THIRTY-FOUR

Qoribu’s brightly striped orb hung sandwiched between the flat, twinkling clouds of two sizable space fleets. For now, both sides seemed content to avoid a battle, each hiding from the other behind the gas giant’s considerable bulk. But they were also maintaining aggressive postures, keeping their sublight drives lit and their shields up, dropping reconnaissance patrols through the planet’s golden ring system like airspinners from a Bespin raawk trawler.

“Good news,” Han said, decelerating hard. As they had half expected, the homing beacon aboard Alema’s stolen skiff had led them straight back into the middle of the Qoribu conflict. Though the standoff between the two fleets was certain to complicate their plans, Han could not have been more thrilled. After they destroyed the Dark Nest, he could track down Jaina and have her safely away from the Taat nest within hours. “We’re just in time for the war.”

“Why is that good news?” Juun asked from the navigator’s station. “Are we planning to go back into smuggling?”

“No!” Leia said. She keyed a command on the copilot’s console, and the tactical display began to light up with mass readings and vector arrows. “Han’s smuggling days were over a long time ago.”

Tarfang, still regrowing his fur after the head-to-toe clipping that had preceded a lengthy stay in the bacta tank, chittered a rude-sounding question.

“Tarfang wishes to inquire whether Princess Leia always answers questions on Captain Solo’s behalf,” C-3PO said.

Han did not bother to answer. He had brought Tarfang along only because Juun would not come without him, and he had brought Juun along because he was actually considering taking the Sullustan on as a copilot. After seeing how deftly Leia had resolved the crisis between the Jedi and the Galactic Alliance, it had finally grown clear to Han that he was blocking fate. Leia had been born to run things, and the wretched state of the Galactic Alliance Reconstruction was evidence enough of how badly she was needed. Thus he had made up his mind to step aside so she could follow her destiny…again.

Tarfang jabbered something else, which C-3PO translated as, “Tarfang says it is quite unfortunate that old age has broken your spirit, Captain Solo. Wars are good for smugglers. You might have been able to earn enough to replace the fine ship you tricked Captain Juun into sacrificing on your behalf.”

This was too much. “First, I’m not old, and my spirit is fine.” Han twisted around and wagged his finger at Tarfang. Without any fur, the Ewok reminded him of a womp rat with a short nose and no tail. “And second, I’m not the one who told Juun to outfly his cover. Getting that rustcan blown out from under him probably saved his life.”

Tarfang started to yammer a reply.

“Later, you two,” Leia interrupted. “Luke and Mara will be arriving soon, and we have work to do.”

She pointed at the tactical display, which now identified the fleet hovering above Qoribu’s northern pole as Hapan and the one at the southern pole as Chiss. While the Chiss appeared to be outnumbered more than two to one, Han knew appearances were deceptive. In all likelihood, they had a much larger force waiting just inside Ascendancy territory, ready to jump into battle the instant the enemy attacked. He only hoped that Dukat Gray—or whoever commanded the Hapan fleet—understood the basic deceptiveness of Chiss war doctrine.

Across the center of Qoribu ran a thick band of yellow bogey symbols.

“Dartships?” Han gasped.

“That’s how it looks,” Leia said. “The spectrograph suggests a methane-based fuel.”

“There must be a million of ’em!”

“Closer to a hundred and fifty thousand, Captain,” Juun said from behind him. “Plus a handful of freighters, blastboats, and four KDY orbital defense platforms.”

Han raised his brow. “I wonder where those came from?”

Tarfang offered an opinion, which C-3PO reported as, “Smugglers.”

Han ignored the Ewok and asked Leia, “Where’s Alema?”

“Still working on that,” she said. “I could use a little help.”

“Yeah, sure,” Han said. “All you have to do is ask.”

A grid appeared over the bright band of bogey symbols strung across Qoribu’s equator.

“Alema’s skiff has to be somewhere in there, or we would have picked her up by now,” Leia said. A quarter of the grid turned red. “Do an efflux search on the areas I’m assigning you. She’s only a few minutes ahead, so her ion drives must still be active.”

The homing beacon they had planted on the stolen skiff was only accurate to within a light-month, which left a lot of territory to search via normal sensors. Han brought up the first grid square and began to look for a telltale plume of hot ions. At this scale, the band of dartships resolved itself into a lumpy strand of swirling dots, with the gray disk of one of Qoribu’s moons hanging just beneath the main area of activity.

