What do you call sleet storms on Hoth?
Summer!

—Jacen Solo, age 15

THE ANAKIN SOLO’S PRISON HOLD PROVED TO BE EVERYTHING Jaina had imagined it would be. A cavernous vault of durasteel, it was filled with catwalks, checkpoints, and identity scanners. The detention cells were arrayed to the right side of the Primary Access Tunnel, stacked five-high in three long rows. There had to be a thousand units, and the volume of yellow light pouring through the transparisteel doors suggested that most were occupied. Locating Isolder’s cell was going to be a problem, and Jaina did not have time for problems. If she expected to have any chance of killing her brother, she had to find Caedus before he found her—and he had half the security teams on the Anakin Solo already searching for her.

The clank-clank of boot heels on deck steel echoed up the corridor. A pair of guards rounded a corner about twenty meters ahead, emerging from a short side hall labeled INFIRMARY CHECKPOINT. Jaina pulled her prisoner—a female security officer now wearing Jaina’s own StealthX flight suit—across to her side, opposite the guards.

“There’s no brave option here, CeeCee.” Jaina spoke in a low voice, addressing the woman by the first and middle initials on the GAG utilities that Jaina had taken from her. “If you even meet their eyes, I’ll kill you all, and still do what I came to do. Understand?”

“If I wanted to do something stupid, I would have done it in the processing center,” CeeCee replied. “I’d rather live.”

“Good,” Jaina said. “I’d rather let you.”

CeeCee was a couple of centimeters shorter than Jaina, and a little smaller, too. So Jaina’s flight suit was a tad baggy on her—but only an experienced pilot would notice the poor fit. CeeCee’s GAG uniform, on the other hand, was so tight on Jaina that it felt like something Alema Rar would have worn—a full size too small, and snug in all the wrong places for a woman trying to avoid attention.

As the guards drew nearer to Jaina and her prisoner, the stomach-dropping thuboom of a hull-hit reverberated through the ship. The lights flickered and blinked out, then blinked on again, out one more time, and finally returned to normal. The guards cast a nervous glance at the ceiling, then seemed to shiver off their anxiety and started down the corridor again. It would have been an exaggeration to say that the crew had become inured to the sound of turbolaser strikes impacting their Star Destroyer, but they were certainly growing accustomed to it. There had been a lull in the explosions for about half an hour after Jaina boarded, but then the Anakin Solo had followed the Megador forward and begun to take a steady trickle of hits. Whatever else he was, Caedus was certainly no coward.

When the distance had closed to within a couple of meters, the guards pulled their shoulders back and stopped. Jaina began to draw on the Force, using it to reinforce the impression in the two men’s minds that she was a familiar face—someone they ran into every now and again. It was a calculated trade-off. If her brother sensed her calling on the Force, it might give him a hint about her location. But if a suspicious guard reported a stranger wandering around the Prison Hold, it would bring him running—probably with an entire platoon of GAG troopers to back him up.

“Good day, Captain,” said the tallest guard, a sandy-haired man with a heavy, square jaw that reminded Jaina of Zekk’s strong features. “May we see the prisoner’s cell assignment chit?”

“If you must,” Jaina said, reinforcing her image as just another imperious GAG officer. She reached into a thigh pocket and produced the chit she had been given at the processing center a few minutes before. “Be fast about it. I don’t have much time.”

The guard glanced at the chit, then said, “In that case, you’re lucky you ran into us.” He pointed back down the corridor toward an intersection Jaina had just passed. “The women’s block is back there. We’ll escort you.”

“I don’t need an escort. I know where the women’s block is.” Jaina used a dismissing wave of her hand to draw the guard’s attention away from the suggestive tone of her voice. “I’m taking the prisoner to the infirmary first. She needs to be examined.”

The guard turned to his companion. “The prisoner needs to be examined first,” he said. “We’ll escort the captain to the infirmary.”

Jaina swallowed her frustration. “I don’t need an escort.” This time, she distracted the pair by pointing at the hall from which the two had emerged. “I can see where the infirmary is.”

The two guards frowned, then the shorter one—he had hair that was one shade lighter than black—said, “She can see where the infirmary is, Dex.”

