flying confidently as he arrowed toward the opening to the network of caves. With landing jets and a careful manipulation of repulsorlifts, Ackbar managed to land the starfighter smoothly on the wide grotto floor.

As he powered down the engines and prepared to disembark, a metal crash door swung open. A tall rigid-looking woman stood at the doorway. Her robes and her white hair clearly identified her as Leia’s ageless servant Winter. Even for a human, she looked strikingly distinctive to Ackbar.

He climbed stiffly out of his ship and turned his salmon-colored head away to keep from meeting her eyes. He saw with a backward glance that the one-year-old baby toddled at Winter’s feet, making happy noises, curious to see the new visitor. Ackbar felt a shudder go through him as he realized he would probably never see the dark-haired boy again.

Winter spoke in her flat, no-nonsense voice. He had never heard her upset before. “Admiral Ackbar, please tell me what has happened.”

He turned to face her, showing his flightsuit, his lack of military insignia. “I am no longer an admiral,” he said, “and it is a long story.”

Ackbar sat eating a meal of reconstituted rations that Winter had somehow managed to make palatable. As he told her every detail of the tragedy on Vortex and how he had resigned from his service, Winter did not appear judgmental. She simply listened, blinking rarely, nodding even less often.

Baby Anakin crouched on Ackbar’s lap, cooing and reaching up in curiosity to pat Ackbar’s clammy skin and touch his huge glassy eyes. Anakin giggled as the round eyes swiveled in various directions to avoid being poked by pudgy fingers.

“Will you stay here for an evening’s rest—?” Winter said. Her sentence cut off sharply, as if she had been about to call him admiral.

“No,” Ackbar said, holding the baby against him with flipper-hands. “I can’t. No one must suspect that I have come here, and if I delay too long, they will realize I have not gone directly to Calamari.”

Winter hesitated and then spoke in a voice that seemed less able to conceal emotion than it normally did. “Ackbar, you know I have the greatest respect for your abilities. It would honor me if you would stay here with me instead of going into hiding on your homeworld.”

Ackbar looked at the human woman and felt a surge of emotion well up inside him. Winter’s mere suggestion had been powerful enough to strip away layers of guilt and shame with which he had buried himself.

When he did not answer immediately, she pressed further. “I’m all alone here, and I could use your help. It gets lonely for the baby … and for me.”

Ackbar finally managed to speak, avoiding Winter’s gaze but giving his answer before he could change his mind. “Your offer honors me, Winter, but I am not worthy. At least not at the moment. I must go to Calamari and search for peace there. If I—” The words caught in his throat again, and he realized he was trembling. “If I find my peace, perhaps I shall return to you—and the baby.”

“I—-we’ll be here waiting, if you change your mind,” she said, then escorted him back to the hangar grotto.

Ackbar felt her watching him as he climbed back into the B-wing. He lifted the ship on its repulsorlift jets and turned to see her standing at the doorway. He flicked his running lights to signal her.

Winter raised a hand in sad goodbye. Then, with her other hand, she made Anakin’s pudgy arm wave to him too.

Ackbar’s starfighter soared into space, leaving them behind.

Back on Coruscant, Terpfen lay sick and shivering in his private quarters, trying with all his might to resist. But in the end the organic circuitry inside what was left of his brain took over.

Moving with forced steps, he descended to the dispatching and receiving network in the lower levels of the old Imperial Palace. No one watched him in the echoing, crowded room as diplomatic droids and packages came in and left, streaking off to various embassies and spaceports on Coruscant, bearing important dispatches.

Terpfen coded his secret message, summarizing information he had received from the hidden tracking device he had planted on Ackbar’s ship. He sealed the message inside a coffin-sized hyperspace courier tube and shielded the entire apparatus. He glanced around suspiciously before he keyed in Admiral Ackbar’s personal diplomatic security code, which would allow it to bypass all checks and tariff points. No one would have thought to revoke Ackbar’s access yet.

The routing doors opened up at the far end of the center, and the silvery message canister rose on its launching fields. In a reflex action Terpfen reached out, trying to grasp the slick sides of the canister, scraping with the sharp points of his hands—but the container rocketed out, picking up speed as it soared into the Coruscant sky.

Terpfen had programmed five alternate routes to discourage tracking. The message canister would arrive unhindered and without delay at the Imperial Military Academy on Carida. The coded message would be displayed for the eyes of Ambassador Furgan only—divulging the location of the secret planet where the last Jedi baby was hidden.