FOUR

The Queen’s Drawing Room smelled of emptiness and disuse, with the odor of polishing agents and window cleanser hanging so thickly in the air that Jacen wondered if the housekeeping droid needed its dispensing program adjusted. An octagonal game table rested in the center of the opulent chamber, directly beneath a Kamarian-crystal chandelier and surrounded by eight flow-cushion chairs that looked as though they had never been sat upon. The Force held no hint of any living presence, but the silence in the chamber was charged with a sense of danger and foreboding that made Jacen cold between his shoulder blades.

Jacen’s nine-year-old cousin, Ben Skywalker, stepped closer to his side. “It’s creepy in here.”

“You noticed. Good.” Jacen glanced down at his cousin. With red hair, freckles, and fiery blue eyes, Ben appeared typical of many boys his age, more interested in hologames and shock ball than in studies and training. Yet he had more innate control over the Force at his age than any person Jacen had ever known—enough to shut himself off from it whenever he wished, enough to prevent even Jacen from sensing just how strong in the Force he really might be. “What else do you feel?”

“Two people.” Ben pointed through a door in the back of the room. “I think one’s a kid.”

“Because one has a smaller presence in the Force?” Jacen asked. “That’s not always a guide. Sometimes, children have—”

“Not that,” Ben interrupted. “I think one’s holding the other, and she feels all . . . mushy.”

“Fair enough.” Jacen would have chuckled, save that he had already sensed through the Force that Ben was right, and he could not understand what Tenel Ka was doing alone in her chambers with a child. It had been nearly a year since their last meeting, but they had spoken several times since—whenever they could arrange a secure HoloNet connection—and Jacen felt certain that she would have told him if she had decided to take a husband. “But we shouldn’t make assumptions. They can be misleading.”

“Right.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t we get out of here? If a security droid catches us in here, this place is gonna be dust.”

“It’s all right,” Jacen said. “The Queen Mother invited us.”

“Then how come you used your memory rub on the guards?” Ben asked. “And why do you keep Force-flashing the surveillance cams?”

“Her message asked me to come in secret,” Jacen explained.

“Asked you?” Ben furrowed his brow for a moment. “Does she know I’m coming?”

“I’m sure she has sensed your presence by now,” Jacen said. Spies were so pervasive in the Hapes Cluster that Tenel Ka had asked him not to acknowledge her message, so there had been no opportunity to warn her that he would have to bring Ben along. They were supposed to be on a camping trip to Endor, and a sudden change in plans would have aroused suspicion. “But I know Tenel Ka will be happy to see you.”

“Great.” Ben cast a longing glance toward the security door behind them. “I’ll be the one the security droid blasts.”

A motherly voice spoke from the next room. “And why would I do that?”

A large droid with the cherubic face and padded, synthskin chest of a Tendrando Arms Defender Droid—similar to the one who guarded Ben when he was not with Jacen or his parents—stepped into the room. Her massive frame and systems-packed limbs were still close enough to the YVH war droids from which she had been adapted to give her an intimidating appearance.

“Have you been causing any trouble?”

“Not me.” Ben glanced up at Jacen. “This was his idea.”

“Good, then we’ll get along just fine.” The corners of the droid’s mouth rose into a mechanical smile, then she turned her photoreceptors on Jacen. “Jedi Solo, welcome. I am DeDe One-one-A, a Tendrando Arms Defender—”

“Thank you, I’m familiar with your model,” Jacen said. “What I don’t understand is what Queen Tenel Ka needs with a child protection droid.”

The smile vanished from DD-11A’s synthskin face. “You don’t?” She stepped aside and waved him forward. “Perhaps I should let the Queen Mother explain. She is expecting you in her dressing chamber.”

The droid led them into an extravagant bedchamber dominated by a huge bed covered by a crown-shaped canopy. Around it were more couches, armchairs, and writing desks than ten queens could use. Again, the chamber smelled of cleanser and polish, and there was no indentation to suggest that the bed, pillows, or chairs had ever been used.