Dex sighed, then passed back the chit. “Thank you, ma’am. Do be careful.” He pointed at a silver dome hanging from the ceiling. “The surveillance system is out.”

“Thanks for the warning.” An idea occurred to Jaina, and she added, “So was the prisoner index. Can you tell me what cell the Hapan prince is in?”

Both guards frowned, and Dex asked, “Why would you need to know that?”

“Because…” Jaina let her explanation trail off there, trying to make the best of her tight uniform by flashing a coy smile. Playing the flirt had worked pretty well for her mother on Coruscant, so Jaina saw no reason it shouldn’t work for her here. She raised her brows. “I hear he’s worth looking at.”

Dex shook his head in annoyance. “I don’t think I can help you with that, Captain.”

The two guards marched off without awaiting a proper dismissal, leaving Jaina to stand there wondering what her sixty-year-old mother had that she didn’t.

“That was smooth,” CeeCee observed. “You should probably just stick to the Force tricks.”

“I got rid of them, didn’t I?” Jaina started forward again, dragging her prisoner across the tunnel toward the infirmary checkpoint in case the guards looked back. “And how do you know that wasn’t a Force trick?”

“If it was, it needs work,” CeeCee answered.

“Careful,” Jaina warned. “It’s not too late to kill you.”

CeeCee laughed at the threat, then asked, “Is that really what this is about? Isolder?”

“Of course.” Jaina stopped at the entrance to the short corridor leading to the infirmary checkpoint and pretended to be checking CeeCee’s wrist restraints. “You think Jedi go around breaking into prisons for fun?”

“No, I thought you were here for the Mandalorian,” CeeCee said. “I heard she was working with a Jedi when Caedus captured her.”

“Her?” Jaina asked. “Was this on Nickel One?” When CeeCee hesitated, Jaina added, “There are a lot of ways a Jedi can hurt you—most of them so bad that you can’t even scream.”

“Okay—you’re right. She came from Nickel One. She’s supposed to be related to Boba Fett.” CeeCee pointed her chin toward the checkpoint, where a suspicious-looking guard sat inside his control booth, studying them through a transparisteel viewing panel. “In there. I hear Caedus is handling her interrogations personally.”

Jaina was suddenly filled with so much guilt and anger that she felt as though she would burst. Mirta had survived. And Jaina had abandoned her—just as Fett had implied when he visited Jaina in the hospital. It didn’t matter that it had seemed inconceivable that Mirta was alive, or that Jaina had been so wounded and dazed herself she could not think straight, or that any retrieval attempt would almost certainly have cost Jaina her own life.

Jaina had left a wounded comrade behind. To a Mandalorian commando, that was all that would matter—and to Fett, all that would matter was that it had been Mirta.

“Kriffing Mandalorians!” Jaina slammed her palm against the tunnel wall, drawing a disapproving glower from the guard inside the checkpoint control booth. “I don’t have time for this!”

“Uh, sorry I brought it up, then,” CeeCee said, sounding genuinely frightened. “But if you’re going after Isolder, my thumbprint won’t help you. He’s in Block C—maximum security—so you’re going to have to fight your way in. Maybe you could dump me in my cell first.”

“Maybe I could,” Jaina said. She shoved CeeCee down the corridor toward the infirmary checkpoint. “If you’re not lying about the Mandalorian.”

The smart thing would have been to forget that CeeCee had ever mentioned a Mandalorian prisoner. That was what Fett would have done in her place, maybe even Mirta herself. But Jaina was a Jedi, not an assassin. She couldn’t just turn her back on an ally—even a quasi-ally.

Kriffing Mandalorians. They were like Hutts—once they got their claws into you, they never let go.

At the checkpoint, Jaina spun her prisoner around backward and stepped over to the security pad, reaching for the thumb scanner with the same hand that held CeeCee’s arm. With the Force and a little sleight of hand, she prevented the guard from seeing whose thumb it was that actually touched the pad, and his suspicions seemed to subside as the scanning booth slid open.

Once they were inside, he activated an intercom and asked, “Authorization?”

“Don’t have one,” Jaina said. “I just need to get her checked for ejection injuries before we interrogate her.”

The guard nodded and initiated the scan—wincing only slightly as the boom of another, smaller hull-hit rang through the ship. None of the items in Jaina’s equipment belt seemed to trouble him, but he frowned and pointed at the thigh pocket where she had stowed her lightsaber.

