Dark Force Rising pt1

Star Wars

The Thrawn Trilogy

Book 2

Dark Force Rising

by Timothy Zahn

updated : 11.XI.2006

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Chapter 1

Directly ahead, the star was a marble-sized yellow orange ball, its intensity moderated by its distance and by the viewports' automatic sunscreens. Surrounding it and the ship itself were the stars, a spattering of blazing white pinpricks in the deep blackness of space. Directly beneath the ship, in the western part of the Great Northern Forest of the planet Myrkr, dawn was approaching.

The last dawn that some in that forest would ever see.

Standing at one of the side bridge viewports of the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera, Captain Pellaeon watched as the fuzzy terminator line crept toward the target zone on the planet below. Ten minutes ago, the ground forces surrounding the target had reported themselves ready; the Chimaera itself had been holding blockade position for nearly an hour. All that was missing now was the order to attack.

Slowly, feeling almost furtive about it, Pellaeon turned his head a couple of centimeters to the side. Behind him and to his right, Grand Admiral Thrawn was seated at his command station, his blue-skinned face expressionless, his glowing red eyes focused on the bank of status readouts wrapped around his chair. He hadn't spoken or moved from that position since the last of the ground forces had reported in, and Pellaeon could tell the bridge crew was beginning to get restless.

For his own part, Pellaeon had long since stopped trying to second-guess Thrawn's actions. The fact that the late Emperor had seen fit to make Thrawn one of his twelve Grand Admirals was evidence of his own confidence in the man-all the more so given Thrawn's not entirely-human heritage and the Emperor's well-known prejudices in sub matters. Moreover, in the year since Thrawn had taken command of the Chimaera and had begun the task of rebuilding the Imperial Fleet, Pellaeon had seen the Grand Admiral's military genius demonstrated time and again. Whatever his reason for holding off the attack, Pellaeon knew it was a good one.

As slowly as he'd turned away, he turned back to the viewport. But his movements had apparently not gone unnoticed. "A question, Captain?" Thrawn's smoothly modulated voice cut through the low hum of bridge conversation.

"No, sir," Pellaeon assured him, turning again to face his superior.

For a moment those glowing eyes studied him, and Pellaeon unconsciously braced himself for a reprimand, or worse. But Thrawn, as Pellaeon still had a tendency to forget, did not have the legendary and lethal temper that had been the hallmark of the Lord Darth Vader.

"You're perhaps wondering why we haven't yet attacked?" the Grand Admiral suggested in that same courteous tone.

"Yes, sir, I was," Pellaeon admitted. "All our forces appear to be in position.

"Our military forces are, yes," Thrawn agreed. "But not the observers I sent into Hyllyard City."

Pellaeon blinked. "Hyllyard City?"

"Yes. I find it unlikely that a man of Talon Karrde's cunning would set up a base in the middle of a forest without also setting up security contacts with others outside the immediate area. Hyllyard City is too far from Karrde's base for anyone there to directly witness our attack; hence, any sudden flurries of activity in the city will imply the existence of a more subtle line of communication. From that we'll be able to identify Karrde's contacts and put them under long-term surveillance. Eventually, they'll lead us to him."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, feeling a frown crease his forehead. "Then you're not expecting to take any of Karrde's own people alive.

The Grand Admiral's smile turned brittle. "On the contrary. I fully expect our forces to find an empty and abandoned base."

Pellaeon threw a glance out the viewport at the partly lit planet below. "In that case, sir : why are we attacking it?"

"Three reasons, Captain. First, even men like Talon Karrde occasionally make mistakes. It could well be that in the rush to evacuate his base he left some crucial bit of information behind. Second, as I've already mentioned, an attack on the base may lead us to his contacts in Hyllyard City. And third, it provides our ground forces with some badly needed field experience."

The glowing eyes bored into Pellaeon's face. "Never forget, Captain, that our goal is no longer merely the pitiful rear-guard harassment of the past five years. With Mount Tantiss and our late Emperor's collection of Spaarti Cylinders in our hands, the initiative is once again ours. Very soon now we'll begin the process of taking planets back from the Rebellion; and for that we'll need an army every bit as well trained as the officers and crew of the Fleet."

"Understood, Admiral," Pellaeon said.

"Good." Thrawn lowered his gaze to his displays. "It's time. Signal General Covell that he may begin."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, leaving the viewport and returning to his station. He gave the readouts a quick check and tapped his comm switch, peripherally aware as he did so that Thrawn had likewise activated his own comm. Some private message to his spies in Hyllyard City? "This is the Chimaera," Pellaeon said. "Launch the attack."

"Acknowledged, Chimaera," General Covell said into his helmet comlink, careful to keep the quiet scorn in his gut from getting through to his voice. It was typical-and disgustingly predictable. You scrambled around like mad hellions, got your troops and vehicles on the ground and set up and then you stood around waiting for those strutting Fleet people in their spotless uniforms and nice clean ships to finish sipping their tea and finally get around to letting you loose.

Well, get yourselves on the table, he thought sardonically in the direction of the Star Destroyer overhead. Because whether Grand Admiral Thrawn was interested in real results or just a good rousing show, he was going to get his money's worth. Reaching to the board in front of him, he keyed for local command frequency. "General Covell to all units: we've got the light. Let's go."

The acknowledgments came in; and with a shiver from the steel deck beneath him, the huge AT-AT walker was off lumbering its deceptively awkward-looking way through the forest toward the encampment a kilometer away. Ahead of the AT-AT, occasionally visible through the armored transparisteel viewport, a pair of AT-ST scout walkers ran in twin-point formation, tracking along the AT-AT's path and watching for enemy positions or booby traps.

Not that such futile gestures would do Karrde any good. Covell had directed literally hundreds of assault campaigns in his years of Imperial service, and he knew full well the awesome capabilities of the fighting machines under his command.

Beneath the viewport, the holographic tactical display was lit up like a decorative disk, the winking red, white, and green lights showing the positions of Covell's circle of AT-ATs, AT-STs, and hoverscout attack vehicles, all closing on Karrde's encampment in good order.

Good, but not perfect. The north-flank AT-AT and its support vehicles were lagging noticeably behind the rest of the armored noose. "Unit Two, bring it up," he said into his comlink.

"Trying, sir," the voice came back, tinny and distant through the strange dampening effects of Myrkr's metalrich flora. "We're encountering some thick vine clusters that are slowing down our scout walkers."

"Is it bothering your AT-AT any?"

"No, sir, but I wanted to keep the flank together-"

"Pattern coherence is a fine goal during academy maneuvers, Major," Covell cut him off. "But not at the expense of an overall battle plan. If the AT-STs can't keep up, leave them behind."

"Yes, sir."

Covell broke the connection with a snort. The Grand Admiral was right about one thing, at least: his troops were going to need a lot more battle seasoning before they would be up to real Imperial standards. Still, the raw material was there. Even as he watched, the north flank reformed itself, with the hoverscouts spreading forward to take up the AT-STs' former point positions while the lagging AT-STs themselves fell back into rear-guard deployment.

The energy sensor beeped a proximity warning: they were coming up on the encampment. "Status?" he asked his crew.

"All weapons charged and ready," the gunner reported, his eyes on the targeting displays.

"No indications of resistance, active or passive," the driver added.

"Stay alert," Covell ordered keying for command frequency again. "All units: move in."

And with a final crash of mangled vegetation, the AT-AT broke through into the clearing.

It was an impressive sight. From all four sides of the open area, in nearly perfect parade-ground unison, the other three AT-ATs appeared from the forest cover in the predawn gloom, the AT-STs and hoverscouts clustered around their feet quickly fanning out on all sides to encircle the darkened buildings.

Covell gave the sensors a quick but complete check. Two energy sources were still functioning, one in the central building, the other in one of the outer barracks-style structures. There was no evidence of operating sensors, or of weapons or energy fields. The life-form analyzer ran through its complicated algorithms and concluded that the outer buildings were devoid of life.

The large main building, on the other hand -

"I'm getting approximately twenty life-form readings from the main building, General," the number four AT-AT commander reported. "All in the central section."

"They don't register as human, though," Covell's driver murmured.

"Maybe they're being shielded," Covell grunted, looking out the viewport. Still no movement from the encampment. "Let's find out. Assault squads: go."

The hoverscouts popped their aft hatchways, and from each came a squad of eight soldiers, laser rifles held tautly across battle-armored chests as they dropped to the ground. Half of each squad took up backstop position, their rifles trained on the encampment from the partial cover of their hoverscout, while the other half sprinted across the open ground to the outer line of buildings and sheds. There, they assumed covering positions, allowing their comrades in the rear to similarly advance. It was a centuries-old military tactic, executed with the kind of squeamish determination that Covell would have expected of green troops. Still, the raw material was definitely there.

The soldiers continued their leap-frog approach to the main building, with small groups breaking off the main encirclement to check out each of the outer structures as they passed. The point men reached the central building-a brilliant flash lit up the forest as they blasted down the door-a slightly confused scramble as the rest of the troops piled through.

And then, silence.

For a handful of minutes the silence continued, punctuated only by occasional short commands from the troop commanders. Covell listened, watching the sensors : and finally the report came through. "General Covell, this is Lieutenant Barse. We've secured the target zone, sir. There's no one here."

Covell nodded. "Very good, Lieutenant. How does it look?"

"Like they pulled out in a hurry, sir," the other said. "They left a fair amount of stuff behind, but it all looks pretty much like junk."

"That'll be for the scanning crew to decide," Covell told him.

"Any indication of booby traps or other unpleasant surprises?"

"None at all, sir. Oh-and those life-forms we picked up are nothing but these long furry animals living on the tree growing up through the center of the roof."

Covell nodded again. Ysalamiri, he believed they were called. Thrawn had been making a big deal about the stupid creatures for a couple of months now, though what use they could possibly be to the war effort he couldn't guess. Eventually, he supposed, the Fleet people would get around to letting him in on the big secret. "Set up a defensive honeycomb," he ordered the lieutenant. "Signal the scanning crew when you're ready. And get comfortable. The Grand Admiral wants this place taken apart, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

"Very good, General," the voice said, almost too faint to hear despite the heavy amplification and computer scrubbing. "Proceed with the dismantling."

Seated at the Wild Karrde's helm, Mara Jade half turned to face the man standing behind her. "I suppose that's it, then," she said.

For a moment Talon Karrde didn't seem to hear her. He just stood there, gazing through the viewport at the distant planet, a tiny bluish-white crescent shape visible around the jagged edge of the sun-skimmer asteroid the Wild Karr was snuggled up against. Mara was just about to repeat the comment when he stirred. "Yes," he said, that calm voice showing no hint of the emotion he was obviously feeling. "I suppose it is."

Mara exchanged glances with Aves, at the copilot station, then looked back up at Karrde. "Shouldn't we be going, then?" she prompted.

Karrde took a deep breath : and as she watched him, Mara caught in his expression a glimmer of what the Myrkr base had meant to him. More than just a base, it had been his home.

With an effort, she suppressed the thought. So Karrde had lost his home. Big deal. She'd lost far more than that in her lifetime and had survived Just fine. He'd get over it.

"I asked if we should get going."

"I heard you," Karrde said, the flicker of emotion vanishing again into that slightly sardonic facade of his. "I think perhaps we ought to wait a little longer. See if we left anything behind that might point in the direction of our Rishi base."

Mara looked at Aves again. "We were pretty thorough," Aves said. "I don't think there was any mention of Rishi anywhere except the main computer, and that left with the first group out."

"I agree," Karrde said. "Are you willing to stake your life on that assessment?"

Aves's lip twitched. "Not really."

"Nor am I. So we wait."

"What if they spot us?" Mara persisted. "Skulking behind asteroids is the oldest trick on the list."

"They won't spot us." Karrde was quietly positive. "Actually, I doubt the possibility will even occur to them. The average man running from the likes of Grand Admiral Thrawn is unlikely to stop running until he's a good deal farther away than this."

Are you willing to stake your life on that assessment? Mara thought sourly. But she kept the retort to herself. He was probably right; and anyway, if the Chimaera or any of its TIE fighters started toward Wild Karrde, they would have no trouble punching the engines up to power and going to lightspeed well ahead of the attack.

The logic and tactics seemed clean. But still, Mara could feel something nagging at the back of her mind. Something that didn't feel good about all this.

Gritting her teeth, she adjusted the ship's sensors to their highest sensitivity and checked once more that the engine prestart sequence was keyed in and ready. And then settled in to wait.

The scanning crew was fast, efficient, and thorough; and it took them just over thirty minutes to come up completely dry.

"Well, so much for that." Pellaeon grimaced as he watched the negative reports scroll up his display. A good practice session for the ground forces, perhaps, but otherwise the whole exercise seemed to have been pretty useless. "Unless your observers have picked up any reactions in Hyllyard City," he added, turning to face Thrawn.

The Grand Admiral's glowing red eyes were on his displays. "There was a small twitch, as a matter of fact," he said. "Cut off almost before it began, but I think the implications are clear."

Well, that was something, anyway. "Yes, sir. Shall I have Surveillance begin equipping a long-term ground team?"

"Patience, Captain," Thrawn said. "It may not be necessary, after all. Key for a midrange scan, and tell me what you see.

Pellaeon swiveled back to his command board and tapped for the appropriate readout. There was Myrkr itself of course, and the standard TIE fighter defense cloud ranged around the Chimaera. The only other object anywhere within midrange distance-"You mean that little asteroid out there?"

"That's the one," Thrawn nodded. "Nothing remarkable about it, is there? No, don't do a sensor focus," he added, almost before the thought of doing one had even occurred to Pellaeon. "We wouldn't want to prematurely flush our quarry, would we?"

"Our quarry?" Pellaeon repeated, frowning at the sensor data again. The routine sensor scans that had been done of the asteroid three hours earlier had come up negative, and nothing could have sneaked up on it since then without being detected. "With all due respect, sir, I don't see any indication that anything's out there.

"I don't either," Thrawn agreed. "But it's the only sizable cover available for nearly ten million kilometers around Myrkr. There's really no other place for Karrde to watch our operation from."

Pellaeon pursed his lips. "Your permission, Admiral, but I doubt Karrde is foolish enough to just sit around waiting for us to arive.

The glowing red eyes narrowed, just a bit. "You forget, Captain," he said softly, "that I've met the man. More important, I've seen the sort of artwork he collects." He turned back to his displays. "No; he's out there. I'm sure of it. Talon Karrde is not merely a smuggler, you see. Perhaps not even primarily a smuggler. His real love is not goods or money but information. More than anything else in the galaxy, he craves knowledge:and the knowledge of what we have or have not found here is too valuable a gem for him to pass up."

Pellaeon studied the Grand Admiral's profile. It was, in his opinion, a pritty tenuous leap of logic. But on the other hand, he'd seen too many similar leaps borne out not to take this one seriously. "Shall I order a TIE fighter squad to investigate, sir?"

"As I said, Captain, patience," Thrawn said. "Even in sensor stealth mode with all engines shut down, he'll have made sure he can power up and escape before any attack force could reach him." He smiled at Pellaeon. "Or rather, any attack force from the Chimaera."

A stray memory clicked: Thrawn, reaching for his comm just as Pellaeon was giving the ground forces the order to attack. "You sent a message to the rest of the fleet," he said. "Timing it against my attack order to mask the transmission.

Thrawn's blue-black eyebrows lifted a fraction. "Very good, Captain. Very good, indeed."

Pellaeon felt a touch of warmth on his cheeks. The Grand Admiral's compliments were few and far between. "Thank you, sir."

Thrawn nodded. "More precisely, my message was to a single ship, the Constrainer. It will arrive in approximately ten minutes. At which point"-his eyes glittered-"we'll see just how accurate my reading of Karrde has been."

Over the Wild Karrde's bridge speakers, the reports from the scanning crew were beginning to taper off. "Doesn't sound like they've found anything," Aves commented.

"Like you said, we were thorough," Mara reminded him, hardly hearing her own words. The nameless thing nagging at the back of her mind seemed to be getting stronger. "Can we get out of here now?" she asked, turning to look at Karrde.

He frowned down at her. "Try to relax, Mara. They can't possibly know we're here. There's been no sensorfocus probe of the asteroid, and without one there's no way for them to detect this ship."

"Unless a Star Destroyer's sensors are better than you think," Mara retorted.

"We know all about their sensors," Aves soothed. "Ease up, Mara, Karrde knows what he's doing. The Wild Karrde has probably the tightest sensor stealth mode this side of-"

He broke off as the bridge door opened behind them; and Mara turned just as Karrde's two pet vornskrs bounded into the room.

Dragging, very literally, their handler behind them.

"What are you doing here, Chin?" Karrde asked.

"Sorry, Capt'," Chin puffed, digging his heels into the deck and leaning back against the taut leashes. The effort was only partially successful; the predators were still pulling him slowly forward. "I couldn't stop them. I thought maybe, they wanted to see you, hee?"

"What's the matter with you two, anyway?" Karrde chided the animals, squatting down in front of them. "Don't you know we're busy?"

The vornskrs didn't look at him. Didn't even seem to notice his presence, for that matter. They continued staring straight ahead as if he wasn't even there.

Staring directly at Mara.

"Hey," Karrde said, reaching over to slap one of the animals lightly across the muzzle. "I'm talking to you, Sturm. What's gotten into you, anyway?" He glanced along their unblinking line of sight-

Paused for a second and longer look. "Are you doing something, Mara?"

Mara shook her head, a cold shiver tingling up her back. She'd seen that look before, on many of the wild vornskrs she'd run into during that long three-day trek through the Myrkr's forest with Luke Skywalker.

Except that those vornskr stares hadn't been directed at her. They'd been reserved instead for Skywalker. Usually just before they attacked him.

"That's Mara, Sturm," Karrde told the animal, speaking to it as he might a child. "Mara. Come on, now-you saw her all the time back home."

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Sturm stopped his forward pull and turned his attention to his master. "Mara," Karrde repeated, looking th'e vornskr firmly in the eye. "A friend. You hear that, Drang?" he added, reaching over to grip the other vornskr's muzzle. "She's a friend. Understand?"

Drang seemed to consider that. Then, as reluctantly as Sturm had, he lowered his head and stopped pulling. "That's better," Karrde said, scratching both voruslo's briefly behind their ears and standing up again. "Better take them back down, Chin. Maybe walk them around the main hold-give them some exercise.

"If I can find a clear track through all the stuff in there, hee?" Chin grunted, twitching back on the leashes. "Come on, littles - we go now."

With only a slight hesitation the two vornskrs allowed him to take them off the bridge. Karrde watched as the door shut behind them. "I wonder what that was all about," he said, giving Mara a thoughtful look.

"I don't know," she told him, hearing the tightness in her voice.

With the temporary distraction now gone, the strange dread she'd been feeling was back again in full force. She swiveled back to her board, half expecting to see a squadron of TIE fighters bearing down on them.

But there was nothing. Only the Chimaera, still sitting harmlessly out there in orbit around Myrkr. No threat any of the Wild Karrde's instruments could detect. But the tingling was getting stronger and stronger:

And suddenly she could sit still no longer. Reaching out to the control board, she keyed for engine prestart.

"Mara!" Aves yelped, jumping in his seat as if he'd been stung. "What in-?"

"They're coming," Mara snarled back, hearing the strain of a half dozen tangled emotions in her voice. The die was irrevocably cast-her activation of the Wild Karrde's engines would have set sensors screaming all over the Chimaera. Now there was nowhere to go but out.

She looked up at Karrde, suddenly afraid of what his expression might be saying. But he was just standing there looking down at her, a slightly quizzical frown on his face. "They don't appear to be coming," he pointed out mildly.

She shook her head, feeling the pleading in her eyes. "You have to believe me," she said, uncomfortably aware that she didn't really believe it herself. "They're getting ready to attack."

"I believe you," he said soothingly. Or perhaps he, too, recognized that there weren't any other choices left. "Aves: lightspeed calculation. Take the easiest course setting that's not anywhere toward Rishi; we'll stop and reset later."

"Karrde-"

"Mara is second in command," Karrde cut him off. "As such, she has the right and the duty to make important decisions.

"Yeah, but-" Aves stopped, the last word coming out pinched as he strangled it off. "Yeah," he said between clenched teeth. Throwing a glower at Mara, he turned to the nav computer and got to work.

"You might as well get us moving, Mara," Karrde continued, stepping over to the vacant communications chair and sitting down. "Keep the asteroid between us and the Chimaera as long as you can.

"Yes, sir," Mara said. Her tangle of emotions was starting to dissolve now, leaving a mixture of anger and profound embarrassment in its wake. She'd done it again. Listened to her inner feelings-tried to do things she knew full well she couldn't do-and in the process had once again wound up clutching the sharp end of the bayonet.

And it was probably the last she'd hear of being Karrde's second in command, too. Command unity in front of Aves was one thing, but once they were out of here and he could get her alone there was going to be hell to pay. She'd be lucky if he didn't bounce her out of his organization altogether. Jabbing viciously at her board, she swung the Wild Karrde around, turning its nose away from the asteroid and starting to drive toward deep space-

And with a flicker of pseudomotion, something big shot in from lightspeed, dropping neatly into normal space not twenty kilometers away.

An Imperial Interdictor Cruiser.

Aves yelped a startled-sounding curse. "We got company," he barked.

"I see it," Karrde said. As cool as ever : but Mara could hear the tinge of surprise in his voice, too. "What's our time to lightspeed?"

"It'll be another minute," Aves said tautly. "There's a lot of junk in the outer system for the computer to work through."

"We have a race, then," Karrde said. "Mara?"

"Up to point seven three," she said, nursing as much power as she could out of the still-sluggish engines. He was right; it was indeed going to be a race. With their four huge gravity-wave generators capable of simulating planet-sized masses, Interdictor Cruisers were the Empire's weapon of choice for trapping an enemy ship in normal space while TIE fighters pounded it to rubble. But coming in fresh out of lightspeed itself, the Interdictor would need another minute before it could power up those generators. If she could get the Wild Karrde out of range by then:

"More visitors," Aves announced. "A couple, squadrons of TIE fighters coming from the Chimaera.

"We're up to point eight six power," Mara reported. "We'll be ready for lightspeed as soon as the nav computer gives me a course.

"Interdictor status?"

"Grav generators are powering up," Aves said. On Mara's tactical display a ghostly cone appeared, showing the area where the lightspeed-dampening field would soon exist She changed course slightly, aiming for the nearest edge, and risked a glance at the nav computer display. Almost ready. The hazy grav cone was rapidly becoming more substantial:

The computer scope pinged. Mara wrapped her hand around the three hyperspace control levers at the front of the control board and gently pulled them toward her. The Wild Karrde shuddered slightly, and for a second it seemed that the Interdictor had won their deadly race. Then, abruptly, the stars outside burst into starlines.

They'd made it.

Aves heaved a sigh of relief as the starlines faded into the mottled sky of hyperspace. "Talk about slicing the mynock close to the hull. How do you suppose they tumbled that we were out there, anyway?"

"No idea," Karrde said, his voice cool. "Mara?"

"I don't know, either." Mara kept her eyes on her displays, not daring to look at either of them. "Thrawn may have just been playing a hunch. He does that sometimes."

"Lucky for us he's not the only one who gets hunches," Aves offered, his voice sounding a little strange. "Nice going, Mara. Sorry I jumped on you."

"Yes," Karrde seconded. "A very good job indeed."

"Thanks," Mara muttered, keeping her eyes on her control board and blinking back the tears that had suddenly come to her eyes. So it was back. She'd hoped fervently that her locating of Skywalker's X-wing out in deep space had been an isolated event. A fluke, more his doing than hers.

But no. It was all coming back, as it had so many times before in the past five years. The hunches and sensory flickers, the urges and the compulsions.

Which meant that, very soon now, the dreams would probably be starting again, too.

Angrily, she swiped at her eyes, and with an effort unclenched her jaw. It was a familiar enough pattern : but this time things were going to be different. Always before there'd been nothing she could do about the voices and urges except to suffer through the cycle. To suffer, and to be ready to break out of whatever niche she'd managed to carve for herself when she finally betrayed herself to those around her.

But she wasn't a serving girl in a Phorliss cantina this time, or a come-up deflector for a swoop gang on Caprioril, or even a hyperdrive mechanic stuck in the backwater of the Ison Corridor. She was second in command to the most powerful smuggler in the galaxy, with the kind of resources and mobility she hadn't had since the death of the Emperor.

The kind of resources that would let her find Luke Skywalker again. And kill him.

Maybe then the voices would stop.

For a long minute Thrawn stood at the bridge viewport, looking out at the distant asteroid and the now superfluous Interdictor Cruiser near it. It was, Pellaeon thought uneasily, almost the identical posture the Grand Admiral had assumed when Luke Skywalker had so recently escaped a similar trap. Holding his breath, Pellaeon stared at Thrawn's back, wondering if another of the Chimaera's crewers was about to be executed for this failure.

Thrawn turned around. "Interesting," he said, his voice conversational. "Did you note the sequence of events, Captain?"

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said cautiously. "The target was already powering up before the Constrainer arrived."

"Yes," Thrawn nodded. "And it implies one of three things. Either Karrde was about to leave anyway, or else he panicked for some reason-" The red eyes glittered. "Or else he was somehow warned off."

Pellaeon felt his back stiffen. "I hope you're not suggesting, sir, that one of our people tipped him."

"No, of course not." Thrawn's lip twitched slightly. "Loyalties of your crewers aside, no one on the Chimaera knew the Constrainer was on its way; and no one on the Constrainer could have sent any messages here without our detecting them." He stepped over to his command station and sat down, a thoughtful look on his face. "An interesting puzzle, Captain. One I'll have to give some thought to. In the meantime, we have more pressing matters. The task of acquiring new warships, for one. Have there been any recent responses to our invitation?"

"Nothing particularly interesting, Admiral," Pellaeon said, pulling up the comm log and giving it a quick scan to refresh his memory. "Eight of the fifteen groups I contacted have expressed interest, though none were willing to commit themselves to anything specific. We're still waiting on the others."

Thrawn nodded. "We'll give them a few weeks. If there've been no results after that time, we'll make the invitation a bit more compulsory."

"Yes, sir." Pellaeon hesitated. "There's also been another communication from Jomark."

Thrawn turned his glowing eyes on Pellaeon. "I would very much appreciate it, Captain," he said, biting off each word, "if you would try to make it clear to our exalted Jedi Master C'baoth that if he persists in these communications he's going to subvert the whole purpose of putting him on Jomark in the first place. If the Rebels get even a hint of any connection between us, he can forget about Skywalker ever showing up there."

"I have explained it to him, sir," Pellaeon grimaced. "Numerous times. His reply is always that Skywalker is going to show up. And then he demands to know when you're going to get around to delivering Skywalker's sister to him."

For a long moment Thrawn said nothing. "I suppose there'll be no shutting him up until he gets what he wants," he said at last. "Nor of getting any uncomplaining work out of him, either."

"Yes, he was grumbling about the attack coordination you've been having him do," Pellaeon nodded. "He's warned me several times that he can't predict exactly when Skywalker will arrive on Jomark."

"And implied that a horrible retribution would fall upon us if he's not there when that happens," Thrawn growled. "Yes, I know the routine well. And I'm getting rather tired of it." He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Very well, Captain. The next time C'baoth calls, you may inform him that the Taanab operation will be his last for the immediate future. Skywalker isn't likely to make it to Jomark for at least two more weeks-the little pot of political confusion we've stirred up in the Rebellion high command should occupy him at least that long. As to Organa Solo and her unborn Jedi:you may also inform him that from now on I'll be taking a personal hand in that matter."

Pellaeon threw a quick glance over his shoulder, to where the Grand Admiral's bodyguard, Rukh, stood silently near the aft bridge door. "Does that mean you'll be taking the Noghri off the job, sir?" he asked quietly.

"Do you have a problem with that, Captain?"

"No, sir. May I respectfully remind the Grand Admiral, though, that the Noghri have never liked leaving a mission uncompleted."

"The Noghri are servants of the Empire," Thrawn countered coldly. "More to the point, they're loyal to me personally. They will do as they're told." He paused. "However, I'll take your concerns under advisement. At any rate, our task here at Myrkr is completed. Order General Covell to bring his force back up."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, signalling the communications officer to relay the message.

"I'll want the general's report on file in three hours," Thrawn continued. "Twelve hours after that I want his recommendations as to the three best infantry troopers and two best mechanized operators in the assault. Those five men will be transferred to the Mount Tantiss operation and given immediate transport to Wayland."

"Understood," Pellaeon nodded, dutifully logging the orders in Covell's file. Such recommendations had been part of standard Imperial procedure for several weeks now, ever since the Mount Tantiss operation had begun in earnest. But Thrawn nevertheless still periodically went out of his way to mention it to his officers. Perhaps as a not-so-subtle reminder of how vitally important those recommendations were to the Grand Admiral's sweeping plan to crush the Rebellion.

Thrawn looked out the viewport again at the planet beneath them.

"And while we await the general's return, you'll contact Surveillance regarding that long-term team for Hyllyard City." He smiled. "It's a very large galaxy, Captain, but even a man like Talon Karrde can run only so long. Eventually, he'll have to come to rest."

It wasn't really deserving of its name, the High Castle of Jomark. Not in Jonius C'baoth's estimation, anyway. Short and dirty, its stonework ill-fitting in places and as alien as the long-gone race that had built it, it squatted uneasily between two of the larger crags on what was left of an ancient volcanic cone. Still, with the rest of the rim circling around in the distance, and the brilliant blue waters of Ring Lake four hundred meters almost straight down beneath him, C'baoth could allow that the natives had at least found some good scenery to build their castle on. Their castle, or temple, or whatever. It had been a good place for a Jedi Master to move into, if only because the colonists seemed to hold the place in awe. Then too, the dark island that filled the center of the crater and gave the lake its ring shape provided a suitably hidden landing site for Thrawn's annoyingly endless stream of shuttles.

But it was neither the scenery, nor the power, nor even the Empire that held C'baoth's thoughts as he stood on the castle terrace and gazed down into Ring Lake. It was, instead, the strange flicker he'd just felt in the Force.

He'd felt it before, this flicker. Or at least he thought he had.

Threads to the past were always so hard to follow, so easily lost in the mists and the hurryings of the present. Even of his own past he had only glimpses of memory, scenes as if from a history record. He rather thought he remembered someone trying to explain the reasons to him once, but the explanation was long gone in the darkness of the past.

It didn't matter anyway. Memory wasn't important; concentration wasn't important; his own past wasn't important. He could call upon the Force when he wanted to, and that was what was important. As long as he could do that, no one could ever hurt him or take away what he had.

Except that Grand Admiral Thrawn had already taken it away. Hadn't he?

C'baoth looked around the terrace. Yes. Yes; this wasn't the home and city and world he'd chosen to mold and command as his own. This wasn't Wayland, which he'd wrested from the Dark Jedi whom the Emperor had set to guard his Mount Tantiss storehouse. This was Jomark, where he was waiting for : someone.