“Creepier and creepier,” Ben said.

“Just be ready.” Until Jacen knew what was causing the cold knot between his shoulder blades, he would have preferred to leave Ben somewhere safe—except he had no idea where ‘safe’ might be, or even if they were the ones in danger. That was the trouble with danger sense—it was just so blasted vague. “You remember that emergency escape I taught you?”

“The Force trick you said to keep really . . .” Ben fell silent and glanced at DD-11A, then his voice grew more subdued. “Yeah, I remember.”

DD-11A stopped and swiveled her head around to stare down at Ben. “The Force trick that Jedi Solo said to keep really what, Ben?”

Ben’s gaze slid away. “Nothing.”

The corners of DD-11A’s mouth drooped. “Are you keeping secrets, Ben?”

“I’m trying to,” Ben admitted. “Jacen said—”

“No harm, Ben,” Jacen interrupted. Defender Droids were programmed to be suspicious of children’s secrets, and this particular Force trick was not one he cared to have investigated. He faced DD-11A. “The secrecy is a security precaution. The trick’s effectiveness would be compromised if its nature was revealed.”

DD-11A fixed her photoreceptors on Jacen for a moment, then extended a telescoping arm and took Ben by the shoulder. “Why don’t you wait here with me, Ben? The Queen Mother wishes to see Jedi Solo alone first.” The droid turned to Jacen, then pointed her other arm toward the far side of the chamber. “Through that door.”

Jacen did not start toward the door. “I’d rather keep Ben with me.”

“The Queen Mother wishes to speak to you alone first.” DD-11A made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go on. We’ll come along in few minutes.”

When the cold knot between Jacen’s shoulder blades did not seem to grow any larger, he nodded reluctantly. “Leave the doors open between us,” he said. “And Ben—”

“I know what to do,” Ben said. “Go on.”

“Okay,” Jacen said. “But mind your manners. Remember, you’re in a queen’s private chambers.”

Jacen went through the door into a third room, this one much smaller and less opulent than the first two. One end was filled with shelves and clothing racks, mostly empty, and furnished with full-length mirrors, unused vanities, and overstuffed dressing couches. The other end held a simple sleeping pallet, of the kind Tenel Ka had preferred since her days at the Jedi academy, and a night table containing a chrono and reading lamp.

The Queen Mother herself was through the next door, leaning over a small baby crib in what was plainly a nursery. Her red hair hung over one shoulder in a loose fall, and she was dressed in a simple green robe with nursing flaps over both sides of her chest. When she sensed Jacen studying her, she looked up and smiled.

“You cannot see anything from there, Jacen. Come in.” Tenel Ka was as beautiful as ever—perhaps even more so. Her complexion was rosy and luminous, and her gray eyes were sparkling with joy. “I have someone to introduce you to.”

“So I see.” It was all Jacen could do to hide his disappointment. Though he had long known that Tenel Ka’s position would require her to take a Hapan husband, this was hardly the way he had expected her to break the news. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Tenel Ka motioned him over. “Come along, Jacen. She won’t bite.”

Jacen went to the crib, where a round-faced newborn lay cooing and blowing milk bubbles at Tenel Ka. With hair so thin and downy that it still lacked color and a face more wrinkled than an Ugnaught’s, she did not really look like anyone. But when the infant turned to squint up at Jacen, Jacen experienced such a shock of connection that he forgot himself and reached down to touch the child on the chest.

“Go ahead and pick her up, Jacen.” Tenel Ka’s voice was nearly cracking with excitement. “You do know how to hold a newborn, don’t you?”

Jacen was too stunned to answer. He could feel in the Force—and in his heart—that the girl was his, but he could not understand how. The child could be no more than a week old, but it had been more than a year since he had even seen Tenel Ka.