“What’s that?”

“High-power glow rod.” Jaina pulled the lightsaber from its pocket and stuck the emitter nozzle against the transparisteel in front of his eyes. “Want me to show you?”

“No.” Not wanting to be blinded by the powerful light, the guard quickly looked away and reached for a button on his panel. “Please proceed, Captain. You know where the exam rooms are.”

The far door slid open, and Jaina led CeeCee into the prison’s infirmary wing. Like the other side of the Primary Access Tunnel, it was a cavernous durasteel vault with five stories of catwalks ascending into the murky heights above. But each level seemed to have its own purpose.

The lowest level, about three meters below the balcony where Jaina and CeeCee had emerged, seemed to be a combination morgue and waste disposal area. A single black, four-armed droid with a skeletal frame and green-glowing photoreceptors was working in the pit, pulling medical waste off a conveyer belt and feeding it into a white-mouthed fusion incinerator. On the wall across from the incinerator was a line of a dozen meter-square body drawers, all closed and presumably full, as there were a pair of corpses resting on gurneys along the wall.

The main level was lined with examination rooms, while the next story up had too many attendants pushing hovergurneys along the catwalk to be anything but diagnostics or surgery. Jaina led her prisoner over to a lift tube and found two possibilities on the control panel: PATIENT CELLS on level four, and AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY on level five.

Jaina was still pondering her choices when CeeCee said, “Patient cells. They don’t allow regular medical staff on the interrogation level, and your friend needs attention. She won’t be hard to find.”

Detecting no hint of deception in CeeCee’s Force aura, Jaina pressed PATIENT CELLS, and they ascended to level four. The catwalk was modestly busy, with a handful of nurses and medical droids bustling in and out of the cells, usually alone but sometimes in the company of an escort carrying a stun stick. At the far end of the catwalk, a pair of GAG guards stood in front of a closed door holding blaster rifles.

Guessing they would be guarding Mirta’s cell, Jaina started forward, pushing her prisoner ahead of her. They passed several open cells where nurses or droids were stooping over the lowered access panel of a blocky gray containment bed, tending to their patients. A couple of times, they passed guard-escorts leaning against doorways, swinging their stun sticks and looking bored.

No one gave Jaina a second look as she passed with her prisoner—in part because it had been nearly five minutes since a hull-hit had boomed through the ship. Either the battle was turning in Caedus’s favor, or the Anakin Solo had become so battered that it wasn’t even worth firing at anymore. Jaina wasn’t betting on the latter possibility.

By the time they were three-quarters of the way down the catwalk, she felt certain no one was paying any attention to them. She stretched her Force awareness out toward the cell and found an angry, disheartened presence lying inside.

Though Jaina could not actually sense the bed that Mirta was lying on, she knew it had to be there. She visualized a blocky gray containment bed similar to the one she had seen in other cells, then grasped it in the Force and jerked hard.

A muffled cry of surprise sounded through Mirta’s door, and the puzzled guards looked from the door to each other. Jaina grasped the bed in the Force again, this time lifting the bottom end off the floor and letting it drop. A sharp bang came through the door, followed by another cry of surprise.

The closer guard pressed his thumb to the security pad then stepped into the cell while the door was still sliding open. The other one frowned at Jaina and CeeCee, who were within a few meters of the cell door and still approaching.

He stepped forward, moving to block their approach. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but—”

Jaina Force-hurled him through the door and shoved CeeCee into the cell after him, then followed and slapped the interior door control. The startled guards were just picking themselves up, spinning around to bring up their blaster rifles. Jaina flicked her fingers, and the nearer guard’s weapon flew from his hands and smashed butt-first into the farther one’s temple. She followed up that attack with a snap-kick to the closest guard’s jaw, and both men collapsed in unconscious heaps.

CeeCee had slipped behind her and was moving toward the door. Jaina swung her arm back, pointing at the woman, and warned, “Don’t.”

She turned to find CeeCee standing a meter behind her, one arm half stretched toward a control panel on the wall. There were pads labeled INTERCOM, LIGHTS, PATIENT EMERGENCY, and ALARM.