He stroked his fingers through his long white beard, forcing himself to concentrate. He was waiting for Luke Skywalker-that was it. Luke Skywalker was going to come to him, and Luke Skywalker's sister and her as-yet unborn twins, and he would turn all of them into his followers. Grand Admiral Thrawn had promised them to him, in return for his help to the Empire.

He winced at the thought. It was hard, this help that Grand Admiral Thrawn wanted. He had to concentrate hard to do what they wanted; to hold his thoughts and feelings closely in line, and for long periods at a time. On Wayland he hadn't had to do anything like that, not since he'd fought against the Emperor's Guardian.

He smiled. It had been a grand battle, that fight against the Guardian. But even as he tried to remember it, the details skittered away like straws in the wind. It had been too long ago.

Long ago : like these flickers in the Force had been.

C'baoth's fingers slipped away from his beard, to the medallion nestled against the skin of his chest. Squeezing the warm metal against his palm, he fought against the mists of the past, trying to see beyond them. Yes. Yes, he was not mistaken. These same flickers had come three times before in the past few seasons. Had come, had stayed for a time, and then once again had gone dormant. Like someone who had learned how to utilize the Force for a time, but then somehow forgotten.

He didn't understand it. But it was of no threat to him, and so wasn't important.

Above him, he could sense now the Imperial Star Destroyer entering high orbit, far above the clouds where none of the others on Jomark would see it. When night fell, the shuttle would come, and they would take him off somewhere-Taanab, he thought-to help coordinate yet another of these multiple Imperial attacks.

He wasn't looking forward to the effort and pain. But it would all be worth it when he had his Jedi. He would remake them in his own image, and they would be his servants and his followers all the days of their lives.

And then even Grand Admiral Thrawn would have to admit that he, Joruus C'baoth, had found the true meaning of power.

Chapter 2

"I'm sorry, Luke," Wedge Antilles' voice said over the comm, the words punctuated by occasional spittings of static. "I've tried every handle I can think of, including pulling all the rank I've got and some I haven't. It's still no go. Some data pusher up the riser somewhere has issued orders that the Sluissi's own defense ships have absolute top priority for repair work. Until we can find this guy and talk him into a special dispensation, we're not going to get anyone to touch your X-wing."

Luke Skywalker grimaced, feeling four hours' worth of frustration welling up in his throat. Four precious hours wasted, with the end still not in sight, while on Coruscant the future of the entire New Republic was even now teetering on the edge. "Did you get this data pusher's name?" he asked.

"I couldn't even get that," Wedge said. "Every line I've tried has disappeared about three layers up from the mechanics themselves. I'm still trying, but this whole place has gone kind of batty."

"A major Imperial attack will do that to you," Luke conceded with a sigh. He could understand why the Sluissi had set their priorities the way they had; but it wasn't like he was just going off on a joyride, either. It was a good six-day flight from here to Coruscant as it was, and every hour that he was delayed was one more hour the political forces trying to oust Admiral Ackbar would have to consolidate their position. "Keep trying, okay? I've got to get out of here."

"Sure," Wedge said. "Look, I know you're worried about what's happening on Coruscant. But any one person can only do so much. Even a Jedi."

"I know," Luke agreed reluctantly. And Han was on his way back, and Leia was already there : "I just hate sitting around being out of it."

"Me, too." Wedge lowered his voice a bit. "You've still got one other option. Don't forget that."

"I won't," Luke promised. It was certainly an option he'd been tempted to take his friend up on. But Luke wasn't officially a member of the New Republic military anymore; and with the New Republic forces here at the shipyards still at full alert, Wedge could face an immediate court martial for handing his X-wing over to a civilian. Councilor Borsk Fey'lia and his anti-Ackbar faction might not want to bother making an example out of someone as relatively low in rank as a starfighter wing commander. But then again, they might.

Wedge, of course, knew all that better than Luke did. Which made the offer that much more generous. "I appreciate it," Luke told him. "But unless things get really desperate, it'll probably be better all around if I just wait for mine to get fixed."

"Okay. How's General Calrissian doing?"

"He's in roughly the same boat as my X-wing," Luke said dryly. "Every doctor and medical droid in the place is tied up treating battle injuries. Digging minor bits of metal and glass out of someone who's not currently bleeding is kind of low on their priority list at the moment."

"I'll bet he's really pleased with that."

"I've seen him happier," Luke admitted. "I'd better go give the medics another push. Why don't you get back to prodding the Sluissi bureaucracy from your end-if we both push hard enough, maybe we can meet in the middle."

Wedge chuckled. "Right. Talk to you later." With one final crackle of static, the comm cut off. "And good luck," Luke added softly as he got up from the public-use comm desk and headed off across the Sluis Van Central reception area toward the medical corridor. If the rest of the Sluissi equipment had been damaged as much as their in-system communications, it could be a long time indeed before anyone had enough spare time to put a couple of new hyperdrive motivators into a civilian's X-wing.

Still, things weren't quite as dark as they could have been, he decided as he maneuvered his way carefully through the hurrying crowds that seemed to be going in all directions at once. There were several New Republic ships here, whose work crews might be more willing than the Sluissi themselves to bend the rules for a former officer like Luke. And if worse came to worst, he could try calling Coruscant to see if Mon Mothma could expedite matters any.

The drawback to that approach was that calling for help would probably give the appearance of weakness : and to show weakness in front of Councilor Fey'lya was not the right signal to be sending now.

Or so it seemed to him. On the other hand, showing that he could get the head of the New Republic to give him personal attention could as easily be seen instead as a sign of strength and solidarity.

Luke shook his head in mild frustration. It was, he supposed, a generally useful trait for a Jedi to be able to see both sides of an argument. It did, however, make the machinations of politics seem even murkier than they already were. Another good reason why he'd always tried to leave politics to Leia.

He could only hope that she'd be equal to this particular challenge.

The medical wing was as crowded as the rest of the huge Sluis Van Central space station, but here at least a large percentage of the inhabitants were sitting or lying quietly off to the side instead of running around. Threading his way between the, chairs and parked float gurneys, Luke reached the large ward room that had been turned into a waiting area for low-priority patients. Lando Calrissian, his expression and sense hovering somewhere between impatience and boredom, was sitting off in the far corner, holding a medpack desensitizer against his chest with one hand while balancing a borrowed data pad with the other. He was scowling at the latter as Luke came up. "Bad news?" Luke asked.

"No worse than everything else that's happened to me lately," Lando said, dropping the data pad onto the empty chair beside him. "The price of hfredium has dropped again on the general market. If it doesn't come up a little in the next month or two, I'm going to be out a few hundred thousand."

"Ouch," Luke agreed. "That's the main product of your Nomad City complex, isn't it?"

"One of several main products, yes," Lando said with a grimace. "We're diversified enough that normally it wouldn't hurt us much. The problem is that lately I've been stockpiling the stuff expecting the price to go up. Now it's done just the opposite."

Luke suppressed a smile. That was Lando, all right. Respectable and legitimate though he might have become, he was still not above dabbling in a little manipulative gambling on the side. "Well, if it helps any, I've got some good news for you. Since all the ships that the Imperials tried to steal belonged directly to the New Republic, we won't have to go through the local Sluissi bureaucracy to get your mole miners back. It'll just be a matter of submitting a proper claim to the Republic military commander and hauling them out of here."

The lines in Lando's face eased a little. "That's great, Luke," he said. "I really appreciate it-you have no idea what I had to go through to get hold of those mole miners in the first place. Finding replacements would be a major headache."

Luke waved the thanks away. "Under the circumstances, it was the least we could do. Let me go over to the routing station, see if I can hurry things up a little for you. Are you finished with the data pad?"

"Sure, take it back. Anything new on your X-wing?"

"Not really," Luke said, reaching past him to pick up the data pad. "They're still saying it'll take another few hours at least to-"

He caught the abrupt change in Lando's sense a second before the other's hand suddenly snaked up to grip his arm. "What is it?" Luke asked.

Lando was staring at nothing, his forehead furrowed with concentration as be sniffed the air. "Where were you just now?" he demanded.

"I went through the reception area to one of the public comm desks," Luke said. Lando wasn't just sniffing the air, he realized suddenly: he was sniffing at Luke's sleeve. "Why?"

Lando let Luke's arm drop. "It's carababba tabac," he said slowly. "With some armudu spice mixed in. I haven't smelled that since:" He looked up at Luke, his sense abruptly tightening even further. "It's Niles Ferrier. Has to be."

"Who's Niles Ferrier?" Luke asked, feeling his heartbeat start to pick up speed. Lando's uneasiness was contagious.

"Human-big and built sort of thick," Lando said. "Dark hair, probably a beard, though that comes and goes. Probably smoking a long thin cigarra. No, of course he was smoking-you got some of the smoke on you. Do you remember seeing him?"

"Hang on." Luke closed his eyes, reaching inward with the Force.

Short-term memory enhancement was one of the Jedi skills he'd learned from Yoda. The pictures flowed swiftly backward in time: his walk to the medical wing, his conversation with Wedge, his hunt for a public comm desk-

And there he was. Exactly as Lando had described him, passing no more than three meters away. "Got him," he told Lando, freezing the picture in his memory.

"Where's he going?"

"Uh :" Luke replayed the memory forward again. The man wandered in and out of his field of vision for a minute, eventually disappearing entirely as Luke found the comm desks he'd been hunting for. "Looks like he and a couple of other's were heading for Corridor Six."

Lando had punched up a station schematic on the data pad.

"Corridor Six:blast." He stood up, dropping both the data pad and the desensitizer onto his chair. "Come on, we'd better go check this out."

"Check what out?" Luke asked, taking a long step to catch up as Lando hurried off through the maze of waiting patients to the door. "Who is this Niles Ferrier, anyway?"

"He's one of the best spaceship thieves in the galaxy," Lando threw over his shoulder. "And Corridor Six leads to one of the staging areas for the repair teams. We'd better get out there before he palms a Corellian gunship or something and flies off with it."

They made their way through the reception area and under the archway labeled "Corridor Six" in both delicate Sluissi carioglyphs and the blockier Basic letters. Here, to Luke's surprise, the crowds of people that seemed to be everywhere else had dropped off to barely a trickle. By the time they'd gone a hundred meters along the corridor, he and Lando were alone.

"You did say this was one of the repair staging areas, didn't you?" he asked, reaching' out with Jedi senses as they walked. The lights and equipment in the offices and workrooms around them seemed to be functioning properly, and he could sense a handful of droids moving busily about their business. But apart from that the place seemed to be deserted.

"Yes, I did," Lando said grimly. "The schematic said Corridors Five and Three are also being used, but there ought to be enough traffic to keep this one busy, too. I don't suppose you have a spare blaster on you?"

Luke shook his head. "I don't carry a blaster anymore. Do you think we should call station security?"

"Not if we want to find out what Ferrier's up to. He'll be all through the station computer and comm system by now-call security and he'll just pull out and disappear back under a rock somewhere." He peered into one of the open office doorways as they passed it. "This is vintage Ferrier, all right. One of his favorite tricks is to fiddle work orders to route everyone out of the area he wants to-"

"Hold it," Luke cut him off. At the edge of his mind: "I think I've got them. Six humans and two aliens, the nearest about two hundred meters straight ahead."

"What kind of aliens?"

"I don't know. I've never run into either species before."

"Well, watch them. Aliens in Ferrier's gang are usually hired for their muscle. Let's go.

"Maybe you should stay here," Luke suggested, unhooking his lightsaber from his belt. "I'm not sure how well I'll be able to protect you if they decide to make a fight of it."

"I'll take my chances," Lando told him. "Ferrier knows me; maybe I can keep it from coming down to a fight. Besides, I've got an idea I want to try."

They were just under twenty meters from the first human when Luke caught the change in sense from the group ahead. "They've spotted us," he murmured to Lando, shifting his grip slightly on his lightsaber.

"You want to try talking to them?"

"I don't know," Lando murmured back, craning his neck to look down the seemingly deserted corridor ahead. "We might need to get a little closer-"

It came as a flicker of movement from one of the doorways, and an abrupt ripple in the Force. "Duck!" Luke barked, igniting his lightsaber. With a snap-hiss the brilliant green-white blade appeared-

And moved almost of its own accord to neatly block the blaster bolt that shot toward them.

"Get behind me!" Luke ordered Lando as a second bolt sizzled the air toward them. Guided by the Force, his hands again shifted the lightsaber blade into the path of the attack. A third bolt spattered from the blade, followed by a fourth. From a doorway farther down the corridor a second blaster opened up, adding its voice to the first.

Luke held his ground, feeling the Force flowing into him and out through his arms, evoking an odd sort of tunnel vision effect that turned mental spotlights on the attack itself and relative darkness on everything else. Lando, half crouched directly behind him, was only a hazy sense in the back of his mind; the rest of Ferrier's people were even dimmer. Setting his teeth firmly together, letting the Force control his defense, he kept his eyes moving around the corridor, alert for new threats.

He was looking directly at the odd shadow when it detached itself from the wall and started forward.

For a long minute he didn't believe what he was seeing. There was no texture or detail to the shadow; nothing but a slightly fluid shape and nearly absolute blackness. But it was real:and it was moving toward him. "Lando!" he shouted over the scream of blaster shots. "Five meters away-forty degrees left. Any ideas?"

He heard the hissing intake of air from behind him. "Never seen anything like it. Retreat?"

With an effort, Luke pulled as much of his concentration as he dared away from their defense and turned it toward the approaching shadow. There was indeed something there one of the alien intelligences, in fact, that he'd sensed earlier. Which implied it was one of Ferrier's people:

"Stay with me," he told Lando. This was going to be risky, but turning tail and running wouldn't accomplish anything. Moving slowly, keeping his stance balanced and yet fluid, he headed directly toward the shadow.

The alien halted, its sense clearly surprised that a potential prey would be advancing instead of backing away from it. Luke took advantage of the momentary hesitation to move farther toward the corridor wall to his left. The first blaster, its shots starting to come close to the mobile shadow as it tracked Luke's movement, abruptly ceased fire. The shadow's form shifted slightly, giving Luke the impression of something looking over its shoulder. He continued moving to his left, drawing the second blaster's fire toward the shadow as he did so; and a second later it, too, fell reluctantly silent.

"Good job," Lando murmured approvingly in his' ear. "Allow me."

He took a step back from Luke. "Ferrier?" he called. "This is Lando Calrissian. Listen, if you want to keep your pal here in one piece, you'd better call him off. This is Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. The guy who took down Darth Vader."

Which wasn't strictly true, of course. But it was close enough. Luke had, after all, defeated Vader in their last lightsaber duel, even if he hadn't actually gone on to kill him.

Regardless, the implications weren't lost on the unseen men down the corridor. He could sense the doubt and consternation among them; and even as he lifted his lightsaber a little higher, the shadow stopped its approach. "What was your name?" someone called.

"Lando Calrissian," Lando repeated. "Think back to that botched Phraetiss operation about ten years ago.

"Oh, I remember," the voice said grimly. "What do you want?"

"I want to offer you a deal," Lando said. "Come on out and we'll talk."

There was a moment of hesitation. Then, the big man from Luke's memory track stepped out from behind a group of crates that had been stacked against the corridor wall, the simmering cigarra still clenched between his teeth. "All of you," Lando insisted. "Come on, Ferrier, bring them out. Unless you seriously think you can hide them from a Jedi."

Ferrier's eyes flicked to Luke. "The mystic Jedi powers have always been exaggerated," he sneered. But his lips moved inaudibly; and, even as he approached them, five humans and a tall, thin, green-scaled insectoid alien emerged one by one from concealment.

"That's better," Lando said approvingly, stepping out from behind Luke. "A Verpine, huh?" he added, waving toward the insectoid alien. "Got to hand it to you, Ferrier-you're fast. Maybe thirty hours since the Imperials pulled out, and already you're on board. And with a tame Verpine, yet. You ever heard of Verpine, Luke?"

Luke nodded. The alien's appearance wasn't familiar, but the name was. "They're supposed to be geniuses at fixing and reassembling high-tech devices."

"And it's a well-deserved reputation," Lando said. "Rumor has it they're the ones who helped Admiral Ackbar design the B-wing starfighter. You shifted specialties to palming damaged ships, Ferrier? Or did your Verpine come aboard just for the occasion?"

"You mentioned a deal," Ferrier said coldly. "So deal."

"I want to know first if you were in on the Sluis Van attack from the beginning," Lando said, matching Ferrier's tone. "If you're working for the Empire, we can't deal."

One of the gang, blaster in hand, took a quiet preparatory breath. Luke shifted his lightsaber toward him slightly in warning, and the brief thought of heroics faded quickly away. Ferrier looked at the man, back at Lando. "The Empire's sent out a call for ships," he said grudgingly. "Warships in particular. They're paying a bounty of twenty percent above market value for anything over a hundred thousand tons that can fight."

Luke and Lando exchanged a quick glance. "Odd request," Lando said. "They lose one of their shipyard facilities or something?"

"They didn't say, and I didn't ask," Ferrier said acidly. "I'm a businessman; I give the customer what he wants. You here to deal, or just talk?"

"I'm here to deal," Lando assured him. "You know, Ferrier, it seems to me that you're in sort of a jam here. We've nailed you red-handed in the process of trying to steal New Republic warships. We've also pretty well proved that Luke can take all of you without any trouble. All I have to do is whistle up Security and the whole bunch of you will be off to a penal colony for the next few years."

The shadow, which had been standing still, took a step forward. "The Jedi might survive," Ferrier said darkly. "But you wouldn't."

"Maybe; maybe not," lando said easily. "Regardless, it's not the sort of situation a businessman like yourself wants to be in. So here's the deal: you leave now, and we'll let you get out of the Sluis Van system before we drop the hammer with the authorities."

"How very generous of you," Ferrier said, heavily sarcastic. "So what do you really want? A cut of the operation? Or just a wad of money?"

Lando shook his head. "I don't want your money. I just want you out of here."

"I don't take well to threats."

"Then take it as a friendly warning for past associations' sake," Lando said, his voice hard. "But take it seriously."

For a long minute the only sound in the corridor was the quiet background hum of distant machinery. Luke held himself in combat stance, trying to read the shifting emotions in Ferrier's sense. "Your 'deal' would cost us a lot of money," Ferrier said, shifting the cigarra to the other side of his mouth.

"I realize that," Lando conceded. "And believe it or not, I am sorry. But the New Republic can't afford to lose any ships at the moment. However, you might try over at the Amorris system. Last I heard, the Cavrilhu pirate gang was using that as a base, and they're always in need of expert maintenance people." He looked appraisingly at the shadow. "And extra muscle, too."

Ferrier followed his gaze. "Ah, you like my wraith, do you?"

"Wraith?" Luke frowned.

"They call themselves Defel," Ferrier said. "But I think 'wraith' suits them so much better. Their bodies absorb all visible light7some sort of evolved survival mechanism." He eyed Luke. "And what do you think of this deal, Jedi? Enforcer of law and justice that you are?"

Luke had expected the question. "Have you stolen anything here?" he countered. "Or done anything illegal other than breaking into the station's assignment computer?"

Ferrier's lip twisted. "We also shot at a couple of bizits who were poking their noses in where they shouldn't have," he said sarcastically. "That count?"

"Not when you didn't hit them," Luke countered evenly. "As far as I'm concerned, you can leave."

"You're too kind," Ferrier growled. "So is that it?"

"That's it," Lando nodded. "Oh, and I want your slicer access code, too."

Ferrier glared at him, but gestured to the Verpine standing behind him. Silently, the tall green alien lurched forward and handed Lando a pair of data cards. "Thank you," Lando said. "All right. I'll give you one hour to get your ship up and out of the system before we drop the hammer. Have a good trip."

"Yeah, we'll do that," Ferrier bit out. "So good to see you, Calrissian. Maybe next time I can do you a favor."

"Give Amorris a try," Lando urged him. "I'd bet they've got at least a couple of old Sienar patrol ships you could relieve them of."

Ferrier didn't reply. In silence, the group passed Lando and Luke and headed back down the empty corridor toward the reception area. "You sure telling him about Amorris was a good idea?" Luke murmured as he watched them go. "The Empire's likely to get a patrol ship or two out of the deal."

"Would you rather they have gotten hold of a Calamarian Star Cruiser?" Lando countered. "Ferrier's probably good enough to have palmed one. Certainly with things as confused out there as they are." He shook his head thoughtfully. "I wonder what's going on over in the Empire. It doesn't make sense to pay premium prices for used ships when you've got the facilities to make your own."

"Maybe they're having some trouble," Luke suggested, closing down the lightsaber and returning it to his belt. "Or maybe they've lost one of their Star Destroyers but managed to save the crew and need ships to put them on."

"I suppose that's possible," Lando conceded doubtfully. "Hard to imagine an accident that would destroy any ship beyond repair but leave the crew alive. Well, we can get the word back to Coruscant. Let the Intelligence hotshots figure out what it means."

"If they're not all too busy playing politics," Luke said. Because if Councilor Fey'lya's group was also trying to take over Military Intelligence : He shook the thought away. Worrying about the situation wasn't productive. "So what now? We give Ferrier his hour and then hand those slicer codes over to the Sluissi?"

"Oh, we'll give Ferrier his hour, all right," Lando said, frowning thoughtfully at the departing group. `But the slicer codes are another matter. It occurred to me on the way in that if Ferrier was using them to divert workers from this end of the station, there's no particular reason why we can't also use them to bump your X-wing to the top of the priority stack."

"Ah," Luke said. It was, he knew, not exactly the sort of marginally legal activity a Jedi should participate in. But under the circumstances-and given the urgency of the situation back on Coruscant-bending some rules in this case was probably justified. "When do we get started?"

"Right now," Lando said, and Luke couldn't help wincing at the quiet relief in the other's voice and sense. Clearly, he'd been half afraid that Luke would raise those same awkward ethical questions about the suggestion. "With any luck, you'll be up and ready to fly before I have to give these things to the Sluissi. Come on, let's go find a terminal."

Chapter 3

"Landing request acknowledged and confirmed, Millennium Falcon," the voice of the Imperial Palace air control director came over the comm. "You're cleared for pad eight. Councilor Organa Solo will meet you."

"Thanks, Control," Han Solo said, easing the ship down toward the Imperial City and eyeing with distaste the dark cloud cover that hung over the whole region like some brooding menace. He'd never put much stock in omens, but those clouds sure didn't help his mood any.

And speaking of bad moods : Reaching over, he tapped the ship's intercom switch. "Get ready for landing," he called. "We're coming into our approach."

"Thank yo, Captain Solo," C-3PO's stiffly precise voice came back. A little stiffer than usual, actually; the droid must still be nursing a wounded ego. Or whatever it was that passed for ego in droids.

Han shut off the intercom, lip twisting with some annoyance of his own as he did so. He'd never really liked droids much. He'd used them occasionally, but never more than he'd absolutely had to. Threepio wasn't as bad as some of those he'd known : but then, he'd never spent six days alone in hyperspace with any of the others, either.

He'd tried. He really had, if for no other reason than that Leia rather liked Threepio and would have wanted them to get along. The first day out from Sluis Van he'd let Threepio sit up front in the cockpit with him, enduring the droid's prissy voice and trying valiantly to hold something resembling a real conversation with him. The second day, he'd let Threepio do most of the talking, and had spent a lot of his time working in maintenance crawlways where there wasn't room for two. Threepio had accepted the limitation with typical mechanical cheerfulness, and had chattered at him from outside the crawlway access hatches.

By the afternoon of the third day, he'd banned the droid from his presence entirely.

Leia wouldn't like it when she found out. But she'd have liked it even less if he'd given in to his original temptation and converted the droid into a set of backup alluvial dampers.

The Falcon was through the cloud layer now and in sight of the monstrosity that was the Emperor's old palace. Banking slightly, Han confirmed that pad eight was clear and brought them down.

Leia must have been waiting just inside the canopy that shrouded the pad's accessway, because she was already beside the ship as Han lowered the Falcon's ramp. "Han," she said, her voice laced with tension. "Thank the Force you're back."

"Hi, sweetheart," he said, being careful not to press too hard against the increasingly prominent bulge of her belly as he hugged her. The muscles in her shoulders and back felt tight beneath his arms. "I'm glad to see you, too.

She clutched him to her for a moment, then gently disengaged. "Come on-we've got to go.

Chewbacca was waiting for them just inside the accessway, his bowcaster slung over his shoulder in ready position. "Hey, Chewie," Han nodded, getting a growled Wookiee greeting in return. "Thanks for taking care of Leia."

The other rumbled something strangely noncommittal in reply. Han eyed him, decided this wasn't the time to press for details of their stay on Kashyyyk. "What've I missed?" he asked Leia instead.

"Not much," she said as she led the way down the ramp corridor and into the Palace proper. "After that first big flurry of accusations, Fey'lya's apparently decided to cool things down. He's talked the Council into letting him take over some of Ackbar's internal security duties, but he's been behaving more like a caretaker than a new administrator. He's also hinted broadly that he'd be available to take charge of the Supreme Command, but he hasn't done any real pushing in that direction."

"Doesn't want anyone to panic," Han suggested. "Accusing someone like Ackbar of treason is a big enough bite for people to chew on as it is. Anything more and they might start choking on it."

"That's my feeling, too," Leia agreed. "Which should give us at least a little breathing space to try and figure out this bank thing."

"Yeah, what's the lowdown on that, anyway?" Han asked. "All you told me was that some routine bank check had found a big chunk of money in one of Ackbar's accounts.

"It turns out it wasn't just a routine check," Leia said. "There was a sophisticated electronic break-in at the central clearing bank on Coruscant the morning of the Sluis Van attack, with several big accounts being hit. The investigators ran a check on all the accounts the bank served and discovered that there'd been a large transfer into Ackbar's account that same morning from the central bank on Palanhi. You familiar with Palanhi?"

"Everybody knows Palanhi," Han said sourly. "Little crossroads planet with an overblown idea of their own importance."

"And the firm belief that if they can stay neutral enough they can play both sides of the war to their own profit," Leia said. "Anyway, the central bank there claims that the money didn't come from Palanhi itself and must have just been transferred through them. So far our people haven't been able to backtrack it any further."

Han nodded. "I'll bet Fey'lya's got some ideas where it came from."

"The ideas aren't unique to him," Leia sighed. "He was just the first one to voice them, that's all."

"And to make himself a few points at Ackbar's expense," Han growled. "Where've they put Ackbar, anyway? The old prison section?"

Leia shook her head. "He's under a sort of loose house arrest in his quarters while the investigation is under way. More evidence that Fey'lya's trying not to ruffle any more feathers than he has to."

"Or else that he knows full well there isn't enough here to hang a stunted Jawa from," Han countered. "Has he got anything on Ackbar besides the bank thing?"

Leia smiled wanly. "Just the near-fiasco at Sluis Van. And the fact that it was Ackbar who sent all those warships out there in the first place."

"Point," Han conceded, trying to recall the old Rebel Alliance regulations on military prisoners. If he remembered correctly, an officer under house arrest could receive visitors without those visitors first having to go through more than minor amounts of bureaucratic datawork.

Though he could easily be wrong about that. They'd made him learn all that stuff back when he'd first let them slap an officer's rank on him after the Battle of Yavin. But regulations were never something he'd taken seriously. "How much of the Council does Fey'lya have on his side?" he asked Leia.

"If you mean solidly on his side, only a couple," she said. "If you mean leaning in his direction : well, you'll be able to judge for yourself in a minute."

Han blinked. Lost in his own mulling of the mess, he hadn't really paid attention to where Leia was taking him. Now, with a start, he suddenly realized they were walking down the Grand Corridor that linked the Council chamber with the much larger Assemblage auditorium. "Wait a minute," he protested. "Now?"

"I'm sorry, Han," she sighed. "Mon Mothma insisted. You're the first person back who was actually at the Sluis Van attack, and there are a million questions they want to ask you about it."

Han looked around the corridor: at the high, convoluted vaulting of the ceiling; the ornate carvings and cutglass windows alternating on the walls; the rows of short, greenish-purple saplings lining each side. The Emperor had supposedly designed the Grand Corridor personally, which probably explained why Han had always disliked the place. "I knew I should have sent Threepio out first," he growled.

Leia took his arm. "Come on, soldier. Take a deep breath and let's get it over with. Chewie, you'd better wait out here."

The usual Council chamber arrangement was a scaled-up version of the smaller Inner Council room: an oval table in the center for the Councilors themselves, with rows of seats along the walls for their aides and assistants. Today, to Han's surprise, the room had been reconfigured more along the lines of the huge Assemblage Commons. The seats were in neat, slightly tiered rows, with each counscilor surrounded by his or her assistants. In the front of the room, on the lowest level, Mon Mothma sat alone at a simple lectern, looking like a lecturer in a classroom. "Whose idea was this?" Han murmured as he and Leia started down the side aisle toward what was obviously a witness chair next to Mon Mothma's desk.

"Mon Mothma set it up," she murmured. "I'd be willing to bet it was Fey'lya's idea, though."

Han frowned. He'd have thought that underlining Mon Mothma's preeminent role in the Council like this would be the last thing Fey'lya would want. "I don't get it."

She nodded toward the lectern. "Giving Mon Mothma the whole spotlight helps calm any fears that he plans to make a bid for her position. At the same time, putting the Councilors and their aides together in little groups tends to isolate the Councilors from each other."

"I get it," Han nodded back. "Slippery little fuzzball, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is," Leia said. "And he's going to milk this Sluis Van thing for all it's worth. Watch yourself."

They reached the front and separated, Leia going to the first row and sitting down next to her aide, Winter, Han continuing on to Mon Mothma and the witness chair waiting for him. "You want me sworn in or anything?" he asked without preamble.

Mon Mothma shook her head. "That won't be necessary, Captain Solo," she said, her voice formal and a little strained. "Please sit down. There are some questions the Council would like to ask you about the recent events at the Sluis Van shipyards."

Han took his seat. Fey'lya and his fellow Bothans, he saw, were in the group of front-row seats next to Leia's group. There were no empty seats anywhere that might have signified Admiral Ackbar's absence, at least not in the front where they should have been. The Councilors, seated according to rank, had apparently shuffled positions so as to each be closer to the front. Another reason for Fey'lya to have pushed this configuration, Han decided: at the usual oval table, Abkbar's seat might have been left vacant.

"First of all, Captain Solo," Mon Mothma began, "we would like you to describe your role in the Sluis Van attack. When you arrived, what happened subsequently-that sort of thing."

"We got there pretty much as the battle was starting," Han said. "Came in just ahead of the Star Destroyers. We picked up a call from Wedge-that's Wing Commander Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron-saying,g that there were TIE fighters loose in the shipyards-"

"Excuse me?" Fey'lya interrupted smoothly. "Just who is the 'we' here?"

Han focused on the Bothan. On those violet eyes, that soft, cream-colored fur, that totally bland expression. "My, crew consisted of Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian." As Fey'lya no doubt knew perfectly well already. Just a cheap trick to throw Han off stride. "Oh, and two droids. You want their serial numbers?"