After a moment of study, Han switched to the next grid and found several bogey symbols that turned out to be a Gallofree freighter and a pair of patrolling blastboats. As soon as he brought up the third grid, he was tempted to move immediately to the next one. The dartships in this area were spread so thin that he could make out the thin gold line of Qoribu’s ring system and the irregular nugget of a small ice moon. But the thin Killik defenses here just did not feel right. Han brought the moon, Kr, to the center of his display and enlarged the scale.

A blue circle the size of a fingertip appeared in the screen center, slowly growing smaller as it traveled toward the moon.

“Got it!” Han began a mass analysis to confirm his suspicions, but he was sure enough of himself to transfer an inset to Leia’s display. “This one’s still moving insystem. It has to be her.”

“Very good.” Leia leaned across and kissed his cheek. “You win the reward.”

“That’s my reward?” Han complained. “I get that every day.”

“That could always change, flyboy.”

“Come on. You know you can’t help yourself.” Han flashed her his best arrogant smirk, then activated the intercom. “Battle stations back there. We might be going anytime.”

“We know,” Kyp replied. “We’re Jedi.”

“Oh, yeah.” Han looked at the ceiling and silently cursed Kyp’s arrogance. “I must be getting forgetful in my old age.”

Meewalh informed him that she and Cakhmaim were also ready. Noghri were always ready.

When the mass analysis finally confirmed Han’s guess, he turned to face Juun. “You two had better head to your battle station, too. You remember how it works?”

“Of course—you went over the procedure several times.” Juun popped his datapad out of his vest pocket. “And I’ve recorded all your instructions right here, in case I forget.”

“Uh, great.” Han glanced away so Juun would not see him wince. “That makes me real confident.”

“I’m happy to know that,” Juun said. “But I do have one question.”

Han counted to three, reminding himself that it was better for the Sullustan to ask his questions now rather than later, when they were being dive-bombed by a thousand dartships.

“Okay, shoot.”

“Has this ever been tried before?”

Han and Leia exchanged looks of surprise, then Leia said, “I don’t see how it could have been, Jae.”

“Oh.” Juun was silent for a moment, then said, “I have another question.”

“No kidding,” Han grumbled.

“Maybe we should make this the last one,” Leia said. “I just felt Luke and Mara emerge from hyperspace.”

“Of course.” The Sullustan slipped out of his chair, and Tarfang did the same. “How do we know it’s going to work?”

“Good question,” Han said. He turned forward again and placed a tracking lock on Alema’s skiff.

After a moment, Leia explained, “It was Han’s idea, Jae.”

“Oh, I see.” Juun sounded satisfied. “Of course it will work.”

Tarfang growled something doubtful, but Juun was already leading the way back toward the engineering station.

A moment later, the irregular, matte-black body of two StealthX starfighters pulled alongside the Falcon, and Han saw Luke’s and Mara’s helmet-framed faces looking over from the cockpits of phantom craft. Leia closed her eyes for a moment, reaching out to them in the Force, trying to get some sense of their intentions. After the Dark Nest attack on the Shadow, they had decided to return with only the Falcon and a couple of StealthX escorts. Since the Falcon was not equipped to carry fighters, Luke and Mara had been taking turns with the other two Jedi Masters on the mission—Kyp and Saba—ferrying the star-fighters through hyperspace.

Luke and Mara happened to be in the cockpit when the time came for the final jump to Qoribu, but Han suspected that Mara would have insisted on being one of the pilots to follow Alema into the Dark Nest. She was taking the whole assassin thing pretty personally.

Leia opened her eyes, then Luke and Mara accelerated away toward Kr. They remained visible for a moment, a pair of dark X’s silhouetted against Qoribu’s bright stripes, then shrank into invisibility.

“Luke wants us to hold here until they find the nest,” Leia reported. “Then—”

“Excuse me,” C-3PO interrupted. “But we have an unfortunate situation. We’re being hailed by both Dukat Gray of the Hapan fleet and Commander Fel of the Chiss.”

“Put Gray on first,” Han said. “Fel is just going to—”

“No, shift them to a conference channel,” Leia said. “Maybe we can promote a dialogue.”

“Or a war,” Han grumbled.

Gray’s voice came over the speaker first. “Princess Leia, I demand an—”

“Who’s this?” Fel demanded.