Even before Jaina stepped toward her, CeeCee lowered her arm and said, “This is going to leave a bruise, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

Jaina smashed a hammerfist into the hinge of CeeCee’s jaw, then caught her when her eyes rolled back and her knees buckled.

“The noble jetiise,” a muffled voice said behind her. “Gracious even in victory.”

Jaina laid CeeCee on the floor next to cell’s empty second bed, then turned to see Mirta Gev watching her through the transparisteel access panel on the first. She hardly looked like the same woman Jaina had met on Mandalore. Her eyes were sunken and rimmed in purple, her skin was ashen, and her curly brown hair lay straight, flat, and dirty on her head.

“Hello, Mirta,” Jaina said. As she spoke, she collected the weapons and comlinks from the two guards she had knocked unconscious. “It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re alive.”

Mirta snorted and looked away. “If you want to call it that.”

Jaina scowled at the bitterness in Mirta’s voice. Still holding the weapons and comlinks she had taken off the guards, she stepped over to the bed and kneed the access control. As the panel slid down, she saw that Mirta lay beneath a thin blanket, her legs extended straight out and her right arm resting motionless at her side. Her left arm was slightly bent, and Jaina could see the outline of a heavy restraining cuff around her wrist.

Jaina laid the weapons and comlinks on the foot of Mirta’s bed, at the same time saying, “Look, I’m sorry about what happened on Nickel One.” She pulled the blanket back and unbuckled the restraining cuff. “But I thought you were dead.”

“It might have been nice if you’d checked,” Mirta said. “You could’ve put a bolt through my head and spared me this.”

Mirta raised her hand and gestured at her motionless body, and then Jaina understood why only one hand had been restrained. Her heart sank.

“Ah…Mirta. I’m so sorry.” Jaina shook her head. She was so sad she could barely bring herself to meet Mirta’s gaze, and so frustrated she wanted to blast someone. “I can’t get you out of here.”

Mirta nodded. “I know who you came for,” she said. “The only thing I can’t figure out is what you’re doing in here.”

“I might have gotten played.” Jaina hooked a thumb at CeeCee, wondering whether the GAG captain had known all along that Mirta could not be rescued and had just been trying to eat up time Jaina did not have. She pulled the rest of the restraints from the storage bin under Mirta’s bed and began to buckle the unconscious guards to the empty bed. “If I make it, I’ll try to come back for you.”

“If you make it, I’ll be so happy I won’t care,” Mirta said, her head turned so she could watch Jaina work. “But there is something you should know. It may help you with Caedus.”

“Thanks,” Jaina said. She pulled CeeCee over next to the guards and used the restraints from the empty bed to secure her in place with them. “I’ll take all the help I can.”

Mirta did not continue, and Jaina looked to find the Mandalorian studying her.

“You have to do some things for me,” Mirta said. “If you survive, I mean. You have to promise.”

“Maybe,” Jaina said cautiously. She knew better than to make a blind agreement with a Mandalorian. “What do you have in mind?”

“You have to warn Ba’buir,” Mirta said, using the Mando’a word for her grandfather. “The Moffs took some of my blood—they’ve designed a nanokiller for him.”

Jaina nodded. “I can do that.”

Mirta’s eyes grew as dead and cold as Fett’s. “And you have to…” Her voice grew strained and cracked, and Jaina could tell that she was fighting some sort of internal battle. “You have to tell him he deserves it. That he did this…to me.”

Jaina frowned. “Okay, I can do that, too, Mirta,” she said. “But you’re not sounding like yourself. Are you sure you want me to do that?”

Mirta shook her head. “No—but I can’t help…I just have this anger…because your brother is right about one thing, at least. He did this to me!”

“Caedus did this to you?” Jaina asked. She did not understand what her brother had done to Mirta, but she could tell that it was ugly. “Or Fett?”

“Ba’buir.” Mirta looked away, and it grew obvious there was no use reasoning with her. “It…He sent us on a death mission. Promise!”

“Okay, if I make it,” Jaina said. Fett would want to know the truth, anyway, and she could always soften it by telling him of her suspicions. “I promise.”

“Good.” When Mirta looked back toward Jaina, a certain sad peace had returned to her face, but she did not look grateful. Far from it. She raised the one arm she could move, pointing it at one of the blaster rifles Jaina had laid on the foot of her bed. “And the last thing. It’s easy.”