A slight rustle of not-quite humor ran through the room, and Han had the minor satisfaction of seeing that cream-colored fur flatten a little. "Thank you, no," Fey'lya said.

"Rogue Squadron was engaged with a group of approximately forty TIE fighters and fifty stolen mole miners that had somehow been smuggled into the shipyards," Han continued. "We gave them some assistance with the fighters, figured out that the Imperials were using the mole miners to try and steal some of the capital ships that had been pressed into cargo duty, and were able to stop them. That's about it."

"You're too modest, Captain Solo," Fey'lya spoke up again. "According to the reports we've received here, it was you and Calrissian who managed singlehandedly to thwart the Empire's scheme."

Han braced himself. Here it came. He and Lando had stopped the Imperials, all right : only they'd had to fry the nerve centers of over forty capital ships to do it. "I'm sorry about wrecking the ships," he said, looking Fey'lya straight in the eye. "Would you rather the Imperials have taken them intact?"

A ripple ran through the Bothan's fur. "Really, Captain Solo," he said soothingly. "I have no particular quarrel with your method of stopping the Empire's attempt at grand larceny, costly though it might have been. You had only what you could work with. Within your constraints, you and the others succeeded brilliantly."

Han frowned, feeling suddenly a little off balance. He had expected Fey'lya to try to make him the man under the hammer on this one. For once, the Bothan seemed to have missed a bet. "Thank you, Councilor," he said, for lack of anything better to say.

"Which is not to say that the Empire's attempt and near-victory are not important, Fey'lya said, his fur rippling the opposite direction this time as he looked around the room. "On the contrary. At the best, they speak of serious misjudgments on the part of our military commanders. At the worst : they may speak of treason."

Han felt his lip twist. So that was it. Fey'lya hadn't changed his stripes; he'd simply decided not to waste a golden opportunity like this on a nobody like Han. "With all due respect, Councilor," he spoke up quickly, "what happened at Sluis Van wasn't Admiral Ackbar's fault. The whole operation-"

"Excuse me, Captain Solo," Fey'lya cut him off. "And with all due respect to you, let me point out that the reason those capital ships were sitting at Sluis Van in the first place, undermanned and vulnerable, was that Admiral Ackbar had ordered them there."

"There isn't anything like treason involved," Han insisted doggedly. "We already know that the Empire's got a tap into our communications-"

"And who's responsible for such failures of security?" Fey'lya shot back. "Once again, the blame falls squarely around Admiral Ackbar's shoulders."

"Well, then, you find the leak," Han snapped. Peripherally, he could see Leia shaking her head urgently at him, but he was too mad now to care whether he was being properly respectful or not. "And while you're at it, I'd like to see how well you would do up against an Imperial Grand Admiral."

The low-level buzz of conversation that had begun in the room cut off abruptly. "What was that last?" Mon Mothma asked.

Silently, Han swore at himself. He hadn't meant to spring this on anyone until he'd had a chance to check it out himself at the Palace archives. But it was too late now. "The Empire's being led by a Grand Admiral," he muttered. "I saw him myself."

The silence hung thick in the air. Mon Mothma recovered first. "That's impossible," she said, sounding more like she wanted to believe it than that she really did. "We've accounted for all the Grand Admirals."

"I saw him myself," Han repeated.

"Describe him," Fey'lya said. "What did he look like?"

"He wasn't human," Han said. "At least, not completely. He had a roughly human build, but he had light blue skin, a kind of bluish black hair, and eyes that glowed red. I don't know what species he was."

"Yet we know that the Emperor didn't like nonhumans," Mon Mothma reminded him.

Han looked at Leia. The skin of her face was tight, her eyes staring at and through him with a kind of numb horror. She understood what this meant, all right. "He was wearing a white uniform," he told Mon Mothma. "No other Imperial officers wore anything like that. And the contact I was with specifically called him a Grand Admiral."

"Obviously a self-granted promotion," Fey'lya said briskly. "Some regular admiral or perhaps a leftover Moff trying to rally the remains of the Empire around him. Anyway, that's beside the immediate point."

"Beside the point?" Han demanded. "Look, Councilor, if there's a Grand Admiral running around loose-"

"If there is," Mon Mothma interrupted firmly, "we'll soon know for certain. Until then, there seems little value in holding a debate in a vacuum. Council Research is hereby directed to look into the possibility that a Grand Admiral might still be alive. Until such an investigation has been completed, we will continue with our current inquiry into the circumstances of the Sluis Van attack." She looked at Han, then turned and nodded at Leia. "Councilor Organa Solo, you may begin the questioning."

Admiral Ackbar's high-domed, salmon-colored head bent slightly to the side, his huge round eyes swiveling in their sockets in a Calamarian gesture Leia couldn't recall ever having seen before. Surprise? Or was it perhaps dread?

"A Grand Admiral," Ackbar said at last, his voice sounding even more gravelly than usual. "An Imperial Grand Admiral. Yes. That would indeed explain a great many things."

"We don't actually know that it's a real Grand Admiral yet," Leia cautioned him, throwing a glance at the stony look on her husband's face. Han, clearly, had no doubts of his own. Neither did she, for that matter. "Mon Mothma's having Research look into it."

"They won't find anything," Ackbar said, shaking his head. A more human gesture, that, of the sort he usually tried to use when dealing with humans. Good; that meant he was getting back on balance. "I had a thorough search made of the Imperial records when we first took Coruscant back from the Empire. There's nothing in there but a list of the Grand Admirals' names and a little about their assignments."

"Erased before they pulled out," Han growled.

"Or perhaps never there to begin with," Leia suggested. "Remember that these weren't just the best and brightest military leaders the Emperor could find. They were also part of his plan to bring the Imperial military more personally under his control."

"As was the Death Star project itself," Ackbar said. "I agree, Councilor. Until the Grand Admirals were fully integrated both militarily and politically, there was no reason to publish details of their identities. And every reason to conceal them."

"So," Han said. "Dead end."

"It appears that way," Ackbar agreed. "Any information we're going to get will have to come from current sources.

Leia looked at Han. "You mentioned you were with a contact when you saw this Grand Admiral, but you didn't give us the contact's name."

"That's right," Han nodded. "I didn't. And I'm not going to. Not now, anyway."

Leia frowned at that unreadable sabacc face, stretching out with all her rudimentary Jedi skills to try to sense his purpose and feelings. It didn't get her very far. If only I had more time to practice, she thought ruefully. But if the Council had needed all her time before, it was going to need even more than that now. "Mon Mothma's going to want to know, eventually," she warned him.

"And I'm going to tell her, eventually," he came back. "Until then, it's going to be our little secret."

"As in 'leverage'?"

"You never can tell." A shadow of something crossed Han's face. "The name's not going to do the Council any good right now, anyway. The whole group's probably buried themselves away somewhere. If the Empire hasn't caught up with them."

"You don't know how to find them?" Leia asked.

Han shrugged. "There's a ship I promised to get out of impoundment for them. I can try that."

"Do what you can," Ackbar said. "You said Councilor Organa Solo's brother was with you at Sluis Van?"

"Yes, sir," Han said. "His hyperdrive needed some repairs, but he should've only been a couple of hours behind me." He looked at Leia. "Oh, and we're going to have to get Lando's ship back to him at Sluis Van."

Ackbar made a noise that sounded something like a choked whistle: the Calamarian equivalent of a grunt. "We'll need to hear testimony from both of them," he said. "And from Wing Commander Antilles, as well. It's vital that we learn how the Empire was able to smuggle such a large force past so many sensors.

Leia threw Han a look. "According to Wedge's preliminary report, they apparently were inside a freighter whose bold registered empty."

Ackbar's eyes swiveled in their sockets. "Empty? Not merely unreadable, as if from a sensor misfire or static-damping?"

"Wedge said it was empty," Han told him. "He ought, to know the difference between that and static-damping.

"Empty." Ackbar seemed to slump a little in his seat. "Which can only mean the Empire has finally developed a workable cloaking shield."

"It's starting to look that way," Leia agreed soberly. "I suppose the only good news is that they must still have some bugs left in the system. Otherwise, they could have simply cloaked the whole Sluis Van task force and torn the place to ribbons."

"No," Ackbar said, shaking his massive head. "That's something we won't have to worry about, at least. By its very nature a cloaking shield would be more, danger to the user than it was worth. A cloaked warship's own sensor beams would be as useless as those of its enemies, leaving it to flail about totally blind. Worse, if it were under power, the enemy could locate it by simply tracking its drive emissions."

"Ah," Leia said. "I hadn't thought of that."

"There have been rumors for years that the Emperor was developing a cloaking shield," Ackbar said. "I've put a good deal of thought into the contingency." He harrumphed. "But the weaknesses are of small comfort. A cloaking shield in the hands of a Grand Admiral would still be a dangerous weapon indeed. He would find ways to use it against us.

"He already has," Han muttered.

"Apparently so." Ackbar's swiveling eyes locked onto Leia's face. "You must get me cleared of this ridiculous charge, Councilor. As soon as possible. For all his ambition and self-confidence, Councilor Fey'lya hasn't the tactical skills we need against a threat of this magnitude."

"We'll get you released, Admiral," Leia promised, wishing she felt that confident. "We're working on it right now.

There was a diffident knock, and behind Leia the door opened. "Excuse me," the squat G-2RD droid said in a mechanically resonant voice. "Your time has expired."

"Thank you," Leia said, suppressing her frustration as she stood up. She wanted desperately to have more time with Ackbar, to explore with him both this new Imperial threat and also discuss the legal strategies they might use in his defense. But arguing with the droid would gain her nothing, and might get her visiting privileges revoked entirely. Guard droids were allowed that kind of discretion, and the 2RD series in particular was reputed to be a touchy lot. "I'll be back soon, Admiral," she told Ackbar. "Either this afternoon or tomorrow.

"Good-bye, Councilor." There was just a brief hesitation-"And to you, Captain Solo. Thank you for coming."

"Good-bye, Admiral," Han said.

They stepped from the room and started down the wide corridor, the G-2RD taking up position at the door behind them. "That must have hurt," Han commented.

"What must have?" Leia asked.

"Thanking me for coming."

She frowned up at him, but there was nothing but seriousness in his face. "Oh, come on, Han. Just because you resigned your commission-"

"He considers me one step up from a complete traitor," Han finished for her.

An obvious retort about persecution complexes flashed through Leia's mind. "Ackbar's never been what you'd call an outgoing person," she said instead.

Han shook his head. "I'm not imagining it, Leia. Ask Lando sometime-he gets the same kind of treatment. You leave the military and you might as well be tauntaun spit as far as Ackbar is concerned."

Leia sighed. "You have to understand the Mon Calamari ethos, Han. They were never a warlike species at all until the Empire started enslaving them and ravaging their world. Those wonderful Star Cruisers of theirs were originally passenger liners, you know, that we helped them convert into warships. Maybe it's not so much anger at you for quitting as it is some sort of residual guilt at himself and his people for taking up warfare in the first place."

"Even if they were forced into it?"

Leia shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't think anyone ever goes into a war without the nagging feeling that there might have been,some other way. Even when every other way has already been tried and hasn't worked. I know I felt it when I first joined the Rebellion-and believe me, people like Mon Mothma and Bail Organa had tried everything. For an inherently peaceful race like the Mon Calamari, the feeling must be even worse.

"Well:maybe," Han conceded grudgingly. "I just wish they'd work it through for themselves and leave the rest of us out of it.

"They are," Leia assured him. "We've just got to give them time."

He looked down at her. "You haven't told me yet why you and Chewie left Kashyyyk and came back here."

Leia squeezed thumb and forefinger together. Eventually, she knew, she would have to tell Han about the deal she'd made with the Noghri commando Khabarakh. But walking down a public corridor of the Imperial Palace wasn't the place for that kind of discussion. "There didn't seem any point in staying," she told him. "There was another attack-"

"There what?"

"Relax, we fought it off" she soothed him. "And I've made arrangements that should keep me safe, at least for the next couple of weeks. I'll tell you about it later, when we're someplace more secure.

She could feel his eyes boring into her; could sense the suspicion in his mind that there was something she wasn't telling him. But he recognized as well as she did the danger of speaking secrets out in the open. "All right," he muttered. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

Leia shivered, focusing on the sense of the twins she carried within her. So potentially strong in the : Force and yet so utterly helpless. "So do I," she whispered.

Chapter 4 JORUS C'BAOTH. HUMAN. BORN IN REITECAS, ON BORTRAS, ON 4\3\112. PRE-EMPIRE DATE.

Luke made a face as he watched the words scroll up the Old Senate Library computer screen. What was it about new regimes, he wondered, that one of their first official acts always seemed to be the creation of a new dating system, which they then went and applied to all existing historical records? The Galactic Empire had done that, as had the Old Republic before it. He could only hope that the New Republic wouldn't follow suit. History was hard enough to keep track of as it was. ATTENDED MIRNIC UNIVERSITY 6\4\95 TO 4\32\90 PE. ATTENDED JEDI TRAINING CENTER ON KAMPARAS 2\15\90 TO 8\33\8 PE. PRIVATE JEDI TRAINING BEGUN 9\88 PE; INSTRUCTOR UNKNOWN. GRANTED TITLE OF JEDI KNIGHT 3\6\86 PE. OFFICIALLY ASSUMED TITLE OF JEDI MASTER 4\3\74 PE. SUMMARY ENDS FURTHER DETAILS OF SCHOOLING AND TRAINING?

"No," Luke said, frowning. C'baoth had assumed the title of Jedi Master? He'd always been under the impression that that title, like the rank of Jedi Knight itself, was something that was granted by the rest of the Jedi community and not simply self-proclaimed. "Give me the highlights of his record as a Jedi." MEMBER OF ANDO DEMILITARIZATION OBSERVATION GROUP 8\82 TO 7\81 PE. MEMBER OF SENATE INTERSPECIES ADVISORY COMMITTEE 9\81 TO 6\79 PE. PERSONAL JEDI ADVISER TO SENATOR PALPATINE 6\79 TO's\77-

"Stop," Luke ordered, a sudden shiver running up his back. Jedi adviser to Senator Palpatine? "Detail C'baoth's service to Senator Palpatine."

The computer seemed to consider the request. UNAVAILABLE, the answer came at last.

"Unavailable, or just classified?" Luke countered.

UNAVAILABLE, the computer repeated.

Luke grimaced. But there was little he could do about it for the moment. "Continue." MEMBER OF JEDI FORCE ASSEMBLED TO OPPOSE THE DARK JEDI INSURRECTION ON BPFASSH 7\77 TO 1\74 PE. ASSISTED IN RESOLVING ALDERAAN ASCENDANCY CONTENTION 11\7O PE. ASSISTED JEDI MASTER TRA'S M'INS IN MEDIATION OF DUINUOGWUIN-GOTAL CONFLICT l\68 TO 4\66 PE. NAMED AMBASSADOR AT LARGE TO XAPPYH SECTOR 8\21\62 PE BY SENATE. HIGHLY INSTRUMENTAL IN CONVINCING SENATE TO AUTHORIZE AND FUND OUTBOUND FLIGHT PROJECT. ONE OF SIX JEDI MASTERS ATTACHED TO PROJECT 7\7\65 PE. NO RECORD EXISTS AFTER PROJECT DEPARTURE FROM YAGA MINOR, 4\1\64. HIGHLIGHTS SUMMARY ENDS. FURTHER INFORMATION?

Luke leaned back in his chair, gazing at the display and chewing at the inside of his cheek. So not only had C'baoth once been an adviser to the man who would someday declare himself Emperor, but he'd also been part of the attack against those Dark Jedi from the Sluis sector that Leia had told him about. One of whom had survived long enough to face Master Yoda on Dagobah:

There was a soft footstep behind him. "Commander?"

"Hello, Winter," Luke said without turning. "Looking for me?"

"Yes," Winter said, coming up to stand beside him. "Princess Leia would like to see you whenever you're finished here." She nodded at the display, running a hand through her silky white hair as she did so. "More Jedi research?"

"Sort of" Luke told her, sliding a data card into the terminal's slot. "computer: copy complete record of Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth."

"Jorus C'baoth," Winter repeated thoughtfully.

"Wasn't he involved in the big ascendancy flap on Alderaan?"

"That's what the record says," Luke nodded. "You know anything about that?"

"No more than any other Alderaanian," Winter said. Even with her rigid control some of the pain leaked through to her voice, and Luke found himself wincing in sympathy with it. For Leia, he knew, the destruction of Alderaan and the loss of her family was a heartrending but slowly fading ache in the back corners of her mind. For winter, with her perfect and indelible memory, the pain would probably go on forever. "The question was whether the line of ascent to Viceroy should go to Bail Organa's father or one of the other family lines," Winter continued. "After the third voting deadlock they appealed to the Senate to mediate the issue. C'baoth was one of the delegation they sent, which took less than a month to decide that the Organas had the proper claim."

"Did you ever see any pictures of C'baoth?" Luke asked.

Winter considered. "There was a group holo in the archives that showed the entire mediation team," she said after a moment. "C'baoth was-oh, about average height and build, I suppose. Fairly muscular, too, which I remember thinking seemed rather odd for a Jedi." She looked at Luke, coloring slightly. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean that to sound derogatory."

"No problem," Luke assured her. It was a common misconception, he'd discovered: with mastery over the Force, people just assumed there was no reason for a Jedi to cultivate physical strength. It had taken Luke himself several years to truly appreciate the subtle ways in which control of the body was linked to control of the mind. "What else?

"He had graying hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard," Winter said. "He was wearing the same brown robe and white undertunic that a lot of Jedi seemed to favor. Other than that, there wasn't anything particularly notable about him."

Luke rubbed his chin. "How old did he look?"

"Oh : I'd say somewhere around forty," Winter said. "Plus or minus five years, perhaps. Age is always hard to ascertain from a picture."

"That would fit with the record here," Luke agreed, retrieving the data card from the slot. But if the record was right : "You said Leia wanted to see me?" he asked, standing up."

"If it's convenient," Winter nodded. "She's in her office."

"Okay. Let's go."

They left the library and started down the cross corridor linking the research areas with the Council and Assemblage chambers. "You know anything about the planet Bortras?" he asked Winter as they walked. "Specifically, anything about how long its people live?"

She thought a moment. "I've never read anything that mentioned it one way or another. Why?"

Luke hesitated; but however the Imperials were getting information out of the New Republic's inner sanctum, Winter was certainly far above suspicion. "The problem is that if this alleged Jedi out on Jomark really is Jorus C'baoth, he has to be over a hundred by now. I know there are some species that live longer than that, but he's supposed to be human."

Winter shrugged. "There are always exceptions to a race's normal life span," she pointed out. "And a Jedi, in particular might have techniques that would help extend that span."

Luke thought about that. It was possible, he knew. Yoda had certainly had a long life-a good nine hundred years-and as a general rule, smaller species usually had shorter life spans than larger ones. But usually didn't mean always; and after many hours of records searches, Luke still hadn't figured out just what species Yoda had belonged to. Perhaps a better approach might be to try to find out how long the Emperor had lived.

"So you think Jorus C'baoth is alive?" Winter asked into his thoughts.

Luke glanced around. They'd reached the Grand Corridor now, which because of its location was usually fairly brimming with beings of all sorts. But today it was nearly empty, with only a few humans and others standing around in little conversation groups of their own, all of them too far away to eavesdrop. "I had a brief mental contact with another Jedi while I was on Nidlon," he said, lowering his voice. "Afterward, Leia told me that there were rumors C'baoth had been seen on Jomark. I don't know what other conclusion to come to."

Winter was silent. "Any comments?" Luke prompted her.

She shrugged. "Anything having to do with Jedi and the Force are out of my personal experience, Commander," she said. "I really can't comment one way or another on that. But I'd have to say that the impression I got of C'baoth from Alderaanian history makes me skeptical."

"Why?"

"It's just an impression, you understand," Winter emphasized. "Nothing I would even have mentioned if you hadn't asked. C'baoth struck me as the sort of person who loved being in the middle of things. The sort who, if he couldn't lead, control, or help in a particular situation, would still be there just so he'd be visible."

They were passing by one of the purple-and-green ch'hala trees lining the Grand Corridor now, close enough for Luke to see the subtle moire like turmoil of color taking place beneath the thin transparent outer bark. "I suppose that fits with what I read," he conceded, reaching out to slide a fingertip across the slender tree trunk as they walked. The subtle turmoil exploded at his touch into a flash of angry red across the quiet purple, the color shooting out around the trunk like ripples in a cylindrical pond, circling it again and again as it flowed up and down the trunk before finally fading to burgundy and then back to purple again. "I don't know if you knew it, but he apparently promoted himself from Jedi Knight to Jedi Master. Seems like kind of a conceited thing to do."

"Yes, it does," Winter agreed. "Though at least by the time he came to Alderaan there didn't seem to be any dispute about it. My point is that someone who likes the spotlight that much wouldn't have stayed so completely out of the war against the Empire."

"And a good point it is, too," Luke admitted, half trying to watch the last bit of red fade away on the ch'hala tree he'd touched. The Nkllon contact with the mysterious Jedi had been like that: there for a short time, and then gone without a trace. Was C'baoth perhaps no longer fully in control of his powers? "New subject, then. What do you know about this Outbound Flight project the Old Republic put together?"

"Not much," she said, frowning with concentration. "It was supposedly an attempt to search for life outside the galaxy proper, but the whole thing was so buried in secrecy they never released any details. I'm not even sure whether or not it was ever launched."

"The records say it was," Luke said, touching the next ch'hala tree in line as they passed by, eliciting another flash of red. "They also say that C'baoth was attached to the project. Does that mean he would have been aboard?"

"I don't know," Winter said. "There were rumors that several Jedi Masters would be going along, but again there was no official confirmation of that." She looked sideways at him. "Are you thinking that might be why he wasn't around during the Rebellion?"

"It's possible," Luke said. "Of course, that would just raise another whole set of questions. Like what happened to them and how he got back."

Winter shrugged. "I suppose there's one way to find out."

"Yeah." Luke touched the last tree in line. "Go to Jomark and ask him. I guess I'll have to."

Leia's office was grouped with the other Inner Council suites just off the cross hallway that linked the Grand Corridor with the more intimate Inner Council meeting room. Luke and Winter entered the outer reception area, to find a familiar figure waiting there. "Hello, Threepio," Luke said.

"Master Luke-how good to see you again," the gold-skinned droid gushed. "I trust you're well?"

"I'm fine," Luke told him. "Artoo said to say hello when I saw you, by the way. They've got him over at the spaceport helping with some maintenance on my X-wing, but I'll be bringing him back later this evening. You can see him then."

"Thank you, sir." Threepio tilted his head slightly, as if suddenly remembering that he was supposed to be acting as a receptionist here. "Princess Leia and the others are expecting you," he said, touching the inner chamber release. "Please go on in."

"Thank you," Luke said, nodding gravely. No matter how ridiculous Threepio might look in any given situation, there was always a certain inherent dignity about him, a dignity that Luke usually tried to respond to in kind. "Let us know if anyone else comes."

"Of course, sir," Threepio said.

They went into the inner chamber to find Leia and Han holding a quiet conversation over a computer display on Leia's desk. Chewbacca, sitting alone near the door with his bowcaster across his knees, growled a greeting as they entered.

"Ah-Luke," Leia said, looking up. "Thanks for coming." She shifted her attention to Winter. "That'll be all for now, Winter."

"Yes, Your Highness," Winter nodded. With her usual grace, she glided from the room.

Luke looked at Han. "I hear you dropped a double size thermal detonator on the Council yesterday."

Han grimaced. "I tried. Not that anyone really believed me."

"One of those instances where politics drifts off into the realm of wishful thinking," Leia said. "The last thing anyone wants to believe is that in our sweep we somehow missed one of the Emperor's Grand Admirals."

"Sounds more like willful denial than wishful thinking to me," Luke said. "Or do they have another theory as to how we got edged so neatly into that Sluis Van trap?"

Leia grimaced. "Some of them say that's where Ackbar's collusion comes in.

"Ah," Luke murmured. So that was the thrust of Fey'lya's scheme."

"I hadn't heard any of the details yet."

"So far, Fey'lya's been playing the sabacc cards close to the fur," Han growled. "He claims he's trying to be fair; I think he's just trying not to rock all the stabilizers at once.

Luke frowned at him. There was something else in his friend's face and sense : "And maybe something more?" he prompted.

Han and Leia exchanged glances. "Maybe," Han said. "You notice how quickly after the Sluis Van attack Fey'lya dropped the hammer on Ackbar. Either he's one of the great opportunists of all time-"

"Which we already know he is," Leia put in.

"-or else," Han continued grimly, "he knew in advance what was going to happen."

Luke looked at Leia. At the strain in her face and sense : "You realize what you're saying," he said quietly. "You're accusing a member of the Council of being an Imperial agent."

Leia's sense seemed to flinch. Han's didn't even flicker. "Yeah, I know," Han said. "Isn't that what he's accusing Ackbar of?"

"The problem is timing, Han," Leia said, her tone one of strained patience. "As I've already tried to explain. If we accuse Fey'lya of anything now, it'll just look like we're trying to take the pressure off Ackbar by turning Fey'lya's charges back against him. Even if it were true-and I don't think it is-it would still come across as a cheap and rather mindless trick."

"Maybe that's why he was so quick to finger Ackbar in the first place," Han countered. "So that we couldn't turn it back on him. That ever occur to you?"

"Yes, it has," Leia said. "Unfortunately, it doesn't change the situation. Until we've cleared Ackbar, we can't go making accusations against Fey'lya."

Han snorted. "Come on, Leia. Political waddlefooting is fine in its place, but we're talking about the survival of the New Republic here."

"Which could fall completely apart over this without anyone ever firing a shot," Leia retorted hotly. "Face it, Han-this whole thing is still being held together with hope and crating tape. You get a few wild accusations flying around, and half the races in the old Rebel Alliance might decide to pull out and go their separate ways."

Luke cleared his throat. "If I can say something :?"

They looked at him, the tension in the room fading a little. "Sure, kid, what is it?" Han said.

"I think we all agree that, whatever his agenda or possible sponsors Fey'lya up to something," Luke said. "Maybe it would help to find out what that something is. Leia, what do we know about Fey'lya?"

She shrugged. "He's a Bothan, obviously, though he grew up on the Bothan colony world of Kothlis instead of on Bothawni proper. He joined the real Alliance right after the Battle of Yavin, bringing a good-sized group of his followers Bothans in with him. His people served mainly in support and reconnaissance, though they saw some occasional action, too. He was involved in a number of wideranging interstellar business activities before joining the Alliance-shipping, merchandising, some mining, assorted other ventures. I'm pretty sure he's kept up with some of them since then, but I don't know which ones."

"Are they on file?" Luke asked.

She shook her head. "I've been through his file five times, and I've checked every other reference to him I could find. Nothing."

"That's where we want to start our backtrack, then," Han decided. "Quiet business stuff is always good for digging up dirt."

Leia threw him a patient look. "It's a big galaxy, Han. We don't even know where to start looking."

"I think we can figure it out," Han assured her. "You said the Bothans saw some action after Yavin. Where?"

"Any number of places," Leia said, frowning. She swiveled the computer around to face her, tapped in a command. "Let's see :"

"You can skip any battle they were ordered into," Han told her. "Also any time there were only a few of them there as part of a big multispecies force. I just want the places where a bunch of Fey'lya's people really threw themselves into it."

It was clear from Leia's face that she didn't see where Han was going with this, a sentiment Luke could readily identify with. But she fed in the parameters without comment. "Well:I suppose the only one that really qualifies would be a short but violent battle off New Cov in the Churba sector. Four Bothan ships took on a Victory-class Star Destroyer that was snooping around, keeping it busy until a Star Cruiser could come to their assistance."

"New Cov, huh?" Han repeated thoughtfully. "That system get mentioned anywhere in Fey'lya's business stuff?"

"Uh : no, it doesn't."

"Fine," Han nodded. "Then that's where we start."

Leia threw Luke a blank look. "Did I miss something?"

"Oh, come on, Leia," Han said. "You said yourself that the Bothans pretty much sat out the real war everywhere they could. They didn't take on a Victory Star Destroyer at New Cov just for the fun of it. They were protecting something."

Leia frowned. "I think you're reaching.

"Maybe," Han agreed. "Maybe not. Suppose it was Fey'lya and not the Imperials that sneaked that money into Ackbar's account? Transferring a block fund through Palanhi from the Churba sector would be easier than sending it in from any of the Imperial systems."

"That takes us back to accusing Fey'lya of being an Imperial agent," Luke warned.

"Maybe not," Han argued. "Could be the timing of the transfer was coincidence. Or maybe one of the Bothans got a whiff of the Empire's intentions and Fey'lya figured he could use it to take down Ackbar."

Leia shook her head. "It's still nothing we can take to the Council," she said.

"I'm not going to take it to the Council," Han told her. "I'm going to take Luke, and we're going to go to New Cov and check it out ourselves. Quiet like."

Leia looked at Luke, an unspoken question forming in her mind.

"There's nothing I can do here to help," he said. "It's worth a look, anyway."

"All right," Leia sighed. "But keep it quiet."

Han gave her a tight grin. "Trust me." He raised an eyebrow at Luke. "You ready?"

Luke blinked. "You mean right now?"

"Sure, why not? Leia's got the political end covered here okay."

There was a flicker of sense from Leia, and Luke looked over just in time to see her wince. Her eyes met Luke's, her sense pleading with him to keep quiet. What is it? he asked her silently.

Whether she would have answered him or not he never found out. From over at the door Chewbacca growled out the whole story.

Han turned to stare at his wife, his mouth falling open. "You promised what?" he breathed.

She swallowed visibly. "Han, I had no choice."

"No choice? No choice? I'll give you a choice-no, you're not going."

"Han"Excuse me," Luke interrupted, standing up. "I have to go check out my X-wing. I'll see you both later."

"Sure, kid," Han growled, not looking at him.

Luke stepped to the door, catching Chewbacca's eye as he passed and nodding toward the outer office. Clearly, the Wookiee had already come to the same conclusion. Heaving his massive bulk to his feet, he followed Luke from the room.

The door slid shut behind them, and for a long moment they just stared at each other. Leia broke the silence first. "I have to go, Han," she said softly. "I promised Khabarakh I'd meet him. Don't you understand?"

"No, I don't understand," Han retorted, trying hard to hold on to his temper. The gut-wrending fear he'd felt after that near-miss on Bpfassh was back, churning hard at his stomach. Fear for Leia's safety, and the safety of the twins she carried. His son and daughter : "These whatever-they-ares-"

"Noghri," she supplied the word.