“Here, let me show you.” Tenel Ka slipped her one arm under the baby, cradling the head in her hand, then smoothly scooped the infant up. “Just keep a firm hold, and always support her neck.”

Finally, Jacen tore his gaze away from the baby. “How?” he asked. “It’s been twelve months—”

“The Force, Jacen.” Tenel Ka slipped the baby into Jacen’s arms. She groaned a couple of times, then returned to cooing. “I slowed things down. Life will be dangerous enough for our daughter without my nobles knowing you are the father.”

“You’re a father?” Ben’s voice came from the doorway behind Jacen. “Astral!”

Jacen turned around, his daughter cradled in his arms, and frowned at Ben. “I thought you were waiting in the Royal Bedchamber with DeDe.”

“You told DeDe you wanted to keep me with you,” Ben countered. “You asked if I knew what to do.”

“I meant if there was trouble, Ben.”

“Oh.” Ben came closer. “I thought you meant trip her circuit breaker.”

“No.” Jacen sighed, then turned to Tenel Ka. “Allow me to present Ben Skywalker, Your Majesty.”

Ben took his cue and bowed deeply. “Sorry about your droid. I’ll turn her back on if you want.”

“In a minute, Ben,” Tenel Ka said. “But first, stand up and let me have a look at you. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby yourself.”

Ben straightened himself and stood there looking nervous while Tenel Ka nodded approvingly.

“I apologize for bringing him unannounced,” Jacen said. “But your message said to come immediately, and we were supposed to be on a camping trip while Luke and Mara are in the Utegetu Nebula.”

“Jacen’s my Master,” Ben said proudly.

Tenel Ka cocked her brow. “In my day, apprentices did not address their Masters by their first names.”

“It’s an informal arrangement,” Jacen said. Now was not the time to explain the complicated dynamics of the situation—that while Mara disapproved of much of the Force-lore Jacen had gathered on his five-year journey of discovery, she was truly grateful to him for coaxing Ben out of his long withdrawal from the Force. “I’m working with Ben while he explores his relationship with the Force.”

Tenel Ka’s eyes flashed with curiosity, but she did not ask the question Jacen knew to be on her mind: why Ben was not exploring that relationship at the Jedi academy like other young Force-adepts.

“So far, I’m the only one Ben feels comfortable using the Force around,” Jacen said, answering the unspoken question. He looked at Ben. “But I’m sure that will change once he realizes that the Force is our friend.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Ben replied. “I’m not interested in all that kid stuff.”

“Perhaps one day.” Tenel Ka smiled at Ben. “Until then, you’re a very lucky young man. You could not ask for a better guide.”

“Thanks,” Ben said. “And congratulations on the baby. Wait until Uncle Han and Aunt Leia hear—they’ll go nova!”

Tenel Ka furrowed her brow. “Ben, you mustn’t tell anyone.”

“I mustn’t?” Ben looked confused. “Why not? Aren’t you guys married?”

“No, but that isn’t why. The situation is . . .” Tenel Ka looked to Jacen for help. “. . . complicated.”

“We are in love,” Jacen said. “We always have been.”

“Fact,” Tenel Ka said. “That is all that matters.”

“But you’re not married—and you had a baby!” Ben’s eyes were wide and gleeful. “You guys are gonna be in so much trouble!”

Tenel Ka’s voice grew stern. “Ben, you must keep this secret. The baby’s life will depend on it.”

Ben frowned, and the cold knot between Jacen’s shoulder blades began to creep down his spine. Even Tenel Ka seemed to be growing pale.

“Ben can keep a secret,” Jacen said. “But I think it’s time to reactivate DeDe. Ben—”

“On my way.” Ben turned and ran for the door.

“Bring her here,” Tenel Ka called after him. “And tell her to arm all systems.”

The baby began to mewl in Jacen’s arms. He took a moment to forge a conscious link to Ben’s Force presence, then slipped the child back to Tenel Ka.

“Is this why you asked me to come?” he asked.