Jaina looked at the blaster rifle and knew she could not make the deal. “No, Mirta, I’m not going to do that,” she said. “Even if I don’t make it, I don’t think your grandfather really believes—”

“Jaina, it’s not for that.” Mirta pointed at the three prisoners Jaina had tied to the bed. “When they wake up, I’m going to need a way to keep them quiet for you.”

Jaina breathed a sigh of relief, then placed the blaster rifles and comlinks on the bed where Mirta could reach them. “Good point. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Mirta said. “Now, the thing you need to know about your brother…he underestimates you.”

“That’s not really news, Mirta,” Jaina said. “Maybe not even true. He’s magnitudes stronger than me in the Force. All I’ve got on him is five weeks of Mandalorian commando training.”

“And that’s enough to get the job done.” Mirta’s tone was reprimanding, like a parent scolding a child for wanting a third bowl of frezgel. “But I mean, his weakness is more delusional. He’s convinced you couldn’t have taken his arm—at least not alone. He thinks Luke was with us.”

Jaina paused, recalling Caedus’s confusion at the end of the battle. She also recalled her own condition, how the strange surge in her Force powers had suddenly faded just before Caedus had redirected the stormtroopers’ fire. “Maybe Luke was there.”

Mirta shook her head. “He wasn’t. I was conscious most of the time—and I didn’t see him.” She waved the blaster muzzle at the door. “Now get out of here. You’ve only got an hour before my next meds are due—and no offense, but I don’t want you as a roommate.”

“No problem. We’d probably kill each other.” Jaina patted Mirta on the arm, then turned toward the door. “May the Force be with you, Mirta.”

“Yeah, sure, Jedi,” Mirta said. “Shoot straight and run fast.”

Jaina slipped out of the cell and closed the door behind her. She used her fingernail to scratch up the security console thumbprint reader, then started down the catwalk toward the turbolift.

Jaina hadn’t taken even three steps when the muffled zing of a blaster discharge sounded from inside Mirta’s cell. She stopped, her heart dropping with shock and disbelief—then heard two more discharges and realized it wasn’t Mirta she should have been worried about.

Kriffing Mandalorians.

Seen through the egalitarian lens of a detention cell’s one-way transparisteel, the acclaimed Prince Isolder did not look so different from other men. He was a bit taller, perhaps, with squarer shoulders and straighter teeth. And there was something in his upright bearing, even sitting alone in a cramped durasteel cell, that hinted at his unshakable sense of self—at the quiet dignity that seemed to give him strength in even the most desperate and trying of circumstances.

This was a man who had married for love in a culture that laughed at love, a father who had raised a Jedi daughter in a society that scorned Jedi, a prince who had always served his subjects first and his vanity last. He was a man, in short, of the best sort, a man with the wisdom to follow his own heart, and a heart large enough to make the journey worthwhile.

And Caedus would have liked to believe that those were the reasons he found himself so reluctant to kill the man…but he knew better. The reason he was hesitating was because he was not certain that it was the right thing to do.

The logical course was to let Lecersen and the Moffs have their fun with their nanokiller. Eliminating Tenel Ka and Allana was certainly not going to hurt the Alliance’s chances of winning the battle, and it might even help. But how could Caedus sacrifice his own child so that all the other children in the galaxy would grow up in safety? The way of the Sith was the way of pain, he knew that, but he did not see how he could let the Moffs kill his daughter without becoming a monster even worse than Palpatine or Exar Kun.

Could Allana’s life be the price the Force demanded for peace? For making his vision of the white throne a reality?

No, Caedus realized. Allana had been one of the beings in the vision. Without her, there would be no white throne.

The knot of fear that had been binding Caedus’s insides slackened, and, with a new clarity, he saw what he had to do. He had to stop the Moffs’ plan at any cost. If he wanted to bring peace to the galaxy, he had to save Allana—not sacrifice her.

The stomach-dropping thuboom of a hull-hit reverberated through the ship. The lights flickered and blinked out, then blinked on, out one more time, and finally returned to normal. Inside his cell, Isolder cast a nervous glance at the ceiling, then seemed to shrug off his anxiety and leaned back against the wall again.