"-these Nogti have been taking potshots at you every chance they've had for a couple of months now. You remember Bpfassh and that mock-up of the Falcon they tried to sucker us into getting aboard? And the attack on Bimmisaari before that-they came within a hair of snatching us right out of the middle of a marketplace. If it hadn't been for Luke and Chewie they'd have done it, too. These guys are serious, Leia. And now you tell me you want to fly out alone and visit their planet? You might as well turn yourself over to the Empire and save some time."

"I wouldn't be going if I thought that," she insisted. "Khabarakh knows I'm Darth Vader's daughter, and for whatever reason, that seems to be very important to them. Maybe I can use that leverage to turn them away from the Empire and onto our side. Anyway, I have to try."

Han snorted. "What is this, some kind of crazy Jedi thing? Luke was always getting all noble and charging off into trouble, too."

Leia reached over to lay her hand on his arm. "Han I know it's a risk," she said quietly. "But it may be the only chance we ever have of resolving this. The Noghri need help-Khabarakh admitted that. If I can give them that hell if I can convince them to come over to our side-that'll mean one less enemy for us to have to deal with." She hesitated. "And I can't keep running forever."

"What about the twins?"

He had the guilty satisfaction of seeing her wince. "I know," she said, a shiver running through her as she reached her other hand up to hold her belly. "But what's the alternative? To lock them away in a tower of the Palace somewhere with a ring of Wookiee guards around them? They'll never have any chance of a normal life as long as the Noghri are trying to take them from us."

Han gritted his teeth. So she knew. He hadn't been sure before, but he was now. Leia knew that what the Empire had been after this whole time was her unborn children.

And knowing that, she still wanted to meet with the Empire's agents.

For a long minute he gazed at her, his eyes searching the features of that face he'd grown to love so deeply over the years, his memory bringing up images of the past as he did so. The young determination in her face as, in the middle of a blazing firelight, she'd grabbed Luke's blaster rifle away from him and shot them an escape route into the Death Star's detention-level garbage chute. The sound of her voice in the middle of deadly danger at Jabba's, helping him through the blindness and tremor and disorientation of hibernation sickness. The wiser, more mature determination visible through the pain in her eyes as, lying wounded outside the Endor bunker, she had nevertheless summoned the skill and control to coolly shoot two stormtroopers off Han's back.

And he remembered, too, the wrenching realization he'd had at that same time: that no matter how much he tried, he would never be able to totally protect her from the dangers and risks of the universe. Because no matter how much he might love her-no matter how much he might give of himself to her-she could never be content with that alone. Her vision extended beyond him, just as it extended beyond herself, to all the beings of the galaxy.

And to take that away from her, whether by force or even by persuasion, would be to diminish her soul. And to take away part of what he'd fallen in love with in the first place.

"Can I at least go with you?" he asked quietly.

She reached up to caress his cheek, smiling her thanks through the sudden moisture in her eyes. "I promised I'd go alone," she whispered, her voice tight with emotion. "Don't worry, I'll be all right."

"Sure." Abruptly, Han got to his feet. "Well, if you're going, you're going. Come on-I'll help you get the Falcon prepped."

"The Falcon?" she repeated. "But I thought you were going to New Cov."

"I'll take Lando's ship," he called over his shoulder as he strode to the door. "I've got to get it back to him, anyway.

"But-"

"No argument," he cut her off. "If this Noghri of yours has something besides talking in mind, you'll stand a better chance in the Falcon than you will in the Lady Luck." He opened the door and stepped into the reception area.

And stopped short. Standing directly between him and the door, looking for all the world like a giant hairy thundercloud, Chewbacca was glowering at him. "What?" Han demanded.

The Wookiee's comment was short, sharp, and very much to the point. "Well, I don't much like it, either," Han told him bluntly. "What do you want me to do, lock her up somewhere?"

He felt Leia come up behind him. "I'll be all right, Chewie," she assured him. "Really I will."

Chewbacca growled again, making it abundantly clear what he thought of her assessment. "You got any suggestions, let's hear 'em," Han said.

Not surprisingly, he did. "Chewie, I'm sorry," Leia said. "I promised Khabarakh I'd come alone."

Chewbacca shook his head violently, showing his teeth as he growled his opinion of that idea. "He doesn't like it," Han translated diplomatically.

"I got the gist, thank you," Leia retorted. "Listen, you two; for the last time-"

Chewbacca cut her off with a bellow that made her jump half a meter backward. "You know, sweetheart," Han said, "I really think you ought to let him go with you. At least as far as the rendezvous point," he added quickly as she threw him a glare. "Come on-you know how seriously Wookiees take this life debt thing. You need a pilot, anyway.

For just a second he could see the obvious counter argument in her eyes: that she was perfectly capable of flying the Falcon herself. But only for a second. "All right," she sighed. "I guess Khabarakh won't object to that. But once we reach the rendezvous, Chewie, you do as I tell you, whether you like it or not. Agreed?"

The Wookiee thought about it, rumbled agreement. "Okay," Leia said, sounding relieved. "Let's get going, then. Threepio?"

"Yes, Your Highness?" the droid said hesitantly. For once, he'd had the brains to sit quietly at the reception desk and keep his loose change out of the discussion. It was a marked improvement over his usual behavior, Han decided. Maybe he ought to let Chewbacca get angry more often.

"I want you to come with me, too," Leia told the droid. "Khabarakh spoke Basic well enough, but the other Noghri may not, and I don't want to have to depend on their translators to make myself understood."

"Of course, Your Highness," Threepio said, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"Good." Leia turned to look up at Han, licked her lips. "I guess we'd better get going."

There were a million things he could have said to her. A million things he wanted to say. "I guess," he said instead, "you'd better."

Chapter 5

"You'll forgive me," Mara said conversationally as she finished the last bit of wiring on her comm board, "if I say that as a hideout, this place stinks."

Karrde shrugged as he hefted a sensor pack out of its box and set it down on the side table with an assortment of other equipment. "I agree it's not Myrkr," he said. "On the other hand, it has its compensations. Who'd ever think of looking for a smuggler's nest in the middle of a swamp?"

"I'm not referring to the ship drop," Mara told him, reaching beneath her loose-flowing tunic sleeve to readjust the tiny blaster sheathed to her left forearm. "I mean this place."

"Ah. This place." Karrde glanced out the window. "I don't know. A bit public, perhaps, but that, too, has its compensations."

"A little public?" Mara echoed, looking out the window herself at the neat row of cream-white buildings barely five meters away and the crowds of brightly clad humans and aliens hurrying along just outside. "You call this a liulc public?"

"Calm down, Mara," Karrde said. "When the only viable places to live on a planet are a handful of deep valleys, of course things are going to get a bit crowded. The people here are used to it, and they've learned how to give each other a reasonable degree of privacy. Anyway, even if they wanted to snoop, it wouldn't do them much good."

"Mirror glass won't stop a good sensor probe," Mara countered. "And crowds mean cover for Imperial spies."

"The Imperials have no idea where we are. He paused and threw her an odd look. "Unless you know differently."

Mara turned away. So that was how it was going to be this time. Previous employers had reacted to her strange hunches with fear, or anger, or simple bald-faced hatred. Karrde, apparently, was going to go for polite exploitation. "I can't turn it on and off like a sensor pack," she growled over her shoulder. "Not anymore.

"Ah," Karrde said. The word implied he understood; the tone indicated otherwise. "Interesting. Is this a remnant of some previous Jedi training?"

She turned to look at him. "Tell me about the ships."

He frowned. "Excuse me?"

"The ships," she repeated. "The capital warships that you were very careful not to tell Grand Admiral Thrawn about, back when he visited us on Myrkr. You promised to give me the details later. This is later."

He studied her, a slight smile creasing his lips. "All right," he said. "Have you ever heard of the Katana fleet?"

She had to search her memory. "That was the group also called the Dark Force, wasn't it? Something like two hundred Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruisers that were lost about ten years before the Clone Wars broke out. All the ships were fitted with some kind of new-style full-rig slave circuitry, and when the system malfunctioned, the whole fleet jumped to lightspeed together and disappeared."

"Nearly right," Karrde said. "The Dreadnaughts of that era in particular were ridiculously crew-intensive ships, requiring upwards of sixteen thousand men each. The full-rig slave circuitry on the Katana ships cut that complement down to around two thousand."

Mara thought about the handful of Dreadnaught cruisers she'd known. "Must have been an expensive conversion."

"It was," Karrde nodded. "Particularly since they played it as much for public relations as they did for pure military purposes. They redesigned the entire Dreadnaught interior for the occasion, from the equipment and interior decor right down to the dark gray hull surfacing. That last was the origin of the nickname 'Dark Force," incidentally, though there was some suggestion that it referred to the smaller number of interior lights a two-thousand-crewer ship would need. At any rate, it was the Old Republic's grand demonstration of how effective a slave-rigged fleet could be."

Mara snorted. "Some demonstration."

"Agreed," Karrde said dryly. "But the problem wasn't in the slave circuitry itself. The records are a little vague-suppressed by those in charge at the time, no doubt-but it appears that one or more of the fleet's crewers picked up a hive virus at one of the ports of call on their maiden voyage. It was spread throughout all two hundred ships while in dormant state, which meant that when it suddenly flared up it took down nearly everybody at once."

Mara shivered. She'd heard of hive viruses leveling whole planetary populations in pre-Clone Wars days, before the medical science of the Old Republic and later the Empire had finally figured out how to deal with the things. "So it killed the crews before they could get to help."

"Apparently in a matter of hours, though that's just an educated guess," Karrde said. "What turned the whole thing from a disaster into a debacle was the fact that this particular hive virus had the charming trait of driving its victims insane just before it killed them. The dying crewers lasted just long enough to slave their ships together : which meant that when the Katana command crew also went crazy and took off the entire fleet went with them."

"I remember now," Mara nodded slowly. "That was supposedly what started the big movement toward decentralization in automated ship functions. Away from big, all-powerful computers into hundreds of droids."

"The movement was already on its way, but the Katana fiasco pretty well sealed the outcome," Karrde said. "Anyway, the fleet disappeared somewhere into the depths of interstellar space and was never heard from again. It was a big news item for a while, with some of the less reverent members of the media making snide wordplays on the 'Dark Force' name, and for a few years it was considered a hot prospect by salvage teams who had more enthusiasm than good sense. Once it finally dawned on them just how much empty space was available in the galaxy to lose a couple hundred ships in, the flurry of interest ended. At any rate, the Old Republic soon had bigger problems on its hands. Aside from the occasional con artist who'll try to sell you a map of its location, you never hear about the fleet anymore."

"Right." It was, of course, obvious now where Karrde was going with this. "So how did you happen to find it?"

"Purely by accident, I assure you. In fact, it wasn't until several days afterward that I realized what exactly I'd found. I suspect none of the rest of the crew ever knew at all."

Karrde's gaze defocused, his eyes flattening with the memory. "It was just over fifteen years ago," he said, his voice distant, the thumbs of his intertwined hands rubbing slowly against each other. "I was working as navigator/sensor specialist for a small, independent smuggling group. We'd rather botched a pickup and had had to shoot our way past a pair of Carrack cruisers on our way out. We made it all right, but since I hadn't had the time to do a complete lightspeed calculation, we dropped back to realspace a half light-year out to recalculate." His lip twitched. "Imagine our surprise when we discovered a pair of Dreadnaughts waiting directly in our path."

"Lying dead in space.

Karrde shook his head. "Actually, they weren't, which was what threw me for those first few days. From all appearances, the ships seemed to be fully functional, with both interior and running lights showing and even a standby sensor scan in operation. Naturally, we assumed it was part of the group we'd just tangled with, and the captain made an emergency jump to lightspeed to get us out of there."

"Not a good idea," Mara murmured.

"It seemed the lesser of two evils at the time," Karrde said grimly. "As it turned out, we came close to being fatally wrong on that account. The ship hit the mass shadow of a large comet on the way out, blowing the main hyperdrive and nearly wrecking the rest of the ship on the spot. Five of our crew were killed in the collision, and another three died of injuries before we could limp back to civilization on the backup hyperdrive."

There was a moment of silence. "How many of you were left?" Mara asked at last.

Karrde focused on her, his usual sardonic smile back on his face. "Or in other words, who else might know about the fleet?"

"If you want to put it that way.

"There were six of us left. As I said, though, I don't think any of the others realized what it was we'd found. It was only when I went back to the sensor records and discovered that there were considerably more than just the two Dreadnaughts in the area that I began to have my own suspicions."

"And the records themselves?"

"I erased them. After memorizing the coordinates, of course."

Mara nodded. "You said this was fifteen years ago?"

"That's right," Karrde nodded back. "I've thought about going back and doing something with the ships, but I never had the time to do it properly. Unloading two hundred Dreadnaughts on the open market isn't something you rush into without a good deal of prior preparation. Even if you have markets for all of them, which has always been problematic."

"Until now."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting I sell them to the Empire?"

"They're in the market for capital ships,"' she reminded him.

"And they're offering value plus twenty percent."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I thought you didn't much care for the Empire."

"I don't," she retorted. "What's the other option give them to the New Republic?"

He held her gaze. "That might be more profitable in the long run.

Mara's left hand curled into a tight fist, her stomach churning with mixed feelings. To let the Dreadnaughts fall into the hands of the New Republic, successor to the Rebel Alliance that had destroyed her life, was a hateful thought. But on the other hand, the Empire without the Emperor was only a pale shadow of its former self, hardly even worthy of the name anymore. It would be pearls before swine to give the Dark Force to them.

Or would it? With a Grand Admiral in charge of the Imperial Fleet again, perhaps there was now a chance for the Empire to gain some of its old glory. And if there was:"What are you going to do?" she asked Karrde.

"At the moment, nothing," Karrde said. "It's the same problem we faced with Skywalker, after all: the Empire will be swifter to exact vengeance if we go against them, but the New Republic looks more likely to win in the end. Giving Thrawn the Katana fleet would only delay the inevitable. The most prudent course right now is to stay neutral."

"Except that giving Thrawn the Dreadnaughts might get him off our exhaust trail," Mara pointed out. "That would be worth the trade right there."

Karrde smiled faintly. "Oh, come now, Mara. The Grand Admiral may be a tactical genius, but he's hardly omniscient. He can't possibly have any idea where we are. And he certainly has more important things to do than spend his resources chasing us down."

"I'm sure he does," Mara agreed reluctantly. But she couldn't help remembering how, even at the height of his power and with a thousand other concerns, the Emperor had still frequently taken the time to exact vengeance on someone who'd crossed him.

Beside her the comm board buzzed, and Mara reached over to key the channel. "Yes?"

"Lachton," a familiar voice came from the speaker. "Is Karrde around?"

"Right here," Karrde called, stepping to Mara's side.

"How's the camouflage work going?"

"We're about done," Lachton said. "We ran short of flash-netting, though. Do we have any more?"

"There's some at one of the dumps," Karrde told him.

"I'll send Mara to get it; can you have someone come in to pick it up?"

"Sure, no problem. I'll send Dankin-he hasn't got much to do at the moment anyway.

"All right. The netting will be ready by the time he gets here."

Karrde gestured, and Mara keyed off the channel.

"You know where the Number Three dump is?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Four twelve Wozwashi Street. Three blocks west and two north."

"Right." He peered out the window. "Unfortunately, it's still too early for repulsorlift vehicles to be on the streets. You'll have to walk."

"That's all right," Mara assured him. She felt like a little exercise, anyway. "Two boxes be enough?"

"If you can handle that many," he told her, looking her up and down as if making sure her outfit conformed to local Rishi standards of propriety. He needn't have bothered; one of the first rules the Emperor had drummed into her so long ago was to blend in as best she could with her surroundings. "If not, Lachton can probally make do with one."

"All right. I'll see you later."

Their townhouse was part of a row of similar structures abutting one of the hundreds of little market areas that dotted the whole congested valley. For a moment Mara stood in the entry alcove of their building, out of the busy flow of pedestrian traffic, and looked around her. Through the gaps between the nearest buildings she could see the more distant parts of the city-vale, most of it composed of the same cream-white stone so favored by the locals. In places, she could see all the way to the edge, a few small buildings perched precariously partway up the craggy mountains that rose sharply into the sky on all sides. Far up those mountains, she knew, lived loose avian tribes of native Rishi, who no doubt looked down in bemused disbelief at the strange creatures who had chosen the most uncomfortably hot and humid spots of their planet in which to live.

Dropping her gaze from the mountains, Mara gave the immediate area a quick scan. Across the street were more townhouses; between her and them was the usual flow of brightly clad pedestrians hurrying to and from the market area to the east. Reflexively, her eyes flicked across the townhouses, though with each window composed of mirror glass there wasn't a lot there for her to see. Also reflexively, she glanced across each of the narrow pedestrian alleyways between the buildings.

Between two of them, back at the building's rear where he was hardly visible, was the motionless figure of a man wearing a blue scarf and patterned green tunic.

Staring in her direction.

Mara let her gaze drift on as if she hadn't seen him, her heart thudding suddenly in her throat. Stepping out of the alcove, she turned east toward the market and joined the flow of traffic.

She didn't stay with it long, though. As soon as she was out of the mysterious loiterer's line of sight, she began cutting her way across the flow, heading across the street toward the townhouse window. She reached it three buildings d,own from the loiterer, ducked into the alleyway, and hurried toward the rear. If he was indeed monitoring Karrde's place, there was a good chance she could take him from behind.

She reached "The rear of the buildings and circled around : only to find that her quarry had vanished.

For a moment she stood there, looking around her for any sign of the man's whereabouts, wondering what to do now. There was none of the insistent tingling that had gotten them away from Myrkr at the last second; but as she'd told Karrde, it wasn't a talent she could turn on and off.

She looked down at the ground where the man had been standing. There were a few faint footprints in the thin coating of dust that had collected at the corner of the townhouse, giving the impression that the man had been there long enough to shuffle his feet a few times. A half dozen steps away, right in the center of another layer of dust, was a clear footprint pointing toward the west behind the row of townhouses.

Mara looked in that direction, feeling her lip twist. A deliberate lead-on, obviously-footprints in dust never came out that clear and unsmudged unless carefully planted. And she was right. A hundred meters directly ahead, strolling casually along the rear of the buildings toward a north-south street, was the man in the blue scarf and patterned tunic. A not-very-subtle invitation to follow him.

Okay, friend, she thought as she started off after him. You want to play? Let's play.

She had closed the gap between them to perhaps ninety meters when he reached the cross flow of traffic and turned north into it. Another clear invitation, this time to close the gap further lest she lose him.

But Mara had no intention of taking him up on this one. She'd memorized the geography of the city-vale their first day here, and it was pretty obvious that his intention was to lead her up to the more sparsely populated industrial areas to the north, where presumably he could deal with her without the awkward presence of witnesses. If she could get there first, she might be able to turn things around on him. Double-checking the blaster beneath her left sleeve, she cut through an alley between the buildings to her right and headed north.

The valley stretched for nearly a hundred fifty kilometers in a roughly east-west direction, but at this point its north-south dimension was only a few kilometers. Mara kept up her pace, continually revising her course to avoid crowds and other impediments. Gradually, the houses and shops began to give way to light industry; and, finally, she judged she'd come far enough. If her quarry had kept with the leisurely pace of a man who didn't want to lose a tracker, she should now have enough time to prepare a little reception for him.

There was, of course, always the possibility that he'd shifted to one of the other north-south streets somewhere along the way, changed direction east or west, or even doubled back completely and returned to Karrde's townhouse. But as she looked carefully around the corner of a building into the street he'd first turned onto, she discovered that his imagination was as limited as his surveillance technique. Halfway down the block, he was crouched motionless behind a row of storage barrels with his back to her, his blue scarf thrown back out of the way across his patterned green tunic, something that was probably a weapon clutched ready in his hand. Waiting, no doubt, for her to stroll into his trap. Amateur, she thought, lip twisting in contempt. Watching him closely, not even bothering with her blaster, she eased around the corner and started silently toward him.

"That's far enough," a mocking voice said from behind her.

Mara froze. The figure crouched by the barrels ahead of her didn't even twitch : and it was only then that she belatedly realized that it was far too still to be simply waiting in ambush. Far too still, for that matter, to even be alive.

Slowly, keeping her arms stretched straight out to her sides, she turned around. The man facing her was of medium height, with a somewhat bulky build and dark, brooding eyes. His undertunic hung open to reveal a lightarmor vest beneath it. In his hand, of course, was a blaster. "Well, well, well," he sneered. "What we got here? `Bout time you showed up was startin' to think you'd gotten lost or somethin'"

"Who are you?" Mara asked.

"Oh, no, Red, I'm the one what's askin' the questions here. Not that I need to, `course. That fancy stuff on top pret' well tells me aw I need t' know." He gestured with his blaster at her red-gold hair. "Shoulda gotten rid o' that-hide it or dyed it, y'know. Dead give'way. Pardon the `spression."

Mara took a careful breath, forcing her muscles to unknot. "What do you want with me?" she asked, keeping her voice calm.

"Same thin' every man really wants," he grinned slyly. "A pile o' hard cold cash."

She shook her head. "In that case, I'm afraid you've picked the wrong person. I've only got about fifty on me."

He grinned even wider. "Cute, Red, but you're wastin' your time. I know who y'are, aw right. You 'n' your pals are gonna make me real rich. C'mon-let's go."

Mara didn't move. "Perhaps we can work a deal," she suggested, feeling a drop of sweat trickle down between her shoulder blades. She knew better than to be fooled by the other's careless speech and manner-whoever and whatever he was, he knew exactly what he was doing.

On the plus side, she still had the blaster hidden beneath her sleeve; and she would give long odds that her assailant wouldn't expect that a weapon that potent might be small enough to conceal there. The fact that he hadn't already searched her seemed to confirm that assessment.

But whatever she was going to do, she had to do it now, while she was still facing him. Unfortunately, with her hands spread apart there was no way for her to get at her weapon without telegraphing the movement. Somehow, she needed to distract him.

"A deal, huh?" he asked lazily. "What kind o' deal you got in mind?"

"What kind of deal do you want?" she countered. If there'd been a box anywhere near her feet, she might have been able to scoop it up with her foot and throw it at him. But though there was a fair amount of junk littering the street in this part of town, nothing suitable was within reach. Her half-boots were firmly fastened around her ankles, impossible to get loose without him noticing. Rapidly, she ran through an inventory of items she was carrying or wearing-nothing.

But the Emperor's intensive training had included direct manipulation of the Force as well as the long-range communication abilities that had been her primary value to his regime. Those skills had vanished at the moment of his death, reappearing only briefly and erratically in the years since then.

But if the sensory tingles and hunches had started again, perhaps the power was back, too :

"I'm sure we can double whatever you've been offered," she said. "Maybe even throw in something extra to sweeten the pot."

His grin turned evil. "That's a real generous offer, Red. Real generous. Lotta men'd jump on that right away, sure `nough. Me"-he lifted the blaster a little higher-"I like stayin' with a sure thing."

"Even if it means settling for half the money?" Two meters behind him, piled carelessly up against a retaining wall, was a small stack of scrap metal parts waiting to be picked up. A short length of shield tubing, in particular, seemed to he rather precariously positioned on one edge of a battered power cell case.

Setting her teeth, clearing her thoughts as best she could, Mara reached her mind out toward the tubing.

"On my pad, half a sure thing's better than twice o' nothin'," the man said. "Anyway, I don't 'spect you can outbid the Empire."

Mara swallowed. She'd suspected it from the first; but the confirmation still sent a shiver up her back. "You might be surprised at our resources, she said. The length of tubing twitched, rolled a couple of millimeters-

"Now, don't think so," the other said easily. "C'mon, let's go."

Mara tilted a finger back toward the dead man crouched at the box behind her. "You mind telling me first what happened here?"

Her assailant shrugged. "What's t' tell? I needed a decoy; he was wandering' around the wrong place at the wrong time. End o' story." His grin suddenly vanished. "Enough stalling Turn around and start walking:unless you're looking' to spite me by making me settle for the death fee instead."

"No," Mara murmured. She took a deep breath, straining with every bit of strength she possessed, knowing that this was her last best chance-

And behind her captor, the tubing fell with a muffled clank onto the ground.

He was good, all right. The tubing had hardly even finished its fall before he'd dropped to one knee, spinning around and spraying the area behind him with a splattering of quick cover fire as he searched for whoever was sneaking up on him. It took less than a second for him to recognize his mistake, and with another spray of blaster fire he spun back again.

But one second was all Mara needed. His desperate blaster spray was still tracking toward her when she shot him neatly in the head.

For a long moment she just stood there, breathing hard, muscles trembling with reaction. Then, glancing around to make sure no one was running to see what all the commotion was about, she holstered her weapon and knelt down beside him.

There was, as she'd expected, precious little to find. An ID-probably forged-giving his name as Dengar Roth, a couple of spare power clips for his blaster, a backnp vibroblade knife, a data card and data pad, and some working capital in both local and Imperial currency. Stuffing the ID and data card into her tunic, she left the money and weapons where they were and got back to her feet. "There's your twice of nothing," she muttered, looking down at the body. "Enjoy it."

Her eyes shifted to the piece of shield tubing that had saved her life. She'd been right. The twitches of power, as well as the hunches, were back. Which meant the dreams wouldn't be far behind.

She swore under her breath. If they came, they came, and there was nothing much she could do except endure them. For the moment she had other, more pressing matters to deal with. Taking one final look around, she headed for home.

Karrde and Dankin were waiting when she arrived back at the townhouse, the latter all but pacing the floor in his nervousness. "There you are," he snapped as she slipped in through the back door. "Where the blazes-?"

"We've got trouble," Mara cut him off, handing the Dengar Roth ID to Karrde and brushing past them to the still largely disassembled communications room. Pushing aside a box of cables, she found a data pad and plugged in the card.

"What kind of trouble?" Karrde asked, coming up behind her.

"The bounty hunter kind," Mara said, handing him the data pad. Neatly framed in the center of the display, under a large 20,000, was Karrde's face. "We're probably all in there," she told him. "Or at least as many as grand Admiral Thrawn knew about."

"So I'm worth twenty thousand now," Karrde murmured, paging quickly through the card. "I'm flattered."

"Is that all you're going to say?" Mara demanded.

He looked at her. "What would you like me to say?" he asked mildly. "That you were right and I was wrong about the Empire's interest in us?"

"I'm not interested in laying blame," she told him stiffly. "What I want to know is what we're going to do about it."

Karrde looked at the data pad again, a muscle tightening briefly in his jaw. "We're going to do the only prudent thing," he said. "Namely, retreat. Dankin, get on the secure comm and tell Lachton to start pulling the drop apart again. Then call Chin and his team and have them go over and repack the stuff in the equipment dumps. You can stay and help Mara and me here. I want to get off Rishi by midnight if at all possible."

"Got it," Dankin said, already keying the encrypt codes into the comm board.

Karrde handed the data pad back to Mara. "We'd better get busy."

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. `And what happens when we run out of backnp bases?"

He locked eyes with her. "We don't give up the Dreadnaughts under duress," he said, lowering his voice to just above a whisper. "Not to Thrawn; not to anyone else."

"We may have to," she pointed out.

His eyes hardened. "We may choose to," he corrected her. "We will never have to. Is that clear?"

Mara grimaced to herself. "Yes."

"Good." Karrde flicked a glance over her shoulder to where Dankin was speaking urgently into the comm. "We have a lot of work to do. Let's get to it."

Mara would have bet that they couldn't reassemble their equipment in less than twenty-four hours. To her mild surprise, the crews had everything packed and ready to go barely an hour after local midnight. With suitably generous applications of funds to spaceport officials, they were off Rishi and to lightspeed an hour after that.

And later that night, as the Wild Karrde drove through the mottled sky of hyperspace, the dreams started again.

Chapter 6

From a distance it had looked like a standard-issue Bulk Cruiser: old, slow, minimally armed, with very little going for it in a fight except its size. But as with so very much of warfare, appearances in this case turned out to be deceiving; and if Grand Admiral Thrawn hadn't been on the Chimaera's bridge, Pellaeon had to admit that he might have been caught a bit by surprise.

But Thrawn had been on the bridge, and had recognized immediately the unlikelihood that the Rebellion's strategists would have put such an important convoy under the protection of such a weak ship. And so, when the Bulk Cruiser's bays suddenly erupted with three full squadrons of A-wing starfighters, the Chimaera's TIE interceptors were already in space and swarming to the attack.

"Interesting tactic," Thrawn commented as the gap between the Chimaera and the Rebel convoy began to sparkle with laser flashes. "If not especially innovative. The idea of converting Bulk Cruisers to starfighter carriers was first proposed over twenty years ago."

"I don't recall it ever being implemented," Pellaeon said, feeling a twinge of uneasiness as he eyed the tactical displays. A-wings were faster even than those cursed X-wings, and he wasn't at all sure how well his TIE interceptors would handle them.

"Excellent fighters, A-wings," Thrawn said, as if reading Pellaeon's thoughts. "Not without their limitations, though. Particularly here-high-speed craft like that are far more suited to hit-and-fade operations than to escort duty. Forcing them to remain near a convoy largely neutralizes their speed advantage." He cocked a blue-black eyebrow at Pellaeon. "Perhaps we're seeing the result of Admiral Ackbar's removal as Supreme Commander."

"Perhaps." The TIE interceptors did indeed seem to be holding their own against the A-wings; and the Chimaera itself was certainly having no trouble with the Bulk Cruiser. Beyond the battlefront, the rest of the convoy was trying to huddle together, as if that would do them any good. "Ackbar's people are still in charge, though."

"Obviously."

"We've been over this territory already, Captain," Thrawn said, his voice cooling slightly. "Planting a vacuum-tight collection of evidence against Ackbar would have ruined him far too quickly. The more subtle attack will still neutralize him, but it will also send ripples of uncertainty and confusion through the Rebellion's entire political system. At the very least, it will distract and weaken them just at the moment when we'll be launching the Mount Tantiss campaign. At its best, it could split the entire alliance apart." He smiled. "Ackbar himself is replaceable, Captain. The delicate political balance the Rebellion has created for itself is not."

"I understand all that, Admiral," Pellaeon growled. "My concern is with your assumption that that Bothan on the Council can be relied upon to push things so close to your theoretical breakup point.

"Oh, he'll push, all right," Thrawn said, his smile turning sardonic as he gazed out at the battle blazing on around the enemy convoy. "I've spent many hours studying Bothan art, Captain, and I understand the species quite well. There's no doubt at all that Councilor Fey'lya will play his part beautifully. As beautifully as if we were pulling his strings directly."

He tapped a key on his board. "Starboard batteries: one of the Frigates in the convoy is easing into attack position. Assume it's an armed backup and treat it accordingly. Squadrons A-2 and A-3, move to protect that flank until the Frigate has been neutralized."

The batteries and TIE wing commander acknowledged, and some of the turbolaser fire began to track on the Frigate. "And what happens if Fey'lya wins?" Pellaeon persisted. "Quickly, I mean, before all this political confusion has a chance to set in. By your own analysis of the species, any Bothan who's risen as high as Fey'lya has would have to be highly intelligent."