“It is why I asked you to come now,” Tenel Ka corrected. “This feeling has been growing worse for a week.”

“And the baby is—”

“A week old.”

Jacen’s chest began to tighten with anger. “At least we know what they’re after. Any idea who—”

“Jacen, I have kept myself in seclusion for months,” Tenel Ka said. “And most of my nobles have guessed why. The list of suspects includes every family who has reason to believe the child does not carry their blood.”

“Oh.” Jacen had forgotten—if he had ever really understood—just how lonely and perilous Tenel Ka’s life really was. “So that would include—”

“All of them,” Tenel Ka finished.

“Well, at least it’s simple,” Jacen said. “And I suppose who really doesn’t matter at the moment.”

“Correct,” Tenel Ka agreed. “First we defend.”

Jacen sensed a sudden confusion in Ben’s presence, then saw him coming through the queen’s dressing room with DD-11A close on his heels. There was nothing chasing them, but a muffled scurrying sound was arising behind them.

“Insect infestation!” DD-11A reported. “My sensors show a large swarm in the ceiling, advancing toward the nursery.”

The baby began to cry in earnest, and Jacen pulled his lightsaber off his utility belt.

“Jacen, it’s okay!” Ben cried. “It’s Gorog!”

“Gorog?” Jacen began to still himself inside, trying to calm his anger so he could focus on the ripples he felt in the Force. “Are you sure?”

Ben entered the nursery and stopped. “Yeah.”

“Who is Gorog?” Tenel Ka asked. The scurrying sound was drawing closer. “And what is he doing in my vents?”

“They,” Jacen corrected. He found a set of ripples that seemed to be coming from a cold void in the Force and knew Ben was right. “Gorog is the Killik name for the Dark Nest.”

“The Dark Nest?” Tenel Ka used the Force to depress a wall button, then turned to Ben. “Why is it okay to have the Dark Nest in my air vents?”

“They’re not in your vents.” Ben’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling above the closing door. “Your vents are shielded and lined with security lasers.”

Jacen’s heart sank. For Ben to know so much about the insects’ entry route suggested that even after a year apart, he remained sensitive to Gorog’s collective mind—and perilously close to becoming a Joiner.

“Very well.” Tenel Ka began to rock the baby gently, and her crying faded back to mewling. “What is the Dark Nest doing in my ceiling?”

“They have a contract.” Ben furrowed his brow for a moment, then turned to Jacen. “I don’t understand. They want to—”

“I know, Ben,” Jacen said. “We won’t allow it.”

The scurrying noise stopped outside the nursery door, still in the ceiling, then rapidly built to a gnawing sound. Ben stared up toward the sound, his face pinched into a mask of fear and conflict.

“You can’t!” He seemed to be speaking to the insects. “She’s only a little kid!”

The gnawing grew louder, and the indecision suddenly vanished from Ben’s expression. “They’re almost through.” He rushed to the rear of the nursery, though there was no exit there that Jacen could see, and began to pull at the sides of a tall shelving cabinet. “We have to get her out, now!”

“Ben, calm down.” Jacen began to study the floor, reaching into the Force to see if there was anyone in the room below them. “Losing your head—”

“Ben, how do you know about the escape tunnel?” Tenel Ka interrupted. “Did you find it through the Force?”

“No,” Jacen said, answering for Ben. Joiners had trouble separating their own thoughts from those of the collective mind of the nest. He used the Force to pull Ben away from the cabinet, then said, “Gorog told him.”

Ben scowled. “No way!” He tried to go back to the cabinet. “I just knew.”

“Gorog knew,” Jacen countered. He activated his lightsaber, then plunged it into the floor and began to cut a large circle. “And if they want you to open that door—”

“—we don’t.” Tenel Ka reached out with the Force and pulled Ben to her side. “Let us do this Jacen’s way.”