Caedus opened the cell door, but remained standing outside. Isolder glanced over, his eyes betraying none of the surprise that Caedus sensed in the Force.

“Jacen Solo,” Isolder said, pointedly not rising. “I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been interrogated yet. Obviously, you’ve been saving the fun for yourself.”

“It’s Caedus now, Prince Isolder,” Caedus said. “Darth Caedus. And the reason you haven’t been interrogated has nothing to do with fun. We have other means of locating the Jedi base, so I saw no need to impinge on your dignity.”

Now Isolder did allow his surprise to show in his eyes. “How very considerate of you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have expected that from child-stealing scum such as yourself.”

Caedus winced at the insult. “We all make mistakes,” he said, biting back his anger. There was nothing to be gained by retaliation, and Isolder deserved no punishment for speaking the truth as he saw it. “I’m sure you’ll come to appreciate that in good time. Now, if you’ll please come with me.”

“I don’t think so,” Isolder said. “Whatever you—”

“I wasn’t asking.” Caedus used the Force to pull Isolder off his bunk, then drew him stumbling through the door. “Please don’t consider my respect a weakness, Prince Isolder. That would be one of those mistakes I just mentioned.”

“Of course,” Isolder answered, recovering his dignity along with his footing. “It seems I’m entirely at your disposal. May I inquire where you’re taking me?”

“To join your crew aboard the Beam Racer,” Caedus said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to depart in the middle of a battle, but we’ve almost broken though. Once you’re clear of us, you should be safe enough.”

Isolder stopped and turned around. “You’re releasing me? Why?”

“Because my only other choice is to kill you,” Caedus said. “And I’d really rather not.”

Isolder looked more than skeptical—he looked flat-out distrustful. “So I can lead you to the Jedi base.”

“We already know where the base is,” Caedus said. “We’ll be jumping to Shedu Maad as soon as we break free of your daughter’s fleet.”

Isolder’s face betrayed nothing, but Caedus could tell by the disappointment in the prince’s Force aura that his analysts had guessed correctly about the destination of the transports that had fled Uroro Station.

“You’ll be free to go anywhere you wish, as long as you don’t allow yourself to be captured again,” Caedus continued. “It’s only fair to warn you that the Racer will explode at the first brush of a tractor beam.”

Isolder frowned, obviously trying to figure out what Caedus was doing, then abruptly said, “This is about the nanokiller, isn’t it?”

Caedus was actually surprised. “Very good, Prince. I’m afraid the Moffs are rather keen on using it against Tenel Ka.”

Isolder glared at him with narrowed eyes, and Caedus could feel a murderous intent gathering in the Force.

“You’re not as clever as you think, Jacen.” Isolder spat in Caedus’s eyes. “I’d rather die than fall for your ploy.”

Caedus sighed and wiped the saliva away, wondering whether there was any way to convince the prince that this wasn’t a ploy. Clearly, Isolder believed Caedus was trying to trick him into inadvertently carrying the nanokiller onto the Dragon Queen—and it was certainly a reasonable assumption. The question was, could Caedus convince him of the truth? And was it worth the effort—especially when he had so much else to do, a battle to win, his sister to deal with…Luke to kill.

The answer was regrettably obvious.

“I was afraid you’d say that.” As Caedus spoke, he was grasping Isolder in the Force. “And death is certainly an option.”

Caedus made a twisting motion with his hand, snapping Isolder’s head around backward. There was a loud pop that made Caedus feel a little sick to his stomach, and the prince collapsed at his feet, dead before he hit the catwalk.

Caedus sighed again, then removed the comlink from his chest pocket and managed to get a scratchy channel to his aide, Orlopp.

“I’m afraid Prince Isolder won’t be joining his crew aboard the Beam Racer,” he said. “Tell them they’ll have to depart without him.”

“…sure they will,” came the patchy reply. “They’re…loyal.”

Of course they wouldn’t. Isolder had been a great man, a good leader. No decent crew in the galaxy would abandon him.

“Then you’ll have to blow the ship in her berth.” Caedus used the Force to levitate Isolder’s body, then started down the catwalk toward the infirmary and its fusion incinerator. “And void the hangar when it’s done. We can’t afford to take any chances with this.”