"Intelligent, yes, but not necessarily in any way that's dangerous to us," Thrawn said. "He'd have to be a survivor, certainly, but that kind of verbal skill doesn't necessarily translate into military competence." He shrugged. "Actually, a victory by Fey'lya would merely prolong the whole awkward situation for the enemy. Given the kind of support Fey'lya's been cultivating among the Rebellion military, the politicians would have to go through another polarizing struggle when they realized their mistake and tried to replace him."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, suppressing a sigh. It was the kind of tangled subtlety that he'd never really felt comfortable with. He just hoped the Grand Admiral was right about the potential gains; it would be a shame for Intelligence to have engineered such a brilliantly successful bank job and then not get anything of real value out of it.

"Trust me, Captain," Thrawn said into his unspoken worries. "I dare say the wasting of political effort has already begun, in fact. Ackbar's staunchest allies would hardly have left Coruscant at this critical point unless they were desperately searching for evidence to clear him."

Pellaeon frowned at him. "Are you saying that Solo and Organa Solo are headed for the Palanhi system?"

"Solo only, I think," Thrawn corrected thoughtfully.

"Organa Solo and the Wookiee are most likely still trying to find a place to hide from our Noghri. But Solo will be going to Palanhi, firmly convinced by Intelligence's electronic sleight-of-hand that the trail leads through that system. Which is why the Death's Head is on its way there right now."

"I see," Pellaeon murmured. He'd noticed that order on the daily log and had wondered why Thrawn was pulling one of their best Imperial Star Destroyers off battle duty. "I hope it will be equal to the task. Solo and Skywalker have both proved hard to trap in the past."

"I don't believe Skywalker is going to Palanhi," Thrawn told him, his face settling into a somewhat sour expression. "Our esteemed Jedi Master apparently called it correctly. Skywalker has decided to pay a visit to Jomark."

Pellaeon stared at him. "Are you sure, Admiral? I haven't seen anything from Intelligence to that effect."

"The information wasn't from, Intelligence," Thrawn said. "It came from Delta Source.

"Ah," Pellaeon said, feeling his own expression go a little sour. The Chimaera's Intelligence section had been nagging him for months now to find out what exactly this Delta Source was that seemed to feed such clear and precise information to the Grand Admiral from the very heart of the Imperial Palace. So far all Thrawn would say was that Delta Source was firmly established and that the information gained through it should be treated as absolutely reliable.

Intelligence hadn't even been able to figure out whether Delta Source was a person, a droid, or some exotic recording system that was somehow able to elude the Rebellion's hourly counter intelligence sweeps of the Palace. It irritated them no end; and Pellaeon had to admit he didn't much like being kept in the dark about it, either. But Thrawn had personally activated Delta Source, and long years of unwritten protocol in such matters gave him the right to keep the contact confidential if he chose. "I'm sure C'baoth will be pleased to hear it," he said. "I presume you'll want to give him the news yourself."

He thought he'd hidden his irritation with C'baoth reasonably well. Apparently, he'd thought wrong. "You're still upset about Taanab," Thrawn said, turning to gaze out at the battle. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, sir, I am," Pellaeon said stiffly. "I've been over the records again, and there's only one possible conclusion. C'baoth deliberately went beyond the battle plan Captain Aban had laid out-went beyond it to the point of disobeying a direct order. I don't care who C'baoth is or whether he felt justified or not. What he did constitutes mutiny."

"It did indeed," Thrawn agreed calmly. "Shall I throw him out of the Imperial service altogether, or simply demote him in rank?

Pellaeon glared at the other. "I'm serious, Admiral.

"So am I, Captain," Thrawn countered, his voice abruptly cold. "You know full well what's at stake here. We need to utilize every weapon at our disposal if we're to defeat the Rebellion. C'baoth's ability to enhance coordination and battle efficiency between our forces is one of those weapons; and if he can't handle proper military discipline and protocol, then we bend the rules for him."

"And what happens when we've bent the rules so far that they come around and stab us in the back?" Pellaeon demanded. "He ignored a direct order at Taanab-maybe next time it'll be two orders. Then three, then four, until finally he's doing what he damn well pleases and to blazes with the Empire. What's to stop him?"

"Initially, the ysalamiri," Thrawn said, gesturing at the odd-looking tubular frameworks scattered around the bridge, each with an elongated furry creature wrapped around it. Each of them creating a bubble in the Force where none of C'baoth's Jedi tricks would work. "That's what they're here for, after all."

"That's all well and good," Pellaeon said. "But in the long run-"

"In the long run, I will stop him," Thrawn cut him off, touching his board. "Squadron C-3, watch your port-zenith flank. There's a blister on that Frigate that could be a cluster trap."

The commander acknowledged, the TIE interceptors veering away in response. A second later, half a heartbeat too late, the blister abruptly exploded, sending a withering hail of concussion grenades outward in all directions. The rearmost of the TIE interceptors was caught by the edge of the fiery flower, shattering in a brilliant secondary `explosion. The rest, out of range, escaped the booby trap unharmed.

Thrawn turned his glowing eyes on Pellaeon. "I understand your concerns, Captain," he said quietly. "What you fail to grasp-what you've always failed to grasp-is that a man with C'baoth's mental and emotional instabilities can never be a threat to us. Yes, he has a great deal of power, and at any given moment he could certainly do considerable damage to our people and equipment. But by his very nature he's unable to use that power for any length of time. Concentration, focus, long-term thinking-those are the qualities that separate a warrior from a mere flailing fighter. And they're qualities C'baoth will never possess."

Pellaeon nodded heavily. He still wasn't convinced, but there was clearly no use in arguing the point further. Not now, anyway. Yes, sir." He hesitated. "C'baoth will also want to know about Organa Solo."

Thrawn's eyes glittered; but the annoyance, Pellaeon knew, wasn't directed at him. "You will tell Master C'baoth that I've decided to allow the Noghri one last chance to find and capture her. When we've finished here, I'll be taking that message to them. Personally."

Pellaeon glanced back at the entrance to the bridge, where the Noghri bodyguard Rukh stood his usual silent vigil. "You're calling a convocate of the Noghri commandos?" he asked, suppressing a shiver. He'd been to one such mass meeting once, and facing a whole roomful of those quiet gray-skinned killers was not an experience he was anxious to repeat.

"I think matters have gone beyond simply calling a convocate," Thrawn said coldly. "You'll instruct Navigation to prepare a course from the rendezvous point to the Honoghr system. The entire Noghri populace, I think, needs to be reminded of who it is they serve."

He shifted his glare out the viewport at the battle and tapped his board. "TIE command: recall all fighters to the ship," he ordered. "Navigation: begin calculations for a return to the rendezvous point."

Pellaeon frowned out the viewport. The modified Bulk Cruiser and backup Frigate were pretty much dead where they lay, but the convoy itself was largely undamaged. "We're letting them go?"

"There's no need to destroy them," Thrawn said. "Stripping them of their defense is an adequate object lesson for the moment."

He tapped a key, and a tactical holo of this section of the galaxy appeared between their two stations. Blue lines marked the Rebellion's main trade routes; those sheathed in red marked ones the Imperial forces had hit in the past month. "There's more to these attacks than simple harassment, Captain. Once this group has told their story, all future convoys from Sarka will demand upgraded protection. Enough such attacks, and the Rebellion will face the choice of either tying up large numbers of its ships with escort duty or effectively abandoning cargo shipment through these border sectors. Either way, it will put them at a serious disadvantage when we launch the Mount Tantiss campaign." He smiled grimly. "Economics and psychology, Captain. For now, the more civilian survivors there are to spread the tale of Imperial power, the better. There'll be time enough for destruction later." He glanced at his board, looked back out the viewport. "Speaking of Imperial power, any news on our ship hunt?"

"We've had five more capital ships turned in to various Imperial bases in the past ten hours," Pellaeon told him. "Nothing larger than an old Star Galleon, but it's a start."

"We're going to need more than just a start, Captain," Thrawn said, craning his neck slightly to watch the returning TIE interceptors. "Any word on Talon Karrde?"

"Nothing since that tip from Rishi," Pellaeon told him, tapping the proper log for an update. "The bounty hunter who sent it was killed shortly afterward."

"Keep up the pressure," Thrawn ordered. "Karrde knows a great deal about what happens in this galaxy. If there are any capital ships lying unused out there, he'll know where they are."

Personally, Pellaeon thought it pretty unlikely that a mere smuggler, even one with Karrde's connections, would have better information sources than the vast Imperial Intelligence network. But he'd also dismissed the possibility that Karrde might be hiding Luke Skywalker out at that base on Myrkr. Karrde was turning out to be full of surprises. "There are a lot of people out there hunting for him," he told the Grand Admiral. "Sooner or later, one of them will find him."

"Good." Thrawn glanced around the bridge. "In the meantime, all units will continue their assigned harassment of the Rebellion." His glowing red eyes bored into Pellaeon's face. "And they will continue, too, to maintain a watch fur the Millennium Falcon and the Lady Luck. After the Noghri have been properly primed for their task, I want their prey to be ready for them."

C'baoth awakened suddenly, his black-edged dreams giving way to the sudden realization that someone was approaching.

For a moment he lay there in the darkness, his long white beard scratching gently against his chest as he breathed, his mind reaching out through the Force to track along the road from the High Castle to the cluster of villages at the base of the rim mountains. It was hard to concentrate-so very hard-but with a perverse grimness he ignored the fatigue-driven pain and kept at it. There : no : there. A lone man riding a Cracian Thumper, laboring over one of the steeper sections of the roadway. Most likely a messenger, come to bring him some news from the villagers below. Something trifling, no doubt, but something that they felt their new Master should know.

Master. The word echoed through C'baoth's mind, sparking a windblown tangle of thoughts and feelings. The Imperials who pleaded for him to help them fight their battles-they called him Master, too. So had the people of Wayland, whose lives he had been content to rule before Grand Admiral Thrawn and his promise of Jedi followers had lured him away.

The people of Wayland had meant it. The people here on Jomark weren't quite sure yet whether they did or not. The Imperials didn't mean it at all.

C'baoth felt his lip twist in disgust. No, they most certainly did not. They made him fight their battles for them-drove him by their disbelief to do things he hadn't attempted for years and years. And then, when he'd succeeded in doing the impossible, they still held tightly to their private contempt for him, hiding it behind those ysalamiri creatures and the strange empty spaces they somehow created in the Force.

But he knew. He'd seen the sideways looks among the officers, and the brief but muttered discussions between them. He'd felt the edginess of the crew, submitting by Imperial order to his influence on their combat skills but clearly disliking the very thought of it. And he'd watched Captain Aban sit there in his command chair on the Bellicose, shouting and blaspheming at him even while calling him Master, spitting anger and impotent rage as C'baoth calmly inflicted his punishment on the Rebel ship that had dared to strike at his ship.

The messenger below was approaching the High Castle gate now. Reaching out with the Force to call his robe to him, C'baoth got out of bed, feeling a brief rush of vertigo as he stood erect. Yes, it had been difficult, that business of taking command of the Bellicose's turbolaser crews for the few seconds it had required to annihilate that Rebel ship. It had gone beyond any previous stretch of concentration and control, and the mental aches he was feeling now were the payment for that stretch.

He tightened the robe sash around him thinking back. Yes, it had been hard. And yet, at the same time, it had also been strangely exhilarating. On Wayland, he had personally commanded a whole city-state, one with a larger population than that which nestled beneath the High Castle. But there, he'd long since gone beyond the need to impose his will by force. The humans and Psadans had submitted to his authority early on; even the Myneyrshi, with their lingering resentment of his rule, had learned to obey his orders without question.

The Imperials, as well as the people of Jomark, were going to have to learn that same lesson.

Back when Grand Admiral Thrawn had first goaded C'baoth into this alliance, he'd implied that C'baoth had been too long without a real challenge. Perhaps the Grand Admiral had also secretly thought that this challenge of running the Empire's war would prove too much for a single Jedi Master to handle.

C'baoth smiled tightly in the darkness. If that was what the glowing-eyed Grand Admiral thought, he was going to be in for a surprise. Because when Luke Skywalker finally got here, C'baoth would face perhaps the most subtle challenge of his life: to bend and twist another Jedi to his will without the other even being aware of what was happening to him.

And when he'd succeeded, there would be two of and who could tell what might be possible them then?

The messenger had dismounted from his Thumper and was standing beside the gate now, his sense that of a man prepared to await the convenience of his Master, no matter how long that wait might be. That was good: exactly the proper attitude. Giving his robe sash one final tug, C'baoth headed through the maze of darkened rooms toward the door, to hear what his new subjects wished to tell him.

Chapter 7

With a delicacy that always seemed so incongruous in a being his size, Chewbacca maneuvered the Falcon into his precisely selected orbital slot above the lush green moon of Endor. Rumbling under his breath, he switched over the power linkages and cut the engines back to standby.

Seated in the copilot seat, Leia took a deep breath, wincing as one of the twins kicked her from inside. "Doesn't look like Khabarakh's here yet," she commented, realizing even as she said it how superfluous the comment was. She'd been watching the sensors from the moment they dropped out of lightspeed; and given there were no other ships anywhere in the system, there wasn't much chance that they could have missed him. But with the familiar engine roar now cut back down to a whisper, the silence felt strange and even a little eerie to her.

Chewbacca growled a question. "We wait, I guess, Leia shrugged. "Actually, we're almost a day early-we got here faster than I'd expected."

Chewbacca turned back to his board, growling his own interpretation of the Noghri's absence. "Oh, come on," Leia chided him. "If he'd decided to make this meeting into a trap, don't you think they'd have had a couple of Star Destroyers and an Interdictor Cruiser waiting to meet us?"

"Your Highness?" Threepio's voice called from down the tunnel. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I believe I've located the fault in the Carbanti countermeasures package. Could you ask Chewbacca to step back for a moment?"

Leia raised her eyebrows in mild surprise as she looked at Chewbacca. As was depressingly normal with the Falcon, several bits of equipment had gone out early in the flight from Coruscant. Up to his elbows with more important repairs, Chewbacca had assigned the relatively low-priority work on the Carbanti to Threepio. Leia had had no objections, though given the results the last time Threepio had tried to work on the Falcon, she hadn't expected very much to come of it. "We'll make a repair droid out of him yet," she said to Chewbacca. "Your influence, no doubt."

The Wookiee snorted his opinion of that as he got out of the pilot's seat and headed back to see what Threepio had found. The cockpit door slid open, closed again behind him.

Leaving the cockpit that much quieter.

"You see that planet down there, my dears?" Leia murmured, rubbing her belly gently. "That's Endor. Where the Rebel alliance finally triumphed over the Empire, and the New Republic began."

Or at least, she amended silently to herself that was what the histories some day would say. That the death of the Empire occurred at Endor, with all the rest of it merely a mopping-up action.

A mopping-up action which had lasted five years, so far. And could wind up lasting another twenty, the way things were going.

She let her eyes drift across the brilliant mottled green world turning slowly beneath them, wondering yet again why she'd chosen this place for her rendezvous with Khabarakh. True, it was a system that practically every being in both the Republic and Imperial sections of the galaxy had heard of and knew how to find. And with the major planes of contention long gone from this sector, it was a quiet enough place for two ships to meet.

But there were memories here, too, some of which Leia would just as soon not bring to mind. Before they'd triumphed, they'd very nearly lost everything.

From down the tunnel, Chewbacca roared a question. "Hang on, I'll check," Leia called back. Leaning over the board, she keyed a switch. "It reads 'standby/modulo,"" she reported. "Wait a minute-now it reads `system ready." Do you want me-?"

And abruptly, without any warning, a black curtain seemed to drop across her vision:

Slowly, she became aware that there was a metallic voice calling to her. "Your Highness," it said over and over again. "Your Highness. Can you hear me? Please, Your Highness, can you hear me?"

She opened her eyes, vaguely surprised to discover they were closed, to find Chewbacca leaning over her with an open medpack gripped in one huge hand, an agitated Threepio hovering like a nervous mother bird behind him. "I'm all right," she managed. "What happened?"

"You shouted for help," Threepio put in before Chewbacca could answer. "At least, we thought it was for help," he amended helpfully. "You were brief and rather incoherent."

"I don't doubt it," Leia told him. It was starting to come back now, like moonlight through the edge of a cloud. The menace, the rage; the hatred, the despair. "You didn't feel it, did you?" she asked Chewbacca.

He growled a negative, watching her closely. "I felt nothing either," Threepio put in.

Leia shook her head. "I don't know what it could have been. One minute I was sitting there, and then the next-"

She broke off a sudden horrible thought striking her. "Chewie-where does this orbit take us? Does it ever pass through the position where the Death Star blew up?"

Chewbacca stared at her a moment, rumbling something deep in his throat. Then, shifting the medpack to his other hand, he reached past her to key the computer. The answer came almost immediately.

"Five minutes ago," Leia murmured, feeling cold. "That would be just about right, wouldn't it?

Chewbacca growled an affirmative, then a question. "I really don't know," she had to admit. "It sounds a little like something Lake went through on-during his Jedi training," she amended, remembering just in time that Luke still wanted Dagobah's significance to be kept a secret. "But he saw a vision. All I felt was : I don't know. It was anger and bitterness; but at the same time, there was something almost sad about it. No-sad isn't the right word." She shook her head, sudden tears welling inexplicably up in her eyes. "I don't know. Look, I'm all right. You two can go on back to what you were doing."

Chewbacca rumbled under his breath again, clearly not convinced. But he said nothing else as he closed the medpack and pushed past Threepio. The cockpit door slid open for him; with the proverbial Wookiee disdain for subtlety, he locked it in that position before disappearing down the tunnel into the main body of the ship.

Leia focused on Threepio. "You, too," she told him. "Go on-you still have work to do back there. I'm all right. Really."

"Well:very well, Your Highness," the droid said, clearly no happier than Chewbacca was. "If you're certain."

"I am. Go on, scat."

Threepio dithered another moment, then obediently shuffled out of the cockpit.

And the silence resumed. A silence that was thicker, somehow, than it had been before. And much darker.

Leia set her teeth firmly together. "I will not be intimidated," she said aloud to the silence. "Not here; not anywhere."

The silence didn't reply. After a minute Leia reached over to the board and keyed in a course alteration that would keep them from again passing through the spot where the Emperor had died. Refusing to be intimidated, after all, didn't mean deliberately asking for trouble.

And after that, there was nothing left to do but wait. And wonder if Khabarakh would indeed come.

The topmost bit of the walled city Ilic poked through the clutching trees of the jungle pressing tightly around it, looking to Han for all the world like some sort of domed topped, silver-skinned droid drowning in a sea of green quicksand. "Any idea how we land on that thing?" he asked.

"Probably through those vents near the top," Lando said, pointing at the Lady Luck's main display. "They read large enough for anything up to about W-class space barge to get into."

Han nodded, fingers plucking restlessly at the soft armrest of his copilot seat. There weren't a lot of things in the galaxy that could make him nervous, but having to sit there while someone else made a tricky landing was one of them. "This is even a crazier place to live than that Nomad City thing of yours," he growled.

"No argument from me," Lando agreed, adjusting their altitude a bit. Several seconds later than Han would have done it. "At least on Nkllon we don't have to worry about getting eaten by some exotic plant. But that's economics for you. At last count there were eight cities in this part of New Cov, and two more being built."

Han grimaced. And all because of those same exotic plants. Or to be specific, the exotic biomolecules that could be harvested from them. The Covies seemed to think the profit was worth having to live in armored cities all the time. No one knew what the plants thought about it. "They're still crazy," he said. "Watch out, they may have magnetic airlocks on those entrance ducts.

Lando gave him a patient look. "Will you relax? I have flown ships before, you know."

"Yeah," Han muttered. Setting his teeth together, he settled in to suffer through the landing.

It wasn't as bad as he'd expected. Lando got his clearance from Control and guided the Lady Luck with reasonable skill into the flaring maw of one of the entrance ducts, following the curved pipe down and inward to a brightly lit landing area just beneath the transparisteel dome that topped the city walls. Inbound customs were a mere formality, though given the planet's dependence on exports, the outbound scrutiny would probably be a lot tighter. They were officially welcomed to Ilic by a professional greeter with a professional smile, given a data card with maps of the city and surrounding territory, and then turned loose.

"That wasn't so hard," Lando commented as they rode a sliding spiral ramp down through the spacious open center. At each level walkways led outward from the ramp to the market, administrative, and living areas of the city. "Where are we supposed to be meeting Luke?"

"Three more levels down, in one of the entertainment districts," Han told him. "The Imperial library didn't have much detail on this place, but it did mention a little tap cafe called the Mishra attached to some half-size version they've got of the old Grandis Mon theater on Coruscant. I got the impression it was kind of a watering hole for local big shots."

"Sounds like a good place, to meet," Lando agreed. He threw Han a sideways look. "So. You ready to show me the hook yet?"

Han frowned. "Hook?"

"Come on, you old pirate," Lando snorted. "You pick me up at Sluis Van, ask for a lift out to New Cov, send Luke on ahead for this cloak-and-blade rendezvous-and you expect me to believe you're just going to wave goodbye now and let me go back to Nkllon?"

Han gave his friend his best wounded look. "Come on, Lando-"

"The hook, Han. Let me see the hook."

Han sighed theatrically. "There isn't any hook, Lando," he said. "You can leave for Nkllon any time you want to. `Course," he added casually, "if you hung around a little and gave us a hand, you might be able to work a deal here to unload any spare metals you had lying around. Like, oh, a' stockpile of hfredium or something."

Carefully keeping his eyes forward, he could still feel the heat of Lando's glare. "Luke told you about that, didn't he?" Lando demanded.

Han shrugged. "He might have mentioned it," he conceded.

Lando hissed between clenched teeth. "I'm going to strangle him," he announced. "Jedi or not, I'm going to strangle him."

"Oh, come on, Lando," Han soothed. "You hang around a couple days you listen to people's jabberings, you maybe dig us out a lead or two about what Fey'lya's got going here, and that's it. You go home and back to your mining operation, and we never bother you again."

"I've heard that before," Lando countered. But Han could hear the resignation in his voice, "What makes you think Fey'lya's got contacts on New Cov?"

"Because during the war, this was the only place his Bothans ever seined to care about defending-"

He broke off, grabbing Lando's arm and turning both of them hard to the right toward the central column of the spiral walkway. "What&mdahs;" Lando managed.

"Quiet!" Han hissed, trying to simultaneously hide his face and still watch the figure he'd spotted leaving the ramp one level down. "That Bothan down there to the left-see him?"

Lando turned slightly, peering in the indicated direction out of the corner of his eye. "What about him?"

"It's Tav Breil'lya. One of Fey'lya's top aides."

"You're kidding," Lando said, frowning down at the alien. "How can you tell?"

"That neck piece he wears-some kind of family crest or something. I've seen it dozens of times at Council meetings." Han chewed at his lip, trying to think. If that really was Breil'lya over there, finding out what he was up to could save them a lot of time. But Luke was probably sitting in the tapcafe downstairs right now waiting for them : "I'm going to follow him," he told Lando, shoving his data pad and the city map into the other's hands. "You head down to the Mishra, grab Luke, and catch up with me."

"But-"

"If you're not with me in an hour I'll try calling on the comlink," Han cut him off stepping toward the outside of the ramp. They were nearly to the Bothan's level now. "Don't call me-I might be someplace I wouldn't want a call beep going off." He stepped off the ramp onto the walkway.

"Good luck," Lando called softly after him.

There was a good scattering of aliens among the humans wandering around Ilic, but Breil'lya's cream-colored fur stood out of the crowd enough to make him easy to follow. Which was just as well. If Han could recognize the Bothan, the Bothan could probably recognize him right back, and it would be risky to have to get too close.

Luckily, the alien didn't seem to even consider the possibility that anyone might be following him. He kept up a steady pace, never turning around, as he headed past cross streets and shops and atria toward the outer city wall. Han stayed with him, wishing he hadn't been so quick to give the city map to Lando. It might have been nice to have some idea where he was going.

They passed through one final atrium and reached a section of warehouse-type structures abutting a vast mural that seemed to have been painted directly on the inner city wall. Breil'lya went straight to one of the buildings near the mural and disappeared through the front door.

Han ducked into a convenient doorway about thirty meters down the street from the warehouse. The door Breil'lya had gone through, he could see, carried the faded sign Amethyst Shipping and Storage above it. "I just hope it's on the map," he muttered under his breath, pulling his comlink from his belt.

"It is," a woman's voice came softly from behind him.

Han froze. "Hello?" he asked tentatively.

"Hello," she said back. "Turn around, please. Slowly, of course."

Han did as ordered, the comlink still in hand. "If this is a robbery-"

"Don't be silly." The woman was short and slender, perhaps ten years older than him, with closecut graying hair and a thin face which under other circumstances would look friendly enough. The blaster pointed his direction was some unfamiliar knockoff of a BlasTech DL-18-not nearly as powerful as his own DL-44, but under the circumstances the difference didn't matter a whole lot. "Put the comlink on the ground," she continued. "Your blaster, too, as long as you're down there."

Silently, Han crouched down, drawing his weapon out with exaggerated caution. Under cover of the motion, with most of her attention hopefully on the blaster, he flicked on the comlink. Laying both on the ground, he straightened and took a step back, just to prove that he knew the proper procedure for prisoners. "Now what?"

"You seem interested in the little get-together yonder," she said, stooping to retrieve the blaster and comlink. "Perhaps you'd like a guided tour."

"That would be great," Han told her, raising his hands and hoping that she wouldn't think to look at the comlink before putting it away in one of the pockets in her jumpsuit.

She didn't look at it. She did, however, shut it off. "I think I'm insulted," she said mildly. "That has to be the oldest trick on the list."

Han shrugged, determined to maintain at least a little dignity here. "I didn't have time to come up with any new ones.

"Apology accepted. Come on, let's go. And lower ycur hands-we don't want any passersby wondering, now, do we?"

"Of course not," Han said, dropping his hands to his sides.

They were halfway to the Amethyst when, off in the distance, a siren began wailing.

It was, Luke thought as he looked around the Mishra, almost like an inverted replaying of his first visit to the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine all those years ago.

True, the Mishra. was light-years more sophisticated than that dilapidated place had been, with a correspondingly more upscale clientele. But the bar and tables were crowded with the same wide assortment of humans and aliens, the smells and sounds were equally variegated, and the band off in the corner was playing similar music-a style, obviously, that had been carefully tailored to appeal to a multitude of different races.

There was one other difference, too. Crowded though the place might be, the patrons were leaving Luke a respectful amount of room at the bar.

He took a sip of his drink-a local variant of the hot chocolate Lando had introduced him to, this one with a touch of mint-and glanced over at the entrance. Han and Lando should have been only a couple of hours behind him, which meant they could be walking in at any minute. He hoped so, anyway. He'd understood Han's reasons for wanting the two ships to come into Ilic separately, but with all the threats that seemed to be hanging over the New Republic, they couldn't really afford to waste time. He took another sip-

And from behind him came an inhuman bellow.

He spun around, hand automatically yanking his lightsaber from his belt, as the sound of a chair crashing over backwards added an exclamation point to the bellow. Five meters away from him, in the middle of a circle of frozen patrons, a Barabel and a Radian stood facing each other over a table, both with blasters drawn.

"No blasters! No blasters!" an SE4 servant droid called, waving his arms for emphasis as he scuttled toward the confrontation. In the flick of an eye, the Barabel shifted aim and blew the droid apart, bringing his blaster back to bear on the Radian before the other could react.

"Hey!" the bartender said indignantly. "That's going to cost you-"

"Shut up," the Barabel cut him off with a snarl. "Radian will pay you. After he pay me.

The Radian drew himself up to his full height which still left him a good half meter shorter than his opponent-and spat something in a language Luke didn't understand. "You lie," the Barabel spat back. "You cheat. I know."

The Radian said something else. "You no like?" the Barabel countered, his voice haughty. "You do anyway. I call on Jedi for judgment."

Every eye in the tapcafe had been riveted to the confrontation.

Now, in almost perfect unison, the gazes turned to Luke. "What?" he asked cautiously.

"He wants you to settle the dispute," the bartender said, relief evident in his voice.

A relief that Luke himself was far from feeling. "Me?"

The bartender gave him a strange look. "You're the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, aren't you?" he asked, gesturing at the lightsaber in Luke's hand.

"Yes," Luke admitted.

"Well, then," the bartender concluded, waving a hand toward the disputants.

Except that, Jedi or no Jedi, Luke didn't have a drop of legal authority here. He opened his mouth to tell the bartender that-

And then took another look into the other's eyes.

Slowly, he turned back around, the excuses sticking unsaid in his throat. It wasn't just the bartender, he saw. Everyone in the tapcafe, it seemed, was looking at him with pretty much the same expression. An expression of expectation and trust.

Trust in the judgment of a Jedi.

Taking a quiet breath, sternly ordering his pounding heart to calm down, he started through the crowd toward the confrontation. Ben Kenobi had introduced him to the Force; Yoda had taught him how to use the Force for self control and self-defense. Neither had ever taught him anything about mediating arguments.

"All right," he said as he reached the table. "The first thing you're going to do-both of you-is put away your weapons.

"Who first?" the Barabel demanded. "Radians collect bounty-he shoot if I disarm."

This was certainly getting off to a great start. Suppressing a sigh, Luke ignited his lightsaber, holding it out so that the brilliant green blade was directly between the opposing blasters. "No one is going to shoot anyone," he said flatly. "Put them away.

Silently, the Barabel complied. The Radian hesitated a second longer, then followed suit. "Now tell me the problem," Luke said, shutting down the lightsaber but keeping it ready in his hand.

"He hire me for tracking job," the Barabel said, jabbing a keratin-plated finger at the Radian. "I do what he say. But he no pay me."

The Radian said something indignant sounding. "Just a minute I'll get to you," Luke told him, wondering how he was going to handle that'part of the cross-examination. "What sort of job was it?"

"He ask me hunt animal nest for him," the Barabel said. "Animals bothering little ships-eating at sides. I do what he say. He burn animal nest, get money. But then he pay me in no-good money." He gestured down at a now scattered pile of gold-colored metal chips.

Luke picked one up. It was small and triangular, with an intricate pattern of lines in the center, and inscribed with a small "100" in each corner. "Anyone ever see this currency before?" he called, holding it up.

"It's new Imperial scrip," someone dressed in an expensive business coat said with thinly veiled contempt. "You can only spend it on Imperial-held worlds and stations."

Luke grimaced. Another reminder, if he'd needed one, that the war for control of the galaxy was far from over. "Did you tell him beforehand that you'd be paying in this?" he asked the Radian.

The other said something in his own language. Luke glanced around the circle, wondering if asking for a translator would diminish his perceived status here. "He says that that was how he was paid," a familiar voice said; and Luke turned to see Lando ease his way to the front of the crowd. "Says he argued about it, but that he didn't have any choice in the matter."

"That is how the Empire's been doing business lately," someone in the crowd offered. "At least around here."