A loud metallic patter sounded inside the cabinet Ben had tried to open and quickly changed to a cacophony of scratching and scraping. Jacen continued to cut his circle in the floor, at the same time trying to puzzle out who had contracted the Dark Nest to attack Tenel Ka’s child—and how. The Gorog were notoriously difficult to locate—the Jedi had not even been certain the nest had survived the battle at Qoribu until about three months ago—and experience suggested they were far too interested in their own agenda to accept an assassination contract for credits alone. So whoever had hired the nest possessed the resources to find it in the first place—and to provide whatever the Dark Nest had asked in return.

The gnawing above suddenly grew more distinct, and a section of ceiling dropped to the floor. Jacen lifted his free hand toward the hole, but DD-11A was already taking aim. As the first cloud of insects began to boil down into the room, her wrist folded down and discharged a crackling plume of fire.

Ben screamed and began to thrash about, trying to break free of Tenel Ka’s Force grasp.

“Ben, stop it!” Tenel Ka ordered. The baby was wailing in her arm now. “We cannot let theeemmmargh—”

Tenel Ka’s command ended in a startled cry as Ben whirled on her with an untrained but powerful Force shove. She slammed into the corner two meters above the floor, her head hitting with a sharp crack, her eyes rolling back and her shoulders slumping, but her arm never slackening beneath the crying baby.

Jacen used the Force to gently guide Tenel Ka to the floor, then turned to find Ben leaping toward DD-11A’s upraised arm. His eyes were bulging and he was screaming at the droid not to burn his friends, and Jacen was too unnerved by his young cousin’s anger—and the raw Force-strength he had displayed—to take the chance of being gentle. He extended his arm and used the Force to pull Ben into his grasp, grabbing him by the throat.

“Enough!” Jacen pinched down on the carotid arteries on the sides of the neck. “Sleep!”

Ben gurgled once; then his eyes rolled back in his head and he sank into a deep slumber that would not end until the Force command was lifted. There was a time, before Vergere and the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, when Jacen would have felt guilty for having to use such a powerful attack on a nine-year-old boy. But now all that mattered was protecting Tenel Ka and the baby, and Jacen felt nothing but relief as he laid his young cousin aside.

He cut through a few more centimeters of floor, and the ferrocrete substructure began to sag. He continued cutting until he judged that the droid’s mass would be enough to fold the circle down like a trapdoor, then shut off his lightsaber and stepped to DD-11A’s side.

The hole above the droid’s head was rimmed with white foam from the palace’s fire-suppression system, but the Gorog were not foolish enough to peer out of the same hole DD-11A had just blasted with flame. Instead Jacen could hear the insects scurrying past overhead, spreading out across the ceiling and beginning to gnaw in several different places.

“What do you have that can generate a good-sized fireball?” Jacen asked DD-11A.

“Grenades.” The droid pivoted around to the other side of the hole and sprayed a stream of fire at a line of scurrying, blue-black shadows. “Two each, thermal, concussion, and flash—”

“That’ll do. Here’s what I want you to do.”

Jacen outlined his plan, then gathered Ben in his arms and retreated to the corner with Tenel Ka and the baby. The Gorogs in the secret tunnel had scratched their way into the cabinet, and the tips of hundreds of tiny blue-black pincers were beginning to protrude through the thin line between the doors.

Jacen laid Ben beside Tenel Ka, then pointed. “DeDe!”

The droid swiveled around and poured flame into the crack. A trio of fire-suppression nozzles popped down to coat the doors with suppressant, but by then black wisps of smoke were already seeping out the back of the cabinet.

Jacen pulled his cloak off and held it in front of them at chin height.

“Okay, go!”

DD-11A’s photoreceptors lingered on the cloak. “Your camouflage is inadequate. I can’t leave the child with you.”

“It’s . . . fine.” Tenel Ka’s voice was groggy, but firm. “Do as Jacen commands.”

Jacen was already immersing himself in the Force, allowing it to flow through him as fast as his body would allow.