“Dukat Aleson Gray, Duch’da to Lady AlGray of the Relephon Moons,” Gray responded.

There was a long silence.

“To whom am I speaking?” Gray demanded.

“Commander Jagged Fel,” Fel replied. “Of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet.”

Another long silence.

Finally, Gray said, “I was attempting to comm Princess Leia and her crew. Have you boarded their vessel?”

“I was wondering if you had,” Fel said.

“Of course not. Why would I comm a vessel I had boarded?”

“I don’t know that you are comming them,” Fel countered suspiciously. “Your signal is coming from the Falcon.”

“Your signal is coming from the Falcon,” Gray accused. “I warn you, I won’t fall for any of your Chiss—”

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” Leia said. “Your concern is touching, but I assure you, the Falcon remains under Han’s command. Will you both activate Idol Smasher?”

Idol Smasher was an old encryption system the allies had used in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. Outdated though it was, it was almost a certainty that both fleets would still have the decoding hardware available in their code room archives. Military cryptographers were notorious pack rats.

After a short pause, Gray said, “We’ll need two minutes.”

“We’ll need one.” Fel’s tone was superior. “Please notify us when you’re ready, Dukat.”

Han glanced back at C-3PO, who was already plugging the necessary module into the comm station, and smirked.

“The Falcon is ready now.”

The transmission light went out, then Leia said, “Trouble, Han.”

Han looked back to the tactical screen and immediately began to warm the ion drives. The moon Kr was fast vanishing behind a cloud of dartships. As he watched, the spectrograph identified their propulsion as hydrogen-based.

“Dark Nest,” he said. “Anything from Luke and Mara?”

“A little anxiety—they’re not calling for us, yet.”

“Tell them not to push it,” Han said. “They’re too old to play hero.”

“Han, they’re younger than you were at the Battle of Yuuzhan’tar.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got my luck,” Han said. “All they have is the Force.”

Fel’s voice came over the comm. “Checking encryption.”

“Well done, Commander!” C-3PO answered. “That took only thirty-three point seven seconds.”

“Thirty-three point four—you neglected the transmission lag,” Fel corrected. “I wanted to have a word with the Solos before Dukat Gray joined us.”

“Jag, we’re not going home.” Han was keeping one eye on the tactical display and one on Leia, ready to start toward Kr the instant it looked like Luke and Mara were in trouble. “Jaina’s in there, and—”

“Yes, I know,” Fel said. “I think…actually, I’m convinced she saved our fleet.”

Leia’s jaw fell, but her voice betrayed no hint of her shock. “You find that surprising, Jag? The Jedi are here to stop a war, not choose sides.”

“We’ve never doubted your intentions, Princess Leia,” Fel said. “Only your province in being here—and your ability to resist the Colony’s Will.”

“Then Jaina has changed your minds?”

“She has opened mine,” Fel corrected. “But that is very different from convincing Defense Fleet Command that the Jedi can neutralize the Killik threat.”

“We understand your concern,” Leia said. “Perhaps Defense Fleet Command would believe us if the Colony withdrew from Qoribu?”

There was a moment of stunned silence. On the tactical display, Kr had vanished beneath a yellow swarm of dartship symbols. Han shook an inquiring finger in the moon’s general direction, but Leia shook her head. Luke and Mara still did not want any help.

Finally, Fel asked, “The Jedi can arrange that?”

“Testing encryption,” Gray’s voice broke in. “You’ve been talking without me.”

“Encryption confirmed.” In a tone that mimicked Gray’s peevishness, C-3PO replied, “Though you are somewhat late.”

“It was only two minutes twenty,” Gray complained. “That’s no excuse—”

“We were just catching up on old times,” Leia said. “You may not be aware of it, but Commander Fel came very close to becoming our son-in-law.”

As Leia spoke, her eyes grew wide, and she began to gesture frantically out the forward viewport. Han slammed the throttles forward, and the Falcon leapt toward Qoribu.

“Commander Fel, Dukat Gray, your tactical officers are about to tell you that the Falcon is accelerating toward the moon Kr at maximum power.” Though Leia’s face was pale, her voice remained calm. “I wanted to inform you both of the reason.”

Leia briefed them on the Jedi discovery of the Dark Nest and their theory about the power it held over the rest of the Colony’s collective mind. She even revealed the Order’s fear that the nest was being controlled by the two Dark Jedi who had abducted Raynar Thul on Baanu Rass, keeping secret only the fact that the Dark Nest was also attempting to absorb Alema Rar.