The Barabel spun toward the other. "I no want your judgment," he snarled. "Only Jedi give judgment."

"All right, calm down," Luke told him, fingering the chit and wondering what he was going to do. If this really was the way the Radian had been paid:"Is there any way to convert these into something else?" he asked the Radian.

The other answered. "He says no," Lando translated. "You can use them for goods and services on Imperial worlds, but since no one in the New Republic will take them, there's no official rate of exchange."

"Right," Luke said dryly. He might not have Lando's experience in under-the-plate operations, but he hadn't been born yesterday, either. "So what's the unofficial exchange rate?"

"No idea, actually," Lando said, looking around the crowd. "Must be someone here who works both sides of the street, though." He raised his voice. "Anyone here do business with the Empire?"

If they did, they were keeping quiet about it. "Shy, aren't they?" Luke murmured.

"About admitting Imperial dealings to a Jedi?" Lando countered. "I'd be shy, too."

Luke nodded, feeling a sinking sense in the pit of his stomach as he studied the Radian's tapirlike snout and passive, multifaceted eyes. He'd hoped that he could simply smooth out the problem and thereby avoid the need to pass any kind of real judgment. Now, he had no choice but to rule on whether the Radian was in fact deliberately trying to cheat his partner.

Closing his eyes down to slits, he composed his mind and stretched out his senses. It was a long shot, he knew; but most species showed subtle physiological changes when under stress. If the Radian was lying about the payment-and if he thought that Luke's Jedi skills could catch him at it-he might react enough to incriminate himself.

But even as Luke ran through the sensory enhancement techniques, something else caught his attention. It was an odor: a faint whiff of Carababba tabac and armudu. The same combination Lando had called his attention to on the Sluis Van space station:

Luke opened his eyes and looked around the crowd. "Niles Ferrier," he called. "Will you step forward, please."

There was a long pause, punctuated only by Lando's sudden hissing intake of air at Ferrier's name. Then, with a rustle of movement from one side of the circle, a familiar bulky figure pushed his way to the front. "What do you want?" he demanded, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered blaster.

"I need to know the unofficial exchange rate between Imperial and New Republic currencies," Luke said. "I thought perhaps you could tell me what it is."

Ferrier studied him with ill-concealed scorn. "This is your problem, Jedi. Leave me out of it."

There was a low rumble of displeasure from the crowd. Luke didn't reply, but held Ferrier in a level gaze; and after a moment, the other's lip twisted. "The last time I did business on the other side, we settled on a five to four Empire/Republic conversion," he growled.

"Thank you," Luke said. "That seems straightforward enough, then," he continued, turning to the Radian. "Pay your associate with New Republic currency at a five/four exchange rate and take the Empire scrip back for the next time you work in their territory."

The Radian spat something. "That is lie!" the Barabel snarled back.

"He says he doesn't have enough in New Republic currency," Lando translated. "Knowing Radians, I'd tend to agree with the Barabel."

"Perhaps." Luke stared hard into the Radian's faceted eyes.

"Perhaps not. But there might be another way." He looked back at Ferrier, raised his eyebrows questioningly.

The other was sharp, all right. "Don't even think it, Jedi," he warned.

"Why not?" Luke asked. "You work both sides of the border. You're more likely to be able to spend Imperial scrip than the Barabel could."

"Suppose I don't want to?" Ferrier countered. "Suppose I don't plan to go back any time soon. Or maybe I don't want to get caught with that much Imperial scrip on me. Fix it yourself, Jedi-I don't owe you any favors."

The Barabel whirled on him. "You talk respect," he snarled. "He is Jedi. You talk respect."

A low rumble of agreement rippled through the crowd. "Better listen to him," Lando advised. "I don't think you'd want to get in a fight here, especially not with a Barabel. They've always had a soft spot for Jedi."

"Yeah-right behind their snouts," Ferrier retorted. But his eyes were flicking around the crowd now, and Luke caught the subtle shift in his sense as he began to realize just how much in the minority his opinion of Luke was.

Or perhaps he was realizing that winding up in the middle of an official flap might buy him more attention than he really wanted to have. Luke waited, watching the other's sense flicker with uncertainty, waiting for him to change his mind.

When it happened, it happened quickly. "All right, but it'll have to be a five/three exchange," Ferrier insisted. "The five/four was a fluke-no telling if I'll ever get that again."

"It is cheat," the Barabel declared. "I deserve more from Radian."

"Yes, you do," Luke agreed. "But under the circumstances, this is probably the best you're going to get." He looked at the Radian. "If it helps any," he added to the Barabel, "remember that you can pass a warning to the rest of your people about dealing with this particular Radian. Not being able to hire expert Barabel hunters will hurt him far more in the long run than he might cost you now."

The Barabel made a grating noise that was probably the equivalent of a laugh. "Jedi speak truth," he said. "Punishment is good.

Luke braced himself. This part the Barabel wasn't going to be nearly so happy about. "You will, however, have to pay for the repair of the droid you shot. Whatever the Radian said or did, he is not responsible for that."

The Barabel stared at Luke, his needle teeth making small, tight biting motions. Luke returned the cold gaze, senses alert to the Force for any intimation of attack. "Jedi again speak truth," the alien said at last. Reluctantly, but firmly. "I accept judgment."

Luke let out a quiet sigh of relief. "Then the matter is closed," he said. He looked at Ferrier, then raised his lightsaber to his forehead in salute to the two aliens and turned away.

"Nicely done," Lando murmured in his ear as the crowd began to break up.

"Thanks," Luke murmured, his mouth dry. It had worked, all right:but it had been more luck than skill, and he knew it. If Ferrier hadn't been there-or if the ship thief hadn't decided to back down-Luke had no idea how he would have solved the dispute. Leia and her diplomatic training would have done better than he had; even Han and his long experience at hard bargaining would have done as well.

It was an aspect of Jedi responsibility that he'd never considered before. But it was one he'd better start thinking about, and fast.

"Han's following one of Fey'lya's Bothan pals up on Level Four," Lando was saying as they moved through the crowd toward the exit. "Spotted him from the west central ramp and sent me to-"

He stopped short. From outside the Mishra the sound of wailing sirens had started. "I wonder what that is," he said, a touch of uneasiness in his voice.

"It's an alarm," one of the tapcafe patrons said, his forehead wrinkled in concentration as he listened. The pitch of the siren changed; changed again:"It's a raid."

"A raid?" Luke frowned. He hadn't heard of any pirate activity in this sector. "Who's raiding you?"

"Who else?" the man retorted. "The Empire."

Luke looked at Lando. "Uh-oh," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Lando agreed. "Come on.

They left the Mishra and headed out into the wide avenue. Oddly enough, there were no signs of the panic Luke would hayed expected to find. On the contrary, the citizens of Ilic seemed to be continuing about their daily business as if nothing untoward was happening. "Maybe they don't realize what's going on," he suggested doubtfully as they headed for one of the spiral ramps.

"Or else they've got a quiet agreement with the Empire," Lando countered sourly. "Maybe the leadership finds it politically handy to align themselves with the New Republic, but they also want to keep in the Empire's good graces. Since they can't pay anything as overt as tribute, they instead let the Imperials come in every so often and raid their stocks of refined biomolecules. I've seen that sort of thing done before."

Luke looked around at the unconcerned crowds. "Only this time it might backfire on them."

"Like if the Imperials spot the Lady Luck and your X-wing on the landing records."

"Right. Where did you say Han was?"

"Last I saw, be was on Level Four heading west," Lando said, digging out his comlink. "He told me not to call him, but I think this qualifies as an unforeseen circumstance."

"Wait a minute," Luke stopped him. "If he's anywhere near this aide of Fey'lya's-and if Fey'lya is working some kind of deal with the Empire:?"

"You're right." Lando swore under his breath as he put the comlink away. "So what do we do?"

They'd reached the ramp now and stepped onto the section spiraling upward. "I'll go find Han," Luke said. "You get up to the landing area and see what's happening. If the Imperials haven't actually landed yet, you might be able to get into the air control computer and erase us from the list. Artoo can help if you can get him out of my X-wing and over to a terminal without being caught."

"I'll give it a try."

"Okay." A stray memory flicked through Luke's mind- "I don't suppose the Lady Luck's equipped with one of those full-rig slave circuits you talked about back on Nkllon, is it?"

Lando shook his head. "It's rigged, but only with a simple homing setup. Nothing much more than straight-line motion and a little maneuvering. It'd never be able to get to me through the middle of an enclosed city like this."

And even if it could, Luke had to admit, it wouldn't do them much good. Short of blasting a huge hole through the outer wall, the only way out of Ilic for anything the size of a spaceship was through the exit ducts above the landing area. "It was just a thought," he said.

"Here's where Han got off," Lando said, pointing. "He headed that way.

"Right." Luke stepped off the ramp. "See you soon. Be careful."

"You, too."

Chapter 8

The graying woman took Han to a small office-type room in the Amethyst building, turned him over to a couple of other guard types there, and disappeared with his blaster, comlink, and ID in hand. Han tried once or twice to strike up a conversation with the guards, got no response from either of them, and had just about resigned himself to sitting quietly, listening to the sirens outside, when the woman returned.

Accompanied by another, taller woman with the unmistakable air of authority about her. "Good day to you," the tall woman said, nodding at Han. "Captain Han Solo, I believe?"

With his ID in her hand, there didn't seem much point in denying it. "That's right," he said.

"We're honored by your visit," she said, her tone putting a slightly sardonic edge to the polite words. "Though a bit surprised by it."

"I don't know why-the visit was your idea," Han countered. "You always pick people up off the street like this?"

????? slightly. "You want to tell me who you are and who sent you?"

Han frowned. "What do you mean, who am I? You've got my ID right there.

"Yes, I do," the woman nodded, turning the card over in her hand. "But there's some difference of opinion as to whether or not it's genuine." She looked out the door and beckoned-

And Tav Breil'lya stepped past her into the room. "I was right," the Bothan said, his cream-colored fur rippling in an unfamiliar pattern. "As I told you when I first saw his ID. He is an impostor. Most certainly an Imperial spy."

"What?" Han stared at him, the whole situation tilting slightly off vertical. He looked at the alien's neck piece-it was Tav Breil'lya, all right. "What did you call me?"

"You're an Imperial spy," Breil'lya repeated, his fur rippling again. "Come to destroy our friendship, or even to kill us all. But you'll never live to report back to your masters. He turned to the tall woman. "You must destroy him at once, Sena," he urged. "Before he has the chance to summon your enemies here."

"Let's not do anything rash, Council-Aide Breil'lya," Sena soothed. "Irenez has a good picket screen in position." She looked at Han. "would you care to respond to the Council-Aide's accusations?"

"We have no interest in the ravings of an Imperial spy," Breil'lya insisted before Han could speak.

"On the contrary, Council-Aide," Sena countered. "Around here, we have an interest in a great many things." She turned back to Han, lifted his ID. "Do you have any proof other than this that you're who you claim to be?

"It doesn't matter who he is," Breil'lya jumped in again, his voice starting to sound a little strained. "He's seen you, and he must certainly know that we have some kind of arrangement. Whether he's from the Empire or the New Republic is irrelevant-both are your enemies, and both would use such information against you."

Sena's eyebrows lifted again. "So now his identity doesn't matter," she said coolly. "Does that mean you're no longer certain he's an impostor?"

Breil'lya's fur rippled again. Clearly, he wasn't as quick on his verbal feet as his boss. "He's a very close likeness," the other muttered. "Though a proper dissection would quickly establish for certain who he is."

Sena smiled slightly. But it was a smile of understanding, not of humor : and suddenly Han realized that the confrontation had been as much a test of Breil'lya as it had been of him. And if Sena's expression was anything to go by, the Bothan had just flunked it. "I'll keep that recommendation in mind," she told him dryly.

There was a soft beep, and the gray-haired woman pulled out a comlink and spoke quietly into it. She listened, spoke again, and looked up at Sena. "Picket line reports another man approaching," she said. "Medium build, dark blond hair, dressed in black"-she threw a glance at Breil'lya-"and carrying what appears to be a lightsaber."

Sena looked at Breil'lya, too. "I believe that ends the discussion," she said. "Have one of the pickets meet him, Irenez, and ask him if he'll join us. Make it clear that's a request, not an order. Then return Captain Solo's weapon and equipment to him." She turned to Han, nodded gravely to him as she returned his ID. "My apologies, Captain. You understand we have to be cautious. Particularly given the coincidence of this." She gestured toward the outside wall.

Han frowned, wondering what she meant. Then he got it: she was indicating the sirens still wailing outside. "No problem," he assured her. "What are the sirens for, anyway?"

"It's an Imperial raid," Irenez said, handing him his blaster and comlink.

Han froze. "A raid?"

"It's no big deal," Sena assured him. "They come by every few months and take a percentage of the refined biomolecules that have been packaged for export. It's a covert form of taxation the city governments have worked out with them. Don't worry, they never come any farther in than the landing level."

"Yeah, well, they may change the routine a little this time," Han growled, flicking on his comlink. He half expected someone to try to stop him, but no one even twitched. "Luke?"

"I'm here, Han," the younger man's voice came back. "My escort tells me I'm being brought to where you are. You all right?"

"Just a little misunderstanding. Better get in here fast-we got company.

"Right."

Han shut off the comlink. Sena and Irenez, he saw, had meanwhile been having a quiet conversation of their own. "If you're as touchy about Imperials as Breil'lya implied, you might want to find a hole to disappear into," he advised.

"Our escape route's ready," Sena assured him as Irenez left the room. "The question is what to do with you and your friend."

"You can't just firm them loose," Breil'lya insisted, trying one last time. "You know full well that if the New Republic learns about you-"

The Commander is being notified," Sena cut him off. "He decide."

"But-"

"That's all, Council-Aide," she cut him off again, her voice suddenly hard. "Join the others at the lift shaft. You'll accompany me on my ship."

Breil'lya threw one last unreadable look at Han, then silently left the room.

"Who's this Commander of yours?" Han asked.

"I can't tell you that." Sena studied him a moment. "Don't worry, though. Despite what Breil'lya said, we're not enemies of the New Republic. At least, not at the moment."

"Oh," Han said. "Great."

There was the sound of footsteps from the hallway outside. A few seconds later, accompanied by two young men with holstered blasters, Luke stepped into the room.

"Han," Luke greeted his friend, giving Sena a quick once-over.

`You all right?"

"I'm fine," Han assured him. "Like I said, a little misunderstanding. The lady here-Sena-" He paused expectantly.

"Let's just leave it at Sena for now," she said.

"Ah," Han said. He'd hoped to get her last name, but clearly she wasn't' in the habit of giving it out. "Anyway, Sena thought I was an Imperial spy. And speaking of Imperials-"

"I know," Luke nodded.

"Lando's gone up to see if he can clear our ships from the landing record."

"He won't be able to," Han shook his head. "Not in time. And they're bound to pull the landing list."

Luke nodded agreement. "Then we'd better get up there."

"Unless you'd all rather come with us," Sena offered. "There's plenty of room on our ship, and it's hidden away where they won't find it."

"Thanks, but no," Han said. He wasn't about to go off with these people until he knew a lot more about them. Whose side they were on, for starters. "Lando won't want to leave his ship."

"And I need to get my droid back," Luke added.

Irenez slipped back into the room. "Everyone's on their way down, and the ship's being prepped," she told Sena. "And I got through to the Commander." She handed the tall woman a data pad.

Sena glanced at it, nodded and turned back to Han. "There's a service shaft near here that opens up into the west edge of the landing area," she told him. "I doubt the Imperials know about it; it's not on any of the standard city maps. Irenez will guide you up there and give you what help she can."

"That's really not necessary," Han told her.

Sena held up the data pad. "The Commander has instructed me to give you whatever aid you require," she said firmly. "I'd appreciate it if you'd allow me to carry out my orders."

Han looked at Luke, raised his eyebrows. Luke shrugged slightly in return: if there was treachery in the offer, his Jedi senses weren't picking it up. "Fine, she can tag along," he said. "Let's go."

"Good luck," Sena said, and disappeared out the door.

Irenez gestured to the door after her. "This way, gentlemen."

The service shaft was a combination stairway and liftcar tube set into the outer city wall, its entrance almost invisible against the swirling pattern of that section of the mural. The liftcar itself was nowhere to be seen-probably, Han decided, still ferrying Sena's group to wherever it was they'd stashed their ship. With Irenez in the lead, they started up the stairs.

It was only three levels up to the landing area. But three levels in a city with Ilic's high-ceilinged layout translated into a lot of stairs. The first level ran to fifty-three steps; after that, Han stopped counting. By the time they slipped through another disguised door into the landing area and took cover behind a massive diagnostic analyzer, his legs were beginning to tremble with fatigue. Irenez, in contrast, wasn't even breathing hard.

"Now what?" Luke asked, looking cautiously around the analyzer. He hasn't breathing hard, either.

"Let's find Lando," Han said, pulling out his comlink and thumbing his call. "Lando?"

"Right here," the other's whispered voice came back instantly.

"Where are you?"

"West end of the landing area, about twenty meters from Luke's X-wing. How about you?"

"About ninety degrees away from you toward the south," Lando answered. "I'm behind a stack of shipping boxes. There's a stormtrooper standing guard about five meters away, so I'm sort of stuck here."

"What sort of trouble are we looking at?"

"It looks like a full-fledged task force," Lando said grimly. "I saw three drop ships come in, and I think there were one or two on the ground when I got here. If they were fully loaded, that translates to a hundred sixty to two hundred men. Most of them are regular army troops, but there are a few storm troopers in the crowd, too. There aren't too many of either still up here-most of them headed on down the ramps a few minutes ago.

"Probably gone to search the city for us," Luke murmured.

"Yeah." Han eased up to look over the analyzer. The top of Luke's X-wing was just visible over the nose of a W-23 space barge. "Looks like Artoo's still in Luke's ship."

"Yeah, but I saw them doing something over that way," Lando warned. "They may have put a restraining bolt on him."

"We can handle that." Han scanned as much of the area around them as he could see. "I think we can make it to the X-wing without being spotted. You told me on the trip here that you had a beckon call for the Lady Luck, right?"

"Right, but it's not going to do me any good," Lando said. "With all these boxes around, there's no place I can set it down without opening myself to fire."

"That's okay," Han told him, feeling a tight smile twist at his lip. Luke might have the Force, and Irenez might be able to climb stairs without getting winded; but he would bet heavily that he could outdo both of them in sheer chicanery. "You just get it moving toward you when I give the word."

He switched off the comlink. "We're going over to the X-wing," he told Luke and Irenez, adjusting his grip on his blaster. "You ready?"

He got two acknowledgments, and with a last look around the area headed as quickly as silence permitted across the floor. He reached the space barge lying across their path without incident, paused there to let the others catch up-

"Shh!" Luke hissed.

Han froze, pressing himself against the barge's corroded hull. Not four meters away a stormtrooper standing guard was starting to turn in their direction.

Clenching his teeth, Han raised his blaster. But even as he did so, his peripheral vision caught Luke's hand making some sort of gesture; and suddenly the Imperial spun around in the opposite direction, pointing his blaster rifle toward a patch of empty floor. "He thinks he heard a noise," Luke whispered. "Let's go.

Han nodded, and sidled around to the other side of the barge. A few seconds later they were crouched beside the X-wing's landing skids. "Artoo?" Han stage-whispered upward. "Come on, short stuff wake up."

There was a soft and rather indignant beep from the top of the X-wing. Which meant the Imperials' restraining bolt hadn't shut the droid down entirely, just blocked out his control of the X-wing's systems. Good. "Okay," he called to the droid. "Get your comm sensor warmed up and get ready to record."

Another beep. "Now what?" Irenez asked.

"Now we get cute," Han told her, pulling out his comlink. "Lando? You ready?"

"As ready as I'm going to be," the other came back.

"Okay. When I give the signal, turn on your beckon call and get the Lady Luck moving. When I tell you again, shut it off. Got that?"

"Got it. I hope you know what you're doing.

"Trust me." Han looked at Luke. "You got your part figured out?"

Luke nodded, holding up his lightsaber. "I'm ready."

"Okay, Lando. Go."

For a long moment nothing happened. Then, through the background noise of the landing area, came the distinctive whine of repulsorlifts being activated. Half standing up, Han was just in time to see the Lady Luck rise smoothly up from among the other docked ships.

From somewhere in the same general vicinity came a shout, followed by the multiple flash of blaster fire. Another three weapons opened up almost immediately, all four tracking the Lady Luck as it made a somewhat ponderous turn and began floating south toward Lando's hiding place.

"You know it'll never get there," Irenez muttered in Han's ear. "As soon a, they figure out where it's going, they'll be all over him.

"That's why it's not going to get to him," Han countered, watching the Lady Luck closely. Another couple of seconds and every stormtrooper and Imperial soldier in the place ought to have his attention solidly fixed on the rogue ship:"Ready, Luke : now."

And suddenly Luke was gone, a single leap taking him to the top of the X-wing. Over the commotion Han heard the snap-hiss as Luke ignited his lightsaber, could see the green glow reflected from the nearest ships and equipment. The glow and sound shifted subtly as Luke made a short slice-

"Restraining bolt's off" Luke called down. "Now?"

"Not yet," Han told him. The Lady Luck was about a quarter of the way to the far wall, blaster bolts still scattering off its armored underside. "I'll tell him when. You get ready to fly interference."

"Right." The X-wing rocked slightly as Luke moved forward and dropped into the cockpit, its own repulsorlifts beginning to whine as Artoo activated them.

A whine that no one else out in all that confusion had a hope of hearing. The Lady Luck was hallway to the wall now:"Okay, Lando, shut down," Han ordered. "Artoo, your turn. Call it back this way."

With full access again to the X-wing's transmitters, it was a simple task for the droid to duplicate the signal from Lando's beckon call. The Lady Luck shuddered to a halt, reoriented itself to the new call, and started across the landing area again toward the X-wing.

It wasn't something the Imperials had expected. For a second the blaster fire faltered as the soldiers chasing the yacht skidded to a halt; and by the time the fire resumed in earnest, the Lady Luck was nearly to the X-wing.

"Now?" Luke called.

"Now," Han called back. "Put her down and clear us a path."

Artoo twittered, and the Lady Luck again halted in midair, this time dropping smoothly to the ground. There was a shout that sounded like triumph from the Imperials : but if so, it was the shortest triumph on record. The Lady Luck touched down-

And without warning, the X-wing leaped into the air. Pulling a tight curve around the Lady Luck, Luke swooped back down, wingtip lasers spitting a corridor of destruction across the startled soldiers' line of approach.

Given time, the Imperials would regroup. Han had no intention of giving them that time. "Come on," he snapped to Irenez, leaping to his feet and making a mad dash for the Lady Luck. He was probably on the ramp before the soldiers even noticed him, and was up and through the hatch before anyone was able to get off a shot. "Stay here and guard the hatch," he shouted back as Irenez charged in behind him. "I'm going to go pick up Lando."

Luke was still roaring around creating havoc as Han scrambled into the cockpit and dived into the pilot's seat, throwing a quick look at the instruments as he did so. All the systems seemed to be ready; and anything that wasn't was going to have to do so on the way up. "Grab onto something!" he shouted back to Irenez and lifted.

The stormtrooper Lando had mentioned as being near his position was nowhere in sight as Han brought the Lady Luck swinging over to the pile of shipping boxes. Luke was right with him, the X-wing's lasers making a mess of the landing area floor as he kept the Imperials pinned down. Han dropped the ship to within a half meter of the floor, entrance ramp swiveled toward the boxes. There was a flicker of motion, visible for just a second through the cockpit's side viewport-

"We've got him," Irenez shouted from the hatch. "Go!"

Han swiveled the ship around, throwing full power to the repulsorlifts and heading upward into one of the huge exit ducts overhead. There was a slight jolt as he cleared the magnetic seal on the end, and then they were out in clear air, screaming hard for space.

Four TIE fighters were skulking around just above the city, waiting for trouble. But they apparently weren't waiting for it to come this quickly. Luke got three of them on the fly, and Han took out the fourth.

"Nothing like cutting it close to the wire," Lando panted as he slid into the copilot's seat and got busy with his board. "What have we got?"

"Looks like a couple more drop ships coming in, Han told him, frowning. "What are you doing?"

"Running a multisensor airflow analysis," Lando said. "It'll show up any large irregularities on the hull. Like if someone's attached a homing beacon to us.

Han thought back to that escape from the first Death Star, and their near-disastrous flight to Yavin with just such a gadget smuggled aboard. "I wish I had a system like that for the Falcon."

"It'd never work," Lando commented dryly. "Your hull's so irregular already the system would go nuts just trying to map it." He keyed off the display. "Okay; we're clear."

"Great." Han threw a glance out to the left. "We're clear of those drop ships, too. They don't have a hope of catching us now.

"Yes, but that might," Irenez said, pointing at the midrange scope.

Which showed an Imperial Star Destroyer behind them, already leaving orbit and moving into pursuit.

"Great," Han growled, kicking in the main drive. Using it this close to the ground wasn't going to do New Cov's plant life any good, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. "Luke?"

"I see it," Luke's voice came back through the comm speaker. "Any ideas besides running for it?"

"I think running for it sounds like a great idea," Han said. "Lando?"

"Calculating the jump now, the other said, busy with the nav computer. "It ought to be ready by the time we're far enough out."

"There's another ship coming up from below," Luke said. "Right out of the jungle."

"That's ours," Irenez said, peering over Han's shoulder. "You can parallel them by changing course to one twenty-six mark thirty."

The Star Destroyer was picking up speed, the scope now showing a wedge of TIE fighters sweeping along ahead of it. "We'd do better to split up," Han said.

"No-stay with our ship," Irenez said. "Sena said we've got help coming."

Han took another look at the ship climbing for deep. A small transport, with a fair look of speed but not much else going for it. Another look at the approaching TIE fighters-

"They're going to be in range before we can make the jump," Lando murmured, echoing Han's thought.

"Yeah. Luke, you still there?"

"Yes. I think Lando's right."

"I know. Any way you can pull that Nkllon stunt again? You know-scramble the pilots' minds a little?"

There was a noticeable hesitation from the comm. "I don't think so," Luke said at last. "I-don't think it's good for me to do that sort of thing. You understand?"

Han didn't, really, but it probably didn't matter. For a moment he'd forgotten that he wasn't in the Falcon, with a pair of quad lasers and shields and heavy armor. The Lady Luck, for all Lando's modifications, wasn't anything to take on even confused TIE fighter pilots with. "All right, skip it," he told Luke. "Sena just better be right about this help of hers."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a flash of brilliant green light shot past the Lady Luck's cockpit canopy. "TIE fighters coming in from portside," Lando snapped.

"They're trying to cut us off," Luke said. "I'll get rid of them."

Without waiting for comment, he dropped his X-wing below the Lady Luck's vector and with a roar of main drive swung off to the left toward the incoming TIE fighters. "Watch yourself," Han muttered after him, giving the rear scope another look. The pursuing batch of fighters was still closing fast. "Your ship got any weapons?" he asked Irenez.

"No, but it's got good armor and plenty of deflector power," she told him. "Maybe you should get ahead of them, let them take the brunt of the attack."

"Yeah, I'll think about it," Han said, wincing at the woman's ignorance of this kind of fight. TIE pilots didn't much care which ship was first in line when they attacked; and sitting close enough to another ship to hide in its deflector shield was to give up your maneuverability.

Off to portside, the incoming group of TIE fighters scattered out of the way as Luke drove through their formation, wingtip lasers blazing away madly. A second wave of Imperials behind the first closed to intercept as Luke pulled a hard one-eighty and swung back on the tails of the first wave. Han held his breath; but even as he watched, the X-wing managed somehow to thread its way unscathed through the melee and take off at full throttle at an angle from the Lady Luck's vector, the whole squadron hot on his tail.

"Well, so much for that group," Irenez commented.

"And maybe for Luke, too," Lando countered harshly as he jabbed at the comm. "Luke, you all right?"

"I got a little singed, but everything's still running," Luke's voice came back. "I don't think I can get back to you.

"Don't try," Han told him. "As soon as you're clear, jump to lightspeed and get out of here."

"What about you?"

Luke's last word was partially drowned out by a sudden twitter from the comm. "That's the signal," Irenez said. "Here they come."

Han frowned, searching the sky outside the front viewport. As far as he could see, there was nothing out there but stars-

And then, in perfect unison, three large ships suddenly dropped out of hyperspace into triangular formation directly ahead of them.

Lando inhaled sharply. "Those are old Dreadnaught cruisers."

"That's our help," Irenez said. "Straight down the middle of the triangle-they'll cover for us."

"Right," Han gritted, shifting the Lady Luck's vector a few degrees, and trying to coax a little more speed out of its engines. The New Republic had a fair number of Dreadnaughts, and at six hundred meters long each they were impressive enough warships. But even three of them working together would be hard pressed to take out an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Apparently, the Dreadnaughts' commander agreed. Even as the Star Destroyer behind the Lady Luck opened up with its huge turbolaser batteries, the Dreadnaughts began pelting the larger ship with a furious barrage of ion cannon blasts, trying to temporarily knock out enough of its systems for them to get away.

"That answer your question?" Han asked Luke.

"I think so," Luke said dryly. "Okay, I'm gone. Where do I meet you?"

"You don't," Han told him. He didn't like that answer much, and he suspected Luke would like it even less. But it couldn't be helped. With a dozen TIE fighters currently between the Lady Luck and the X-wing, suggesting a rendezvous point on even what was supposed to be a secure comm channel would be an open invitation for the Empire to send their own reception committee on ahead. "Lando and I can handle the mission on our own," he added. "If we run into any problems, we'll contact you through Coruscant."

"All right," Luke said. Sure enough, he didn't sound happy about it. But he had enough sense to recognize there was no other safe way. "Take care, you two."

"See you," Han said, and cut the transmission.

"So now it's my mission, too, huh?" Lando growled from the copilot's seat, his tone a mixture of annoyance and resignation. "I knew it. I just knew it."

Sena's transport was into the triangular pocket between the Dreadnaughts now, still driving for all it was worth. Han kept the Lady Luck with them, staying as close above the transport's tail as he could without getting into its exhaust. "You got some particular place you'd like us to drop you?" he asked, looking back at Irenez.

She was gazing out the viewport at the underside of the Dreadnaught they were passing beneath. "Actually, our Commander was rather hoping you'd accompany us back to our base," she said.

Han threw a look at Lando. There had been something in her tone that implied the request was more than merely a suggestion. "And just how hard was your Commander hoping this?" Lando asked.

"Very much." She dropped her gaze from the Dreadnaught. "Don't misunderstand-it's not an order. But when I spoke to him, the Commander seemed extremely interested in meeting again with Captain Solo.

Han frowned. "Again?"

"Those were his words."

Han looked at Lando, found the other looking back at him. "Some old friend you've never mentioned?" Lando asked.

"I don't recall having any friends who own Dreadnaughts," Han countered. "What do you think?"