Small pieces of plasrock began to rain from the ceiling. DD-11A raised her arm and began to spray flame into the holes, but openings were appearing faster than even a droid could target. Still, DD-11A did not move to obey.

“Now, Honeygirl!” Tenel Ka snapped.

DD-11A’s head swiveled around. “Override command accepted.”

The droid stepped into the sagging circle Jacen had cut in the floor. The flap gave way beneath her weight and folded down, and she crashed into the room below.

Jacen exhaled in relief, then glanced over his shoulder and touched the corner behind them, forming a complete sensory image of how the walls looked and smelled and felt, even of the nearly inaudible sounds coming from the pipes and ducts concealed inside, then looked forward again and quickly expanded the image into the Force.

The baby continued to cry.

Tenel Ka started to open one of her nursing flaps, hoping to silence the child by feeding her, but Jacen stopped her. He needed that crying.

Instead of allowing the Force to flow through his body, he began to use his fear and anger to consciously pull it through. His skin began to nettle and his head to ache, and still he continued to draw the Force, catching his daughter’s wailing voice in the stillness of its depths, sending the sound streaming down through the floor after DD-11A, not allowing it to return to the surface until it had overtaken the metallic clank of the droid’s receding footsteps.

He was almost too late. The fire retardant had barely started to drip from the holes DD-11A had left in the ceiling before clouds of tiny blue-black Killiks began to drop into the room on their droning wings. They were much smaller than the assassin bugs that had attacked Mara and Saba the year before, only a little larger than Jacen’s thumb. But they had the same bristly antennae and black bulbous eyes, and they all had long, venom-dripping proboscises protruding between a pair of sharply curved mandibles.

Instead of dropping down through the hole, the Gorog simply seemed to swirl about the room, gathering in an ever-darkening swarm, ignoring the hole in the floor and the sound decoys Jacen had arranged. They began to land on the cabinet that concealed the escape tunnel and on the surrounding walls, on the door that closed off Tenel Ka’s dressing chamber, on the empty crib in the center of the nursery.

A few even came and landed on the cloak that Jacen was using as the basis of his Force illusion, and when a pair of Gorog started to hover in the air above the top edge of the cloak, he feared his plan would fail. The illusions he had learned to craft from the Adepts of the White Current were powerful, but even they would not keep an insect crawling in midair. Jacen began to think that he had overreached in planning to take out the entire swarm at once; he should have settled for leaving DD-11A behind to slow the assassins while he and Tenel Ka fled with Ben and the baby.

Then suddenly Tenel Ka’s palm was there for the insects to land on, and the illusion held.

Jacen looked over and saw the baby floating on a cushion of Force levitation, her head resting on the stump of Tenel Ka’s amputated arm and her feet kicking the empty air.

A tense moment later, the cabinet doors clanged open. The insects on Tenel Ka’s palm and Jacen’s robe sprang into the air, joining the black fog of Killiks that came growling into the nursery, and the whole boiling mass swirled down through the floor in pursuit of DD-11A and the sound of the baby’s crying voice.

Jacen maintained the illusion until the last insect had followed, then continued to maintain it for another hundred heartbeats. When no sound in the room remained except the pounding of their own hearts, he waited another hundred heartbeats, his eyes scanning every dark corner of the nursery, searching the shadows for any hint of blue carapace, examining the Force for ripples with no tangible source.

An uneasy feeling remained in the Force, but the ripple pattern was too diffuse and confused for Jacen to locate the observers Gorog had almost certainly left to watch the nursery. Still, the swarm would catch up to DD-11A any instant and discover it had been fooled.

Jacen dropped his illusion, then reached out in the Force and began to pull the folded circle of floor back into place. The ferrocrete substructure rose with a loud, grating shriek, and he felt the Force ripple as the swarm reversed course.

A handful of blue-black insects rose into the air from the dark corners of the nursery and came streaking toward the corner. Tenel Ka’s lightsaber sizzled to life behind Jacen, and one of the bugs burst into a yellow spray as she Force-smashed it against the wall.