“You’re telling us that the Colony is ruled by a hidden nest?” Fel asked, incredulous.

“Only in the sense that any sentient mind is ruled by its own unconscious mind,” Leia said. “Influenced might be a better term—though in the Killiks’ case the influence is very heavy. We’re fairly sure the Dark Nest is responsible for the Colony’s decision to inhabit Qoribu.”

“For what purpose?” Fel asked.

“To start a war,” Han said. “And so far, you guys are playing right into their snappy little pincers.”

“It would be foolish to assume you know our plans, Captain Solo.”

“Your plans were clear enough when the Fleet of the Glorious Defender Queen arrived,” Gray said. “You were maneuvering to attack.”

“Obviously, I cannot discuss our plans with any of you,” Fel said. “I assume that the Jedi have located this Dark Nest on Kr and intend to break its hold over the Colony?”

“You could say that,” Han said. Kr was visible to the naked eye now, a fuzzy blue nugget about the size of a thumb. “If blasting it to bug parts counts.”

“With just the Falcon?” Gray asked.

“We have more than the Falcon,” Leia said. “Luke and Mara have already found the entrance to the nest.”

“That explains the activity on Kr,” Fel concluded. “The dartships seem to be swarming something.”

Though the Falcon’s tactical display showed no indications of weapons activity, Han had no doubt that the Skywalkers were busy dodging dartships. He could see it in the tautness around Leia’s eyes.

“Master Skywalker is under attack?” There was more excitement in Gray’s voice than concern.

“There’s no need for alarm, Dukat!” Leia commanded. “Luke and Mara can easily—”

A pair of Hapan Novas began to slip down the tactical display toward Kr. Han’s heart rose into his throat.

“Uh, what are you doing there, Dukat?”

“Sending support,” Gray said. “Queen Mother Tenel Ka would not be pleased if I allowed this Dark Nest to kill Master Skywalker and her husband—”

“Recall your vessels at once, Dukat,” Fel said. “We cannot permit any Hapan capital ship to approach the orbital plane.”

“It’s a small force,” Gray said. “Any fool can that see it poses no threat to—”

“Only a fool would allow his enemy to establish a forward position under the current circumstances,” Fel replied. A Chiss Star Destroyer and half a dozen cruisers started upward to meet the Hapan trio. “And we Chiss are not fools.”

“Oh, boy,” Han said under his breath. “I’ve got a—”

“—bad feeling. I know,” Leia finished. “Dukat Gray, leave this to us. We’ll let you know if—”

A chain of tiny orange flashes suddenly flared along Kr’s long axis as someone on the moon opened fire.

Two more Battle Dragons, accompanied by a dozen Novas, began to descend toward Qoribu’s rings.

“The queen’s fleet will not stand idly by while Master Skywalker is viciously attacked,” Gray declared.

“Dukat Gray—”

That was as much as Leia could say before Fel started to talk over her.

“The Chiss have no wish to see Master Skywalker and his wife injured, either.” A dozen Chiss cruisers joined the growing migration toward Kr. “But the Dark Nest is on our side of the rings. Allow us to support him.”

“Out of the question!” Gray shot back. Han had known even before the reply that Fel’s offer would never reach orbit. Gray cared more about being able to claim credit for rescuing Luke and Mara than whether they actually needed to be rescued. “The Chiss have made it clear they didn’t want the Jedi here in the first place. We have no assurance that you wouldn’t kill them yourselves.”

“Perhaps not,” Fel returned coolly. “But if you don’t recall those vessels, I can assure you—”

“Dukat Gray,” Leia said. “Sparking a clash with the Chiss is not going to win the Queen Mother’s favor. I suggest you recall your vessels and wait until your aid is truly needed.”

Another string of explosions lit Kr’s face. “It’s apparent to me that our aid is needed,” Gray said. “And if we must fight the Chiss to deliver it, we will.”

He closed the channel.

“Stubborn rodder!” Leia cursed. “Jag, you understand—”

“I’m sorry, Princess Leia,” Fel said. The Chiss fleet began to stream upward on all sides of the planet. “But my superiors refuse to take the chance that this isn’t a ploy. I suggest you avoid getting caught in the crossfire.”