"I think I'm being nicely maneuvered into a corner here," Lando said, a little sourly. "Aside from that, whoever this Commander is, he seems to be in contact with your Bothan pals. If you're trying to find out what Fey'lya's up to, he'd be the one to ask."

Han thought it over. Lando was right, of course. On the other hand, the whole thing could just as easily be a trap, with this talk about old friends being designed to lure him in.

Still, with Irenez sitting behind him with a blaster riding her hip, there wasn't really a graceful way to get out of it if she and Sena chose to press the point. They might as well be polite about it. "Okay," he told Irenez. "What course do we set?"

"You don't," she said, nodding upward.

Han followed her gaze. One of the three Dreadnaughts they'd passed had now swung around to fly parallel with them. Ahead, Sena's ship was heading up toward one of a pair of brightly lit docking ports. "Let me guess," he said to Irenez.

"Just relax and let us do the flying," she said, with the first hint of humor that he'd yet seen from her.

"Right," Han sighed.

And with the flashes of the rear guard battle still going on behind them, he eased the Lady Luck up toward the docking port. Luke, he reminded himself had apparently not sensed any treachery from Sena or her people back in the city.

But then, he hadn't sensed any deceit from the Bimms on Bimmisaari, either, just before that first Noghri attack.

This time the kid better be right.

The first Dreadnaught gave a flicker of pseudomotion and vanished into hyperspace, taking the transport and the Lady Luck with it. A few seconds later, the other two Dreadnaughts ceased their ion bombardment of the Star Destroyer and, through a hail of turbolaser blasts from still-operating Imperial batteries, made their own escape.

And Luke was alone. Except, of course, for the squadron of TIE fighters still chasing him.

From behind him came an impatient and rather worried-sounding trill. "Okay, Artoo, we're going," he assured the little droid. Reaching over, he pulled the hyperdrive lever; and the stars became starlines, and turned to mottled sky, and he and Artoo were safe.

Luke took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. So that was it.

Han and Lando were gone, to wherever Sena and her mysterious Commander had taken them, and there really wasn't any way for him to track them down. Until they surfaced again and got in touch with him, he was out of the mission.

But perhaps that was for the best.

There was another warble from behind, a questioning one this time. "No, we're not going back to Coruscant, Artoo," he told the droid, an echo of d?j? view tugging at him. "We're going to a little place called Jomark. To see a Jedi Master."

Chapter 9

The little fast-attack patrol ship had dropped out of hyperspace and closed to within a hundred kilometers of the Falcon before the ship's sensors even noticed its presence. By the time Leia got to the cockpit, the pilot had already made contact.

"Is that you, Khabarakh?" she called, slipping into the copilot's seat beside Chewbacca.

"Yes, Lady Vader," the Noghri's gravelly, catlike voice mewed. "I have come alone, as I promised. Are you also alone?"

"My companion Chewbacca is with me as pilot," she said. "As is a protocol droid. I would like to bring the droid along to help with translation, if I may. Chewbacca, as we agreed, will stay here."

The Wookiee turned to her with a growl. "No," she said firmly, remembering just in time to mute the transmitter. "I'm sorry, but that was the promise I made to Khabarakh. You'll stay here on the Falcon and that's an order."

Chewbacca growled again, more insistently this time : and with a sudden prickly sensation on the back of her neck, Leia became acutely aware of something she hadn't really thought about for years. Namely, that the Wookiee was quite capable of ignoring pretty much any order he chose to.

"I have to go alone, Chewie," she said in a low voice. Force of will wasn't going to work here; she was going to have to go for logic and reason. "Don't you understand? That was the arrangement.

Chewbacca rumbled. "No," Leia shook her head. "My safety isn't a matter of strength anymore. My only chance is to convince the Noghri that I can be trusted. That when I make promises I keep them."

"The droid will pose no problem," Khabarakh decided. "I will bring my ship alongside for docking."

Leia switched the transmitter back on. "Fine," she said. "I also have one case of clothing and personal items to bring along, if I may.

Plus a sensor/analyzer package, to test the air and soil for anything that might be dangerous to me."

"The air and soil where we shall be is safe."

"I believe you," Leia said. "But I am not responsible only for my own safety. I carry within me two new lives, and I must protect them."

The comm speaker hissed. "Heirs of the Lord Vader?"

Leia hesitated; but genetically, if not philosophically, it was true enough. "Yes.

Another hiss. "You may bring what you wish," he said. "I must, be allowed to scan them, though. Do you bring weapons?"

"I have my lightsaber," Leia said. "Are there any animals on your world dangerous enough for me to need a blaster?"

"Not anymore," Khabarakh said, his voice grim. "Your lightsaber, too, will be acceptable."

Chewbacca snarled something quietly vicious, his wickedly curved climbing claws sliding involuntarily in and out of their fingertip sheaths. He was, Leia realized abruptly, on the edge of losing control : and perhaps of taking matters into those huge hands of his-

"What is the problem?" Khabarakh demanded.

Leia's stomach tightened. Honesty, she reminded herself. "My pilot doesn't like the idea of me going off alone with you," she conceded. "He has a-well, you wouldn't understand."

"He is under a life debt to you?"

Leia blinked at the speaker. She hadn't expected Khabarakh to have ever heard of the Wookiee life debt, much less know anything about it. "Yes," she said. "The original life debt was to my husband, Han Solo. During the war Chewie extended it to include my brother and me."

"And now to the children you bear within you?"

Leia looked at Chewbacca. "Yes."

For a long minute the comm was silent. The patrol ship continued toward them, and Leia found herself grip ping the seat arms tightly as she wondered what the Noghri was thinking. If he decided that Chewbacca's objections constituted betrayal of their arrangement:

"The Wookiee code of honor is similar to our own, Thabarakb said at last. "He may come with you."

Chewbacca gave a throaty rumble of surprise, a surprise that slid quickly into suspicion. "Would you rather he have said you had to stay here?" Leia countered, her own surprise at the Noghri's concession quickly covered up by relief that the whole thing bad been resolved so easily. "Come on, make up your mind."

The Wookiee rumbled again, but it was clear that he'd rather walk into a trap with her than let her walk into one alone. "Thank you, Khabarakh, we accept," Leia told the Noghri. "We'll be ready whenever you get here. How long will the trip to your world take, by the way?"

"Approximately four days," Khabarakh said. "I await the honor of your presence aboard my ship."

The comm went silent. Four days, Leia thought, a shiver running up her back. Four days in which to learn all that she could about both Khabarakh and the Noghri people.

And to prepare for the most important diplomatic mission of her life.

As it turned out, she didn't learn much about the Noghri culture during the trip. Khabarakh kept largely to himself, splitting his time between the sealed cockpit and his cabin. Occasionally he would come by to talk to Leia, but the conversations were short and invariably left her with the uncomfortable feeling that he was still very ambivalent about his decision to bring her to his home. When they'd set up this meeting back on the Wookiee world of Kashyyyk, she had suggested that he discuss the question with friends or confidants; but as they neared the end of the voyage and his dark nervousness grew, she began to pick up little hints that he had not, in fact, done so. The decision had been made entirely on his own.

It was not, to her way of thinking, a very auspicious beginning.

It implied either a lack of trust in his friends or else a desire to absolve them from responsibility should the whole thing go sour.

Either way, not exactly the sort of situation that filled her with confidence.

With their host generally keeping to himself, she and Chewbacca were forced to come up with their own entertainment. For Chewbacca, with his innate mechanical interests, such entertainment consisted mainly of wandering through the ship and poking his nose into every room, access hatch, and crawlway he could find-studying the ship, as he ominously put it, in case they needed at some point to fly it themselves. Leia, for her part, spent most of the trip in her cabin with Threepio, trying to deduce a possible derivation of Mal'ary'ush, the only Noghri word she knew, with the hope of at least getting some idea of where in the galaxy they might be going. Unfortunately, with six million languages to draw on, Threepio could come up with any number of possible etymologies for the word, ranging from reasonable to tenuous to absurd and right back again. It was an interesting exercise in applied linguistics, but ultimately more frustrating than useful.

In the middle of the fourth day, they reached the Noghri world : and it was even worse than she'd expected.

"It's incredible," she breathed, a hard knot forming in her throat as she pressed close to Chewbacca to stare through the ship's only passenger viewport at the world they were rapidly approaching. Beneath the mottling of white clouds the planetary surface seemed to be a uniform brown, relieved only by the occasional deep blue of lakes and small oceans. No greens or yellows, no light purples or blues-none of the colors, in fact, that usually signified plant life. For all she could tell, the entire planet might have been dead.

Chewbacca growled a reminder. "Yes, I know Khabarakh said it had been devastated in the war," she agreed soberly. "But I didn't realize he really meant the whole planet had been hit." She shook her head, feeling sick at heart. Wondering which side had been most responsible for this disaster.

Most responsible. She swallowed hard at the reflexively defensive words. There was no most responsible here, and she knew it. Khabarakh's world had been destroyed during a battle in space : and there had been only two sides to the war. Whatever had happened to turn this world into a desert, the Rebel Alliance could not avoid its share of the guilt. "No wonder the Emperor and Vader were able to turn them against us," she murmured. "We have to find some way to help them."

Chewbacca growled again, gestured out the viewport. The terminator line was coming up over the horizon now, a fuzzy strip of twilight between day and night; and there, fading through to the darkness beyond was what looked like an irregular patch of pale green. "I see it," Leia nodded. "You suppose that's all that's left?"

The Wookiee shrugged, offered the obvious suggestion. "Yes, I suppose that would be the simplest way to find out," Leia agreed. "I really don't know if I want to ask him, though. Let's wait until we're closer and can see more of-"

She felt Chewbacca go stiff beside her a split second before his bellow split the air and left her ears ringing. "What-?"

And then she saw it, and her stomach knotted abruptly with shock.

There, just coming over the curve of the planet, was an Imperial Star Destroyer.

They'd been betrayed.

"No," she breathed, staring out at the huge arrowhead shape. No mistake-it was a Star Destroyer, all right. "No. I can't believe Khabaralth would do this.

The last words were spoken to empty air; and with a second shock, she realized that Chewbacca was no longer beside her. Spinning around, she saw a flash of brown as he vanished down the corridor leading to the cockpit.

"No!" she shouted, pushing away from the bulkhead and taking off after him as fast as she could run. "Chewie, no!"

The order was a waste of air, and she knew it. The Wookiee had murder in his heart, and he would get to Khabarakh even if he had to tear down the cockpit door with his bare hands.

The first clang sounded as she was halfway down the corridor; the second came as she rounded the slight curve and came within sight of the door. Chewbacca was raising his massive fists for a third blow-

When to Leia's amazement, the door slid open.

Chewbacca seemed surprised, too, but he didn't dwell on it long.

He was through the door before it was completely open, charging into the cockpit with a ululating Wookiee battle yell. "Chewie!" Leia shouted again, diving through herself.

Just in time to see Khabakakh, seated at the pilot's station, throw up his right arm and somehow send Chewbacca spinning past him to crash with a roar into the underside of the control board.

Leia skidded to a halt, not quite believing what she'd just seen.

"Khabarakh-"

"I did not call them," the Noghri said, half turning to face her. "I did not betray my word of honor."

Chewbacca thundered his disbelief as he fought to scramble to his feet in the cramped space. "You must stop him," Khabarakh shouted over the Wookiee's roar. "Must keep him quiet. I must give the recognition signal or all will be lost."

Leia looked past him at the distant Star Destroyer, her teeth clenched hard together. Betrayal:but if Thabaraich had planned a betrayal, why had he let Chewbacca come along? Whatever that fighting technique was he'd used to deflect Chewbacca's first mad rush, it wasn't likely to work a second time.

She focused again on Khabarakh's face; on those dark eyes, protruding jaw, and needle-sharp teeth. He was watching her, ignoring the threat of the enraged Wookiee behind him, his hand poised ready over the comm switch. A beep sounded from the board, and his hand twitched toward the switch before stopping again. The board beeped again- "I have not betrayed you, Lady Vader," Khabarakh repeated, a note of urgency in his voice. "You must believe me."

Leia braced herself. "Chewie, be quiet," she said. "Chewie? Chewie, be quiet."

The Wookiee ignored the order Finally back on his feet, he roared his war cry again and lunged for Thabaraldi's throat. The Noghri took the charge head-on this time, grabbing Chewbacca's huge wrists in his wiry hands and holding on for all he was worth.

It wasn't enough. Slowly but steadily, Khabarakh's arms were bent steadily backwards as Chewbacca forced his way forward. "Chewie, I said stop," Leia tried again. "Use your head-if he was planning a trap, don't you think he'd have timed it for when we were asleep or something?"

Chewbacca spit out a growl, his hands continuing their unwavering advance. "But if he doesn't check in, they'll know something's wrong," she countered. "That's a sure way to bring them down on us."

"The Lady Vader speaks truth," Khabarakh said, his voice taut with the strain of holding back Chewbacca's hands. "I have not betrayed you, but if I give no recognition signal you will be betrayed."

"He's right," Leia said. "If they come to investigate, we lose by default. Come on, Chewie, it's our only hope."

The Wookiee snarled again, shaking his head firmly. "Then you leave me no choice," Khabarakh said.

And without warning, the cockpit flashed with blue light, dropping Chewbacca to the floor like a huge sack of grain. "What-?" Leia gasped, dropping to her knees beside the motionless Wookiee.

"Khabakakh!"

"A stun weapon only," the Noghri said, breathing rapidly as he swiveled back to his board. "A built-in defense."

Leia twisted her head to glare at him, furious at what he'd done : a fury that faded reluctantly behind the logic of the situation. Chewbacca had been fully prepared to throttle the life out of Khabarakh; and from personal experience, she knew how hard it was to calm down an angry Wookiee, even when you were his friend to begin with.

And Khabarakh had tried talking first. "Now what?" she asked the Noghri, digging a hand through Chewbacca's thick torso hair to check his heartbeat. It was steady, which meant the stun weapon hadn't played any of its rare but potentially lethal tricks on the Wookiee's nervous system.

"Now be silent," Khabarakh said, tapping his comm switch and saying something in his own language. Another mewing Noghri voice replied, and for a few minutes they conversed together. Leia remained kneeling at Chewbacca's side, wishing she'd had time to bring Threepio up before the discussion started. It would have been nice to know what the conversation was all about.

But finally it ended, and Khabarakh signed off. "We are safe now," be said, slumping a little in his seat. "They are persuaded it was an equipment malfunction."

"Let's hope so," Leia said.

Khabarakh looked at her, a strange expression on his nightmare face. "I have not betrayed you, Lady Vader," he said quietly, his voice hard and yet oddly pleading. "You must believe me. I have promised to defend you, and I will. To my own death, if need be."

Leia stared at him : and whether through some sensitivity of the Force or merely her own long diplomatic experience, she finally understood the position Khabarakh was now in. Whatever waverings or second thoughts he might have been feeling during the voyage, the Star Destroyer's unexpected appearance bad burned those uncertainties away. Khabarakh's word of honor had been brought into question and he was now in the position of having to conclusively prove that he had not broken that word.

And he would have to go to whatever lengths such proof demanded.

Even if it killed him.

Earlier, Leia had wondered how Khabarakh could possibly understand the concept of the Wookees life debt. Perhaps the Noghri and Wookiee cultures were more alike than she'd realized.

"I believe you," she told him, climbing to her feet and sitting down in the copilot seat. Chewbacca she would have to leave where he was until he was awake enough to help her move him. "What now?"

Khabarakh turned back to his board. "Now we must make a decision," he said. "My intention had been to bring you to ground in the city of Nystao, waiting until full dark to present you to my clan dynast. But that is now impossible. Our Imperial lord has come, and is holding a convocate of the dynasts."

The back of Leia's neck tingled. "Your Imperial lord is the Grand Admiral?" she asked carefully.

"Yes," Khabarakh said. "that is his flagship, the Chimaera. I remember the day that the Lord Darth Vader first brought him to us," he added, his mewing voice becoming reflective. "The Lord Vader told us that his duties against the Emperor's enemies would now be taking his full attention. That the Grand Admiral would henceforth be our lord and commander." He made a strange, almost purring sound deep in his chest. "There were many who were sad that day. The Lord Vader had been the only one save the Emperor who cared for Noghri well-being. He had given us hope and purpose."

Leia grimaced. That purpose being to go off and die as death commandos at the Emperor's whim. But she couldn't say things like that to Khabarakh. Not yet, anyway. "Yes," she murmured.

At her feet, Chewbacca twitched. "He will be fully awake soon," Khabarakh said. "I would not like to stun him again. Can you control him?"

"I think so," Leia said. They were coming in low toward the upper atmosphere now, on a course that would take them directly beneath the orbiting Star Destroyer. "I hope they don't decide to do a sensor focus on us," she murmured. "If they pick up three life-forms here, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do."

"The ship's static-damping should prevent that," Khabarakh assured her. "It is at full power."

Leia frowned. "Aren't they likely to wonder about that?"

"No. I explained it was part of the same malfunction that caused the transmitter problem."

There was a low rumble from Chewbacca, and Leia looked down to see the Wookiee's eyes glaring impotently up at her. Fully alert again, but without enough motor control yet to do anything. "We've cleared outer control," she told him. "We're heading down to-where are we going, Khabarakh?"

The Noghri took a deep breath, let it out in an odd sort of whistle. "We will go to my home, a small village near the edge of the Clean Land. I will hide you there until our lord the Grand Admiral leaves."

Leia thought about that. A small village situated off the mainstream of Noghri life ought to be safely out of the way of wandering Imperials. On the other hand, if it was anything like the small villages she'd known, her presence there would be common knowledge an hour after they put down. "Can you trust the other villagers to keep quiet?"

"Do not worry," Khabarakh said. "I will keep you safe."

But he hesitated before he said it:and as they headed into the atmosphere, Leia noted uneasily that he hadn't really answered the question.

The dynast bowed one last time and stepped back to the line of those awaiting their turn to pay homage to their leader. Thrawn, seated in the gleaming High Seat of the Common Room of Honoghr, nodded gravely to the departing clan leader and motioned to the next. The other stepped forward, moving in the formalized dance that seemed to indicate respect, and bowed his forehead to the ground before the Grand Admiral.

Standing two meters to Thrawn's right and a little behind him, Pellaeon shifted his weight imperceptibly between feet, stifled a yawn, and wondered when this ritual would be over. He'd been under the impression they'd come to Honoghr to try to inspire the commando teams, but so far the only Noghri they'd seen had been ceremonial guards and this small but excessively boring collection of clan leaders. Thrawn presumably had his reasons for wading through the ritual, but Pellaeon wished it would hurry up and be over. With a galaxy still to win back for the Empire, sitting here listening to a group of grayskinned aliens drone on about their loyalty seemed a ridiculous waste of time.

There was a touch of air on the back of his neck.

"Captain?" someone said quietly in his ear-Lieutenant Tschel, he tentatively identified the voice. "Excuse me, sir, but Grand Admiral Thrawn asked to be informed immediately if anything out of the ordinary happened."

Pellaeon nodded slightly, glad of any interruption. "What is it?"

"It doesn't seem dangerous, sir, or even very important," Tschel said. "A Noghri commando ship on its way in almost didn't give the recognition response in time."

"Equipment trouble, probably," Pellaeon said.

"That's what the pilot said," Tschel told him. "The odd thing is that he begged off putting down at the Nystao landing area. You'd think that someone with equipment problems would want his ship looked at immediately."

"A bad transmitter isn't exactly a crisis-level problem," Pellaeon grunted. But Tschel had a point; and Nystao was the only place on Honoghr with qualified spaceship repair facilities. "We have an ID on the pilot?"

"Yes, sir. His name's Khabarakh, clan Kihm'bar. I pulled up what we have on him," he added, offering Pellaeon a data pad.

Surreptitiously, Pellaeon took it, wondering what he should do now. Thrawn had indeed left instructions that he was to be notified of any unusual activity anywhere in the system. But to interrupt the ceremony for something so trivial didn't seem like a good idea.

As usual, Thrawn was one step ahead of him. Lifting a hand, he stopped the Noghri clan dynast's presentation and turned his glowing red eyes on Pellaeon. "You have something to report, Captain?"

"A small anomaly only, sir," Pellaeon told him, steeling himself and stepping to the Grand Admiral's side. "An incoming commando ship was slow to transmit its recognition signal, and then declined to put down at the Nystao landing area. Probably just an equipment problem."

"Probably," Thrawn agreed. "Was the ship scanned for evidence of malfunction?"

"Ah :" Pellaeon checked the data pad. "The scan was inconclusive," he told the other. "The ship's static-damping was strong enough to block-"

"The incoming ship was static-damped?" Thrawn interrupted, looking sharply up at Pellaeon.

"Yes, sir.

Wordlessly, Thrawn held up a hand. Pellaeon gave him the data pad, and for a moment the Grand Admiral frowned down at it, skimming the report. "Khabarakh; clan Kihm'bar," he murmured to himself.

"Interesting." He looked up at Pellaeon again. "Where did the ship go?"

Pellaeon looked in turn at Tschel. "According to the last report, it was headed south," the lieutenant said. "It might still be in range of our tractor beams, sir.

Pellaeon turned back to Thrawn. "Shall we try to stop it, Admiral?"

????? with Thrawn looked down at the data pad, his face tight concentration. "No," he said at last. "Let it land, but track it. And order a tech team from the Chimaera to meet us at the ship's final destination." His eyes searched the line of Noghri dynasts, came to rest on one of them. "Dynast Ir'khaim, clan Kihm'bar, step forward."

The Noghri did so. "What is your wish, my lord?" he mewed.

"One of your people has come home," Thrawn said. "We go to his village to welcome him."

Ir'khaim bowed. "At my lord's request."

Thrawn stood up. "Order the shuttle to be prepared, Captain," he told Pellaeon. "We leave at once.

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, nodding the order on to Lieutenant Thchel. "Wouldn't it be easier, sir. to have the ship and pilot brought here to us?"

"Easier, perhaps," Thrawn acknowledged, "but possibly not as illuminating. You obviously didn't recognize the pilot's name; but Khabarakh, clan Kihm'bar, was once part of commando team twenty-two.

Does that jog any memories?"

Pellaeon felt his stomach tighten. "That was the team that went after Leia Organa Solo on Kashyyyk."

"And of which team only Khabarakh still survives," Thrawn nodded. "I think it might be instructive to hear from him the details of that failed mission. And to find out why it's taken him this long to return home."

Thrawn's eyes glittered. "And to find out," he added quietly, "just why he's trying so hard to avoid us."

Chapter 10

It was full dark by the time Khabarakh brought the ship to ground in his village, a tight-grouped cluster of huts with brightly lit windows. "Do ships land here often?" Leia asked as Khabarakh pointed the ship toward a shadowy structure standing apart near the center of the village. In the glare of the landing lights the shadow became a large cylindrical building with a flat cone-shaped roof, the circular wall composed of massive vertical wooden pillars alternating with a lighter, shimmery wood. Just beneath the eaves she caught a glint of a metal band encircling the entire building.

"It is not common," Khabarakh said, cutting the repulsorlifts and running the ship's systems down to standby. "Neither is it unheard of."

In other words, it was probably going to attract a fair amount of attention. Chewbacca, who had recovered enough for Leia to help into one of the cockpit passenger seats, was obviously thinking along the same lines. "The villagers are all close family of the clan Kihm'bar," Khabarakh said in answer to the Wookiee's slightly slurred question. "They will accept my promise of protection as their own. Come."

Leia unstrapped and stood up, suppressing a grimace as she did so. But they were here now, and she could only hope that Khabarakh's confidence was more than just the unfounded idealism of youth.

She helped Chewbacca unstrap and together they followed the Noghri back toward the main hatchway, collecting Threepio from her cabin on the way. "I must go first," Khabarakh said as they reached the exit. "By custom, I must approach alone to the dukha of the clan Kihm'bar upon arrival. By law, I am required to announce out-clan visitors to the head of my family."

"I understand," Leia said, fighting back a fresh surge of uneasiness. She didn't like this business of Khabarakh having conversations with his fellow Noghri that she wasn't in on. Once again, there wasn't a lot she could do about it. "We'll wait here until you come and get us."

"I will be quick," Khabarakh promised. He palmed the door release twice, slipping outside as the panel slid open and then shut again.

Chewbacca growled something unintelligible under his breath. "He'll be back soon," Leia soothed him, making a guess as to what was bothering the Wookiee.

"I'm certain he is telling the truth," Threepio added helpfully. "Customs and rituals of this sort are very common among the more socially primitive prespaceflight cultures."

"Except that this culture isn't prespaceflight," Leia pointed out, her hand playing restlessly with the grip of her lightsaber as she stared at the closed hatchway in front of her. Khabarath could at least have left the door open so that they would be able to see when he was coming back.

Unless, of course, he didn't want them to see when he was coming back.

"That is evident, Your Highness," Threepio agreed, his voice taking on a professorial tone. "I feel certain, however, that their status in that regard has been changed only recent- Well!" he broke off as Chewbacca abruptly pushed past him and lumbered back toward the center of the ship.

"Where are you going?" Leia called after the Wookiee. His only reply was some comment about the Imperials that she wasn't quite able to catch. "Chewie, get back here," she snapped. "Khabarakh will be back any minute."

This time the Wookiee didn't bother to answer. "Great," Leia muttered, trying to decide what to do. If Khabarakh came back and found Chewbacca gone-but if he came and found both of them gone- "As I was saying," Threepio went on, apparently deciding that the actions of rude Wookiees were better left ignored, "all the evidence I have gathered so far about this culture indicates that they were until recently a nonspacefaring people. Khabarakh's reference to the dukha-obviously a clan center of some sort-the familial and clan structures themselves, plus this w,hole preoccupation with your perceived royal status-"

"The high court of Alderaan had a royal hierarchy, too," Leia reminded him tartly, still looking back along the empty corridor. No, she decided, she and Threepio had better stay here and wait for Khabarakh. "Most other people in the galaxy didn't consider us to be socially primitive."

"No, of course not," Threepio said, sounding a little embarrassed. "I didn't mean to imply any such thing."

"I know," Leia assured him, a little embarrassed herself at jumping on Threepio like that. She'd known what he meant. "Where is he, anyway?"

The question had been rhetorical; but even as she voiced it the hatchway abruptly slid open again. "Come," Khabarakh said. His dark eyes flicked over Leia and Threepio- "Where is the Wookiee?"

"He went back into the ship," Leia told him. "I don't know why. Do you want me to go and find him?"

Khabarakh made a sound halfway between a hiss and a purr. "There is no time," he said. "The maitrakh is waiting. Come."

Turning, he started back down the ramp. "Any idea how long it will take you to pick up the language?" Leia asked Threepio as they followed.

"I really cannot say, Your Highness," the droid answered as Khabarakh led them across a dirt courtyard past the large wooden building they'd seen on landing-the clan dukha, Leia decided. One of the smaller structures beyond it seemed to be their goal. "Learning an entirely new language would be difficult indeed," Threepio continued. "However, if it is similar to any of the six million forms of communication with which I am familiar-"

"I understand," Leia cut him off. They were almost to the lighted building now; and as they approached, a pair of short Noghri standing in the shadows pulled open the double doors for them. Taking a deep breath, Leia followed Khabarakh inside.

From the amount of light coming through the windows she would have expected the building's interior to be uncomfortably bright. To her surprise, the room they entered was actually darker than it had been immediately outside. A glance to the side showed why: the brightly lit "windows' were in fact standard self-powered lighting panels, with the operational sides facing outward. Except for a small amount of spillage from the panels, the interior of the building was lit only by a pair of floating-wick lamps. Threepio's assessment of the society echoed through her mind; apparently, he'd known what he was talking about.

In the center of the room, standing silently in a row facing her, were five Noghri.

Leia swallowed hard, sensing somehow that the first words should be theirs. Khabarakh stepped to the Noghri in the center and dropped to his knees, ducking his head to the floor and splaying out his hands to his sides. The same gesture of respect, she remembered, that he'd extended to her back in the Kashyyyk holding cell. "Ilyr'ush mir lakh svoril'lae," he said. "Mir'lae karah siv Mal'ary'ush vir'ae Vader'ush."

"Can you understand it?" Leia murmured to Threepio.

"To a degree," the droid replied. "It appears to be a dialect of the ancient trade language-"

"Sha'eah!" the Noghri in the center of the line spat.

Threepio recoiled. "She said, 'Quiet,"" he translated unnecessarily.

"I understood the gist," Leia said, drawing herself up and bringing the full weight of her Royal Alderaanian Court upbringing to bear on the aliens facing her. Deference to local custom and authority was all well and good; but she was the daughter of their Lord Darth Vader, and there were certain discourtesies that such a person should not put up with. "Is this how you speak to the Mal'ary'ush?" she demanded.

Six Noghri heads snapped over to look at her. Reaching out with the Force, Leia tried to read the sense behind those gazes; but as always, this particular alien mind seemed totally closed to her. She was going to have to play it by ear. "I asked a question," she said into the silence.

The Noghri in the center took a step forward, and with the motion Leia noticed for the first time the two small hard bumps on the alien's upper chest beneath the loose tunic. A female? "Maitrakh?" she murmured to Threepio, remembering the word Khabarakh had used earlier.

"A female who is leader of a local family or subclan structure," the droid translated, his voice nervous and almost too low to hear. Threepio hated being yelled at.

"Thank you," Leia said, eyeing the Noghri. "You are the maitrakh of this family?"

"I am she," the Noghri said in heavily accented but understandable Basic. "What proof do you offer to your claim of Mal'ary'ush?"

Silently, Leia held out her hand. The maitrakh hesitated, then stepped up to her and gingerly sniffed it. "Is it not as I said?" Kabarakh asked.

"Be silent, thirdson," the maitrakh said, raising her head to stare into Leia's eyes. "I greet you, Lady Vader. But I do not welcome you."

Leia held her gaze steadily. She could still not sense anything from any of the aliens, but with her thoughts extended she could tell that Chewbacca had left the ship and was approaching the house. approaching rather rapidly, and with a definite agitation about him. She hoped he wouldn't charge brashly in and ruin what little civility remained here. "May I ask why not?" she asked the maitrakh.

"Did you serve the Emperor?" the other countered. "Do you now serve our lord, the Grand Admiral?"

"No, to both questions," Leia told her.

"Then you bring discord and poison among us," the maitrakh concluded darkly. "Discord between what was and what now is." She shook her head. "We do not need more discord on Honoghr, Lady Vader."

The words were barely out of her mouth when the doors behind Leia swung open again and Chewbacca strode into the room. The maitrakh started at the sight of the Wookiee, and one of the other Noghri uttered something startled sounding. But any further reactions were cut off by Chewbacca's snarled warning. "Are you sure they're Imperials?" Leia asked, a cold fist clutching her heart. No, she pleaded silently. Not now. Not yet.

The Wookiee growled the obvious: that a pair of Lambda-class shuttles coming from orbit and from the direction of the city of Nystao could hardly be anything else.