Jacen finished pulling the floor section back into place, then flung his cloak up in front of the approaching insects and used the Force to pin them against the wall. The tough molytex lining lasted about a second before the tips of their slashing mandibles started to work through.

Jacen sprang across the room, Force-leaping over the crib, and smashed the insects beneath the pommel of his lightsaber.

A loud bang sounded from the corner as Tenel Ka’s lightsaber ignited the methane sac the assassin bugs carried inside their carapaces as a final surprise. He glanced over to see Tenel Ka trying to blink the spots from her eyes, her lightsaber weaving a defensive shield in front of her. The baby lay crying in the corner behind her, and two more insects were flitting around her knees, trying to dodge past her guard to attack.

Jacen stretched out in the Force and nudged them both into the path of her turquoise blade. They detonated with a brilliant flash that left stars dancing before his eyes and the baby screeching louder than ever, but Jacen sensed no pain in the infant, only fear and alarm.

Realizing he still had not heard the carumpf of DeDe’s first grenade, Jacen started to reach for his comlink—then heard a muffled drone building behind him and spun around to find the first Gorog crawling through the seam his blade had left in the floor.

“Now, DeDe!” Jacen screamed at the floor. He jumped into the center of the circle and began to drag his lightsaber along the seam, igniting the insects before they could take flight. “What’s taking so—”

A sharp jolt struck Jacen in the pit of his stomach, then suddenly he found himself kneeling in the middle of the circle, surrounded by a curtain of yellow flame, the air filled with the naphthalene smell of a thermal grenade.

“About—”

He was jolted by another explosion, and this time he was unsurprised enough to feel the floor buck as more flames came shooting up through the seam.

“—time.”

The floor bucked another time, then another, and suddenly white foam was showering down from the ceiling, smothering the smoke and the fumes beneath the soapy clean smell of flame retardant. A series of wet thuds sounded on the surrounding floor as the foam weighed down the handful of Gorog assassins that had escaped DD-11A’s grenades.

The insects immediately turned toward the corner and began to scurry toward where Tenel Ka was kneeling with the baby and Ben. Jacen used the Force to sweep them all back toward him, then batted them into oblivion with a single stroke of his lightsaber. They exploded brilliantly, but Jacen did not allow himself to look away. He was too afraid of letting one of the creatures slip past his blade.

A moment later, with spots still dancing before his eyes, he turned toward the corner. “Are you okay?” he asked Tenel Ka. “Both of you?”

“We are fine,” she answered. “It is Ben I worry about.”

“Don’t.” Though Jacen knew Ben’s behavior had not been the boy’s fault, he could not quite keep the anger he felt out of his voice. “I don’t think Gorog would hurt him. He’s practically a Joiner.”

“I am not worried about what Gorog did to him,” Tenel Ka answered. “I am worried about those bruises on his throat.”

Jacen stood, his vision clearing, and went to his young cousin’s side. The impression of his thumb and forefinger were purple and deep, clearly made in anger, but Ben’s breathing was regular and untroubled.

“There’s no need to worry.” Jacen placed his fingers over the bruises and touched Ben through the Force. “They’ll fade in no time.”

Tenel Ka frowned. “That is not the point, Jacen.”

Jacen looked up. “Then what is?”

A globule of fire retardant dropped off the wall and splatted at Tenel Ka’s feet. There were no insects inside, but she stomped on it anyway.

“Never mind. I will tell you later.” She stepped past Jacen and started toward the door to her dressing room. “We need to leave here. If I know my grandmother, she already knows that her first attempt failed.”

“Your grandmother?” Jacen lifted Ben in his arms and followed. “You think Ta’a Chume is behind this?”

“I know she is,” Tenel Ka said. She stopped at the door and faced Jacen with narrowed eyes. “The only ones who know about the escape tunnel are the Queen Mother . . . and the former Queen Mother.”