Khabarakh moved up beside the maitrakh, said something urgently in his own language. "He says he has sworn protection to us," Threepio translated. "He asks that the pledge be honored."

For a long moment Leia thought the maitrakh was going to refuse. Then, with a sigh, she bowed her head slightly. "Come with me," Khabarakh said to Leia, brushing past her and Chewbacca to the door. "The maitrakh has agreed to hide you from our lord the Grand Admiral, at least for now."

"Where are we going?" Leia asked as they followed him out into the night.

"Your droid and your analysis equipment I will hide among the decon droids that are stored for the night in an outer shed," the Noghri explained, pointing to a windowless building fifty meters away. You and the Wookiee will be more of a problem. If the Imperials have sensor equipment with them, your life-sign profiles will register as different from Noghri."

"I know," Leia said, searching the sky for the shuttles' running lights and trying to remember everything she could about life-form identification algorithms. Heart rate was one of the parameters, she knew, as were ambient atmosphere, respiratory byproducts, and molecule-chain EM polarization effects. But the chief long-range parameter was- "We need a heat source," she told Khabarakh. "As big a one as possible."

"The bake house," the Noghri said, pointing to a windowless building three down from where they stood. At its back was a squat chimney from which wisps of smoke could be seen curling upward in the backwash of light from the surrounding structures.

"Sounds like our best chance," Leia agreed. "Khabarakh, you hide Threepio Chewie, come with me."

The Noghri were waiting for them as they stepped from the shuttle: three females standing side by side, with two children acting as honor wardens by the doors of the clan dukha building. Thrawn glanced at the group, threw an evaluating sweep around the area, and then turned to Pellaeon. "Wait here until the tech team arrives, Captain," he ordered Pellaeon quietly. "Get them started on a check of the communications and countermeasures equipment in the ship over there. Then join me inside."

"Yes, sir."

Thrawn turned to Ir'kbaim. "Dynast," he invited, gesturing at the waiting Noghri. The dynast bowed and strode toward them. Thrawn threw a glance at Rukh, who'd taken Ir'khaim's former position at the Grand Admiral's side, and together they followed. There was the usual welcoming ritual, and then the females led the way into the dukha.

The shuttle from the Chimaera was only a couple of minutes behind them. Pellaeon briefed the tech team and got them busy, then crossed to the dukha and went in.

He'd expected that the maitrakh would have managed to round up perhaps a handful of her people for this impromptu late-evening visit by their glorious lord and master. To his surprise, he found that the old girl had in fact turned out half the village. There was a double row of them, children as well as adults, lining the dukha walls from the huge genealogy wall chart back to the double doors and around again to the meditation booth opposite the chart. Thrawn was seated in the clan High Seat two thirds of the way to the back of the room with Ir'khaim standing again at his side. The three females who'd met the shuttle stood facing them with a second tier of elders another pace back. Standing with the females, his steelgray skin a marked contrast to their older, darker gray, was a young Noghri male.

Pellaeon had, apparently, missed nothing more important than a smattering of the nonsense ritual the Noghri never seemed to get enough of. As he moved past the silent lines of aliens to stand at Thrawn's other side, the young male stepped forward and knelt before the High Seat. "I greet you, my lord," he mewed gravely, spreading his arms out to his sides. "You honor my family and the clan Kihm'bar with your presence here."

"You may rise," Thrawn told him. "You are Khabarakh, clan Kihm'bar?"

"I am, my lord."

"You were once a member of the Imperial Noghri commando team twenty-two," Thrawn said. "A team that ceased to exist on the planet Kashyyyk. Tell me what happened."

Khabarakh might have twitched. Pellaeon couldn't tell for sure. "I filed a report, my lord, immediately upon leaving that world."

"Yes, I read the report," Thrawn told him coolly. "Read it very carefully, and noted the questions it left unanswered. Such as how and why you survived when all others in your team were killed. And how it was you were able to escape when the entire planet had been alerted to your presence. And why you did not return immediately to either Honoghr or one of our other bases after your failure."

This time there was definitely a twitch. Possibly a reaction to the word failure. "I was left unconscious by the Wookiees during the first attack," Khabarakh said. "I awakened alone and made my way back to the ship. Once there, I deduced what had happened to the rest of the team from official information sources. I suspect they simply were unprepared for the speed and stealth of my ship when I made my escape. As to my whereabouts afterward, my lord-" He hesitated. "I transmitted my report, and then left for a time to be alone."

"Why?"

"To think, my lord, and to meditate."

"Wouldn't Honoghr have been a more suitable place for such meditation?" Thrawn asked, waving a hand around the dukha.

"I had much to think about. My lord."

For a moment Thrawn eyed him thoughtfully. "You were slow to respond when the request for a recognition signal came from the surface," he said. "You then refused to land at the Nystao port facilities."

"I did not refuse, my lord. I was never ordered to land there."

"The distinction is noted," Thrawn said dryly. "Tell me why you chose to come here instead."

"I wished to speak with my maitrakh To discuss my meditations with her, and to ask forgiveness for my : failure."

"And have you done so?" Thrawn asked, turning to face the maitrakh.

"We have begun," she said in atrociously mangled Basic. "We have not finished."

At the back of the room, the dukha doors swung open and one of the tech team stepped inside. "You have a report, Ensign?" Thrawn called to him.

"Yes, Admiral," the other said, crossing the room and stepping somewhat gingerly around the assembled group of Noghri elders. "We've finished our preliminary set of comm and countermeasures tests, sir, as per orders."

Thrawn shifted his gaze to Khabarakh. "And?"

"We think we've located the malfunction, sir. The main transmitter coil seems to have overloaded and backfired into a dump capacitor, damaging several nearby circuits. The compensator computer rebuilt the pathway, but the bypass was close enough to one of the static-damping command lines for the resulting inductance surge to trigger it."

"An interesting set of coincidences," Thrawn said, his glowing eyes still on Khabarakh. "A natural malfunction, do you think, or an artificial one?"

The maitrakh stirred, as if about to say something. Thrawn looked at her, and she subsided. "Impossible to say, sir," the tech said, choosing his words carefully. Obviously, he hadn't missed the fact that this was skating him close to the edge of insult in the middle of a group of Noghri who might decide to take offense at it. "Someone who knew what he was doing could probably have pulled it off. I have to say, though, sir, that compensator computers in general have a pretty low reputation among mechanics. They're okay on the really serious stuff that can get unskilled pilots into big trouble, but on noncritical reroutes like this they've always had a tendency to foul up something else along the way."

"Thank you." If Thrawn was annoyed that he hadn't caught Khabarakh red-handed in a lie, it didn't show in his face. "Your team will take the ship back to Nystao for repairs."

"Yes, sir." The tech saluted and left.

Thrawn looked back at Khabarakh. "With your team destroyed, you will of course have to be reassigned," he said. "When your ship has been repaired you will fly it to the Valrar base in Glythe sector and report there for duty."

"Yes, my lord," Khabarakh said.

Thrawn stood up. "You have much to be proud of here," he said, inclining his head slightly to the maitrakh. "Your family's service to the clan Kihm'bar and to the Empire will be long remembered by all of Honoghr."

"As will your leadership and protection of the Noghri people," the maitrakh responded.

Flanked by Rukh and Ir'khaim, Thrawn stepped down from the chair and headed back toward the double doors. Pellaeon took up the rear, and a minute later they were once again out in the chilly night air. The shuttle was standing ready, and without further comment or ritual Thrawn led the way inside. As they lifted, Pellaeon caught just a glimpse out the viewport of the Noghri filing out of the dukha to watch their departing leaders. "Well, that was pleasant," he muttered under his breath.

Thrawn looked at him. "A waste of time, you think, Captain?" he asked mildly.

Pellaeon glanced at Ir'khaim, seated farther toward the front of the shuttle. The dynast didn't seem to be listening to them, but it would probably still pay to be tactful. "Diplomatically, sir, I'm sure it was wortwhile to demonstrate that you care about all of Honoghr, including the outer villages," he told Thrawn. "Given that the commando ship really had malfunctioned, I don't think anything else was gained."

Thrawn turned to stare out the side viewport. "I'm not so sure of that, Captain," he said. "There's something not quite right back there. Rukh, what's your reading of our young commando Khabarakh?"

"He was unsettled," the bodyguard told him quietly. "That much I saw in his hands and his face."

Ir'khaim swiveled around in his chair. "It is a naturally unsettling experience to face the lord of the Noghri," he said.

"Particularly when one's hands are wet with failure?" Rukh countered.

Ir'khaim half rose from his seat, and for a pair of heartbeats the air between the two Noghri was thick with tension. Pellaeon felt himself pressing back in his seat cushions, the long and bloody history of Noghri clan rivalry flooding fresh into his consciousness : "This mission has generated several failures," Thrawn said calmly into the taut silence. "In that, the clan Kihm'bar hardly stands alone."

Slowly, Ir'khaim resumed his seat. "Khabarakh is still young," he said.

"He is indeed," Thrawn agreed. "One reason, I presume, why he's such a bad liar. Rukh, perhaps the Dynast Ir'khaim would enjoy the view from the forward section. Please escort him there."

"Yes, my lord." Rukh stood up. "Dynast Ir'khaim?" he said, gesturing toward the forward blast door.

For a moment the other Noghri didn't move. Then, with obvious reluctance, he stood up. "My lord," he said stiffly, and headed down the aisle.

Thrawn waited until the door had closed on both aliens before turning back to Pellaeon. "Khalarakh is hiding something, Captain," he said, a cold fire in his eyes. "I'm certain of it."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, wondering how the Grand Admiral had come to that conclusion. Certainly the routine sensor scan they'd just run hadn't picked up anything. "Shall I order a sensor focus on the village?"

"That's not what I meant," Thrawn shook his head. "He wouldn't have brought anything incriminating back to Honoghr with him-you can't hide anything for long in one of these close-knit villages. No, it's something he's not telling us about that missing month. The one where he claims he was off meditating by himself."

"We might be able to learn something from his ship," Pellaeon suggested.

"Agreed," Thrawn nodded. "Have a scanning crew go over it before the techs get to work. Every cubic millimeter of it, interior and exterior both. And have Surveillance put someone on Khalarakh."

"Ah-yes, sir," Pellaeon said. "One of our people, or another Noghri?"

Thrawn cocked an eyebrow at him. "The ridiculously obvious or the heavily political, in other words?" he asked dryly. "Yes, you're right, of course. Let's try a third option: does the Chimaera carry any espionage droids?"

"I don't believe so, sir," Pellaeon said, punching up the question on the shuttle's computer link. "No. We have some Arakyd Viper probe droids, but nothing of the more compact espionage class."

"Then we'll have to improvise," Thrawn said. "Have Engineering put a Viper motivator into a decon droid and rig it with full-range optical and auditory sensors and a recorder. We'll have it put in with the group working out of Khabarakh's village."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, keying in the order. "Do you want a transmitter installed, too?"

Thrawn shook his head. "No, a recorder should be sufficient. The antenna would be difficult to conceal from view. The last thing we want is for some curious Noghri to see it and wonder why this one was different."

Pellaeon nodded his understanding. Especially since that might lead the aliens to start pulling decon droids apart for a look inside. "Yes, sir. I'll have the order placed right away."

Thrawn's glowing eyes shifted to look out the viewport. "There's no particular rush here," he said thoughtfully. "Not now. This is the calm before the storm, Captain; and until the storm is ready to unleash, we might as well spend our time and energy making sure our illustrious Jedi Master will be willing to assist us when we want him."

"Which means bringing Leia Organa Solo to him."

"Exactly." Thrawn looked at the forward blast door. And if my presence is what the Noghri need to inspire them, then my presence is what they'll have."

"For how long?" Pellaeon asked.

Thrawn smiled tightly. "For as long as it takes."

Chapter 11

"Han?" Lando's voice came from the cabin intercom beside the bunk. "Wake up."

"Yeah, I'm awake" Han grunted, swiping at his eyes with one hand and swiveling the repeater displays toward him with the other. If there was one thing his years on the wrong side of the law had hammered into him, it was the knack of going from deep sleep to full alertness in the space between heartbeats. "What's up?"

"We're here," Lando announced. "Wherever here is."

"I'll be right up."

They were in sight of their target planet by the time he'd dressed and made his way to the Lady Luck's cockpit. "Where's Irenez?" he asked, peering out at the mottled blue-green crescent shape they were rapidly approaching. It looked pretty much like any of a thousand other planets he'd seen.

"She's gone back to the aft control station," Lando told her. "I got the impression she wanted to be able to send down some recognition codes without us looking over her shoulder."

"Any idea where we are?"

"Not really," Lando said. "Transit time was forty seven hours, but that doesn't tell us a whole lot."

Han nodded, searching his memory. "A Dreadnaught can pull, what, about Point Four?"

"About that," Lando agreed. "When it's really in a hurry, anyway.

"Means we aren't any more than a hundred fifty lightyears from New Cov, then."

"I'd guess we're closer than that, myself," Lando said. "It wouldn't make much sense to use New Cov as a contact point if they were that far away."

"Unless New Cov was Breil'lya's idea and not theirs," Han pointed out.

"Possible," Lando said. "I still think we're closer than a hundred fifty light-years, though. They could have taken their time getting here just to mislead us."

Han looked up at the Dreadnaught that had been hauling them through hyperspace for the past two days. "Or to have time to organize a reception committee."

"There's that," Lando nodded. "I don't know if I mentioned it, but after they apologized for getting the magnetic coupling off-center over our hatch I went back and took a look"

"You didn't mention it, but I did the same thing," Han said sourly. "Looked kind of deliberate, didn't it?"

"That's what I thought, too," Lando said. "Like maybe they wanted an excuse to keep us cooped up down here and not wandering around their ship."

"Could be lots of good and innocent reasons for that," Han reminded him.

"And lots of not-so-innocent ones," Lando countered. "You sure you don't have any idea who this Commander of theirs might be?"

"Not even a guess. Probably be finding out real soon, though."

The comm crackled on. "Lady Luck, this is Sena," a familiar voice said. "We've arrived."

"Yes, we noticed," Lando told her. "I expect you'll want us to follow you down."

"Right," she said. "The Peregrine will drop the magnetic coupling whenever you're ready to fly."

Han stared at the speaker, barely hearing Lando's response. A ship called the Peregrine :?

"You still with me?"

Han focused on Lando, noticing with mild surprise that the other's conversation with Sena had ended. "Yeah," he said. "Sure. It's just-that name, Peregrine, rang an old bell."

"You've heard of it?"

"Not the ship, no," Han shook his head. "The Peregrine was an old Corellian scare legend they used to tell when I was a kid. He was some old ghostly guy who'd been cursed to wander around the world forever and never find his home again. Used to make me feel real creepy.

From above came a clang; and with a jolt they were free of the Dreadnaught. Lando eased them away from the huge warship, looking up as it passed by overhead. "Well, try to remember it was just a legend," he reminded Han.

Han looked at the Dreadnaught. "Sure," he said, a little too quickly. "I know that."

They followed Sena's freighter down and were soon skimming over what appeared to be a large grassy plain dotted with patches of stubby coniferous trees. A wall of craggy cliffs loomed directly ahead-an ideal spot, Han's old smuggler instincts told him, to hide a spaceship support and servicing base. A few minutes later his bunch was borne out as, sweeping over a low ridge, they came to the encampment.

An encampment that was far too large to be merely a servicing base. Rows upon rows of camouflaged structures filled the plain just beneath the cliffs: everything from small living quarters to larger admin and supply sheds to still larger maintenance and tool buildings, up to a huge camoroofed refurbishing hangar. The perimeter was dotted with the squat, turret-topped cylinders of Golan Arms anti-infantry batteries and a few of the longer Speizoc anti-vehicle weapons, along with some KAAC Freerunner assault vehicles parked in defensive posture.

Lando whistled softly under his breath. "Would you look at that?" he said. "What is this, someone's private army?"

"Looks that way," Han agreed, feeling the skin on the back of his neck starting to crawl. He'd run into private armies before, and they'd never been anything but trouble.

"I think I'm starting not to like this," Lando decided, easing the Lady Luck gingerly over the outer sentry line. Ahead, Sena's freighter was approaching a landing pad barely visible against the rest of the ground. "You sure you want to go through with this?"

"What, with three Dreadnaughts standing on our heads out there?" Han snorted. "I don't think we've got a whole lot of choice. Not in this crate, anyway.

"Probably right," Lando conceded, apparently too preoccupied to notice the insult to his ship. "So what do we do?"

Sena's freighter had dropped its landing skids and was settling onto the pad. "I guess we go down and behave like invited guests," Han said.

Lando nodded at Han's blaster. "You don't think they'll object to their invited guests coming in armed?"

"Lot 'em object first," Han said grimly. "Then we'll discuss it."

Lando put the Lady Luck down beside the freighter, and together he and Han made their way to the aft hatchway. Irenez, her transmission chores finished, was waiting there for them, her own blaster strapped prominently to her hip. A transport skiff was parked outside, and as the three of them headed down the ramp, Sena and a handful of her entourage came around the Lady Luck's bow. Most of the others were dressed in a casual tan uniform of an unfamiliar but vaguely Corellian cut; Sena, by contrast, was still in the nondescript civilian garb she'd been wearing on New Cov.

"Welcome to our base of operations," Sena said, waving a hand to encompass the encampment around them. "If you'll come with us, the Commander is waiting to meet you.

"Busy looking place you've got here," Han commented as they all boarded the skiff. "You getting ready to start a war or something?"

"We're not in the business of starting wars," Sena said coolly.

"Ah," Han nodded, looking around as the driver swung the skiff around and headed off through the camp. There was something about the layout that seemed vaguely familiar.

Lando got it first. "You know, this place looks a lot like one of the old Alliance bases we used to work out of," he commented to Sena. "Only built on the surface instead of dug in underground."

"It does look that way, doesn't it?" Sena agreed, her voice not giving anything away.

"You've had dealings with the Alliance, then?" Lando probed gently.

Sena didn't answer. Lando looked at han, eyebrows raised. Han shrugged slightly in return. Whatever was going on here, it was clear the hired hands weren't in the habit of talking about it.

The skiff came to a halt beside an administration building indistinguishable from the others nearby except for the two uniformed guards flanking the doorway. They saluted as Sena approached, one of them reaching over to pull the door open. "The Commander asked to see you for a moment alone, Captain Solo," Sena said, stopping by the open door. "We'll wait out here with General Calrissian."

"Right," Han said. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside.

From its outside appearance he'd expected it to be a standard administrative center, with an outer reception area and a honeycomb of comfy executive offices stacked behind it. To his mild surprise, he found himself instead in a fully equipped war room. Lining the walls were comm and tracking consoles, including at least one crystal gravfield trap receptor and what looked like the ranging control for a KDY v-150 Planet Defender ion cannon like the one the Alliance had had to abandon on Hath. In the center of the room a large holo display showed a sector's worth of stars, with a hundred multicolored markers and vector lines scattered among the glittering white dots.

And standing beside the holo was a man.

His face was distorted somewhat by the strangely colored lights playing on it from the display; and it was, at any rate, a face Han had never seen except in pictures. But even so, recognition came with the sudden jolt of an overhead thunderclap. "Senator Bel Iblis," he breathed.

"Welcome to Peregrine's Nest, Captain Solo," the other said gravely, coming away from the holo toward him.

"I'm flattered you still remember me.

"It'd be hard for any Corellian to forget you, sir," Han said, his numbed brain noting vaguely in passing that there were very few people in the galaxy who rated an automatic sir from him. "But you :"

"Were dead?" Bel Iblis suggested, a half smile creasing his lined face.

"Well-yes," Han floundered. "I mean, everyone thought you died on Anchoron."

"In a very real sense, I did," the other said quietly, the smile fading from his face. Closer now, Han was struck with just how lined with age and, stress the Senator's face was. "The Emperor wasn't quite able to kill me at Anchoron, but he might just as well have done so. He took everything I had except my life: my family, my profession, even all future contacts with mainstream Corellian society. He forced me outside the law I'd worked so hard to create and maintain." The smile returned, like a hint of sunshine around the edge of a dark cloud. "Forced me to become a rebel. I imagine you understand the feeling."

"Pretty well, yeah," Han said, grinning lopsidedly in return. He'd read in school about the legendary presence of the equally legendary Senator Garm Bel Iblis; now, he was getting to see that charm up close. It made him feel like a schoolkid again. "I still can't believe this. I wish we'd known sooner-we could really have used this army of yours during the war."

For just a second a shadow seemed to cross Bel Iblis's face. "We probably couldn't have done much to help," he said. "It's taken us a good deal of time to build up to what you see here." His smile returned. "But there'll be time to talk about that later. Right now, I see you standing there trying to figure out exactly when it was we met."

Actually, Han had forgotten about Sena's references to a previous meeting. "Tell you the truth, I haven't got a clue," he confessed. "Unless it was after Anchoron and you were in disguise or something."

Bel Iblis shook his head. "No disguise; but it wasn't something I'd really expect you to remember. I'll give you a hint: you were all of eleven at the time."

Han blinked. "Eleven?" he echoed. "You mean in school?"

"Correct," Bel Iblis nodded. "Literally correct, in fact. It was at a convocation at your school, where you were being forced to listen to a group of us old fossils talk about politics."

Han felt his face warming. The specific memory was still a blank, but that was how he'd felt about politicians at that time in his life. Though come to think of it, the opinion hadn't changed all that much over the years. "I'm sorry, but I still don't remember."

"As I said, I didn't expect you to," Bel Iblis said. "I, on the other hand, remember the incident quite well. During the question period after the talk you asked two irreverently phrased yet highly pointed questions: the first regarding the ethics of the anti-alien bias starting to creep into the legal structure of the Republic, the second about some very specific instances of corruption involving my colleagues in the Senate."

It was starting to come back, at least in a vague sort of way. "Yeah, I remember now," Han said slowly. "I think one of my friends dared me to throw those questions at you. He probably figured I'd get in trouble for not being, polite. I was in trouble enough that it didn't bother me."

"Setting your life pattern early, were you?" Bel Iblis suggested dryly. "At any rate, they weren t the sort of questions I would have expected from an eleven-year-old, and they intrigued me enough to ask about you. I've been keeping a somewhat loose eye on you ever since."

Han grimaced. "You probably weren't very impressed by what you saw.

"There were times," Bel Iblis agreed. "I'll admit to having been extremely disappointed when you were dismissed from the Imperial Academy-you'd shown considerable promise there, and I felt at the time that a strongly loyal officer corps was one of the few defenses the Republic still had left against the collapse toward Empire." He shrugged. "Under the circumstances, it's just as well that you got out when you did. With your obvious disdain for authority, you'd have been quietly eliminated in the Emperor's purge of those officers he hadn't been able to seduce to his side. And then things would have gone quite differently, wouldn't they?"

"Maybe a little," Han conceded modestly. He glanced around the war room. "So how long have you been here at-you called it Peregrine's Nest?"

"Oh, we never stay anywhere for very long," Bel Iblis said, clapping a hand on han's shoulder and gently but firmly turning him toward the door. "Sit still too long and the Imperials will eventually find you. But we can talk business later. Right now, your friend outside is probably getting nervous. Come introduce me to him."

Lando was indeed looking a little tense as Han and Bel Iblis stepped out into the sunlight again. "It's all right," Han assured him. "We're with friends. Senator, this is Lando Calrissian, one-time general of the Rebel Alliance. Lando; Senator Garm Bel Iblis."

He hadn't expected Lando to recognize the name of a long-past Corellian politician. He was right. "Senator Bel Iblis," Lando nodded, his voice neutral.

"Honored to meet you, General Calrissian," Bel Iblis said. "I've heard a great deal about you.

Lando glanced at Han. "Just Calrissian," he said. "The General is more a courtesy title now."

"Then we re even," Bel Iblis smiled. "I'm not a Senator anymore, either." He waved a hand at Sena. "You've met my chief adviser and unofficial ambassador-at-large, Sena Loikvold Midanyl. And-" He paused, looking around. "I understood Irenez was with you."

"She was needed back at the ship, sir," Sena told him. "Our other guest required some soothing."

"Yes; Council-Aide Breil'lya," Bel Iblis said, glancing in the direction of the landing pad. "This could prove somewhat awkward."

"Yes, sir," Sena said. "Perhaps I shouldn't have brought him here, but at the time I didn't see any other reasonable course of action."

"Oh, I agree," Bel Iblis assured her. "Leaving him in the middle of an Imperial raid would have been more than simply awkward."

Han felt a slight chill run through him. In the flush of excitement over meeting Bel Iblis, he'd completely forgotten what had taken them to New Cov in the first place. "You seem to be on good terms with Breil'lya, Senator," he said carefully.

Bel Iblis eyed him. "And you'd like to know just what those good terms entail?"

Han steeled himself. "As a matter of fact, sir : yes, I would."

The other smiled slightly. "You still have that underlying refusal to flinch before authority, don't you. Good. Come on over to the headquarters lounge and I'll tell you anything you want to know." His smile hardened, just a little. "And after that, I'll have some questions to ask you, as well."

The door slid open, and Pellaeon stepped into the darkened antechamber of Thrawn's private command room. Darkened and apparently empty; but Pellaeon knew better than that. "I have important information for the Grand Admiral," he said loudly. "I don't have time for these little games of yours."

"They are not games," Ruk's gravelly voice mewed right in Pellaeon's ear, making him jump despite his best efforts not to. "Stalking skills must be practiced or lost."

"Practice on someone else," Pellaeon growled. "I have work to do."

He stepped forward to the inner door, silently cursing Ruk and the whole Noghri race. Useful tools of the Empire they might well be; but he'd dealt with this kind of close-knit clan structure before, and he'd never found such primitives to be anything but trouble in the long run. The door to the command room slid open-

Revealing a darkness lit only by softly glowing candles.

Pellaeon stopped abruptly, his mind flashing back to that eerie crypt on Wayland, where a thousand candles marked the graves of off worlders who had come there over the past few years, only to be slaughtered by Joruus C'baoth. For Thrawn to have turned his command room into a duplicate of that :

"No, I haven't come under the influence of our unstable Jedi Master," Thrawn's voice came dryly across the room. Over the candles, Pellaeon could just see the Grand Admiral's glowing red eyes. "Look closer."

Pellaeon did as instructed, to discover that the "candles" were in fact holographic images of exquisitely delicate lighted sculptures. "Beautiful, aren't they?" Thrawn said, his voice meditative. "They're Corellian flame miniatures, one of that very short list of art forms which others have tried to copy but never truly been able to duplicate. Nothing more than shaped transoptical fibers, pseudoluminescent plant material, and a pair of Goolish light sources, really; and yet, somehow, there's something about them that's never been captured by anyone else." The holographic flames faded away, and in the center of the room a frozen image of three Dreadnaught cruisers apeared. "This was taken by the Relentless two days ago off the planet New Cov, Captain," Thrawn continued in the same thoughtful tone. "Watch closely."

He started the recording. Pellaeon watched in silence as the Dreadnaughts, in triangular formation, opened fire with ion cannons toward the camera's point of view. Almost hidden in the fury of the assault, a freighter and what looked like a small pleasure yacht could be seen skittering to safety down the middle of the formation. Still firing, the Dreadnaughts began drawing back, and a minute later the whole group had jumped to lightspeed. The holo faded away, and the room lights came up to a gentle glow. "Comments?" Thrawn invited.

"Looks like our old friends are back," Pellaeon said. "They seem to have recovered from that scare we gave them at Linuri. A nuisance, especially right now.

"Unfortunately, indications are that they're about to become more than just a nuisance," Thrawn told him. "One of the two ships they were rescuing was identified by the Relentless as the Lady Luck. With Han Solo and Lando Calrissian aboard."

Pellaeon frowned. "Solo and Calrissian? But-" He broke off sharply.

"But they were supposed to go to the Palanhi system," Thrawn finished for him. "Yes. An error on my part. Obviously, something more important came than their concerns for Ackbar's reputation.

Pellaeon looked back at where the holo had been. "Such as adding new strength to the Rebellion military."

"I don't believe they've merged quite yet," Thrawn said, his forehead furrowed with thought. "Nor do I believe such an alliance is inevitable. That was a Corellian leading that task force, Captain-I'm sure of that now. And there are only a few possibilities as to just who that Corellian might be."

A stray memory clicked. "Solo is Corellian, isn't he?"

"Yes," Thrawn confirmed. "One reason I think they're still in the negotiation stage. If their leader is who I suspect, he might well prefer sounding out a fellow Corellian before making any commitment to the Rebellion's leaders."

To Thrawn's left, the comm pinged. `Admiral Thrawn? We have the contact you requested with the Relentless."

"Thank you," Thrawn said, tapping a switch. In front of the double circle of repeater displays a three-quartersized hologram of an elderly Imperial officer appeared, standing next to what appeared to be a detention block control board. "Grand Admiral," the image said, nodding gravely.

"Good day, Captain Dorja," Thrawn nodded back.

"You have the prisoner I asked for?"

"Right here, sir," Dorja said. He glanced to the side and gestured; and from off-camera a rather bulky human appeared, his hands shackled in front of him, his expression studiously neutral behind his neatly trimmed board. "His name's Niles Ferrier," Dorja said. "We picked him and his crew up during the raid on New Cov."

"The raid from which Skywalker, Solo, and Calrissian escaped," Thrawn said.

Dorja winced. "Yes, sir."

Thrawn shifted his attention to Ferrier. "Captain Ferrier," he nodded. "Our records indicate that you specialize in space ship theft. Yet you were picked up on New Cov with a cargo of biomolecules aboard your ship. Would you care to explain?"

Ferrier shrugged fractionally. "Palming ships isn't something you can do every day," he said. "It takes opportunities and planning. Taking the occasional shipping job helps make ends meet.

"You're aware, of course, that the biomolecules were undeclared."

"Yes, Captain Dorja told me that," Ferrier said with just the right mixture of astonishment and indignation. "Believe me, if I'd known I was being made a party to such cheating against the Empire-"

"I presume you're also aware," Thrawn cut him off, "that for such actions I can not only confiscate your cargo, but also your ship."

Ferrier was aware of that, all right. Pellaeon could see it in the pinched look around his eyes. "I've been very helpful to the Empire in the past, Admiral," he said evenly. "I've smuggled in loads of contraband from the New Republic, and only recently delivered three Sienar patrol ships to your people."

"And were paid outrageous sums of money in all cases," Thrawn reminded him. "If you're trying to suggest we owe you for past kindnesses, don't bother. However : there may be a way for you to pay back this new debt. Did you happen to notice the ships attacking the Relentless as you were trying to sneak away from the planet?"

"Of course I did," Ferrier said, a touch of wounded professional pride creeping into his voice. "They were Rendili StarDrive Dreadnaughts. Old ones, by the look of them, but spry enough. Probably undergone a lo of refitting."

"They have indeed." Thrawn smiled slightly. "I want them."

It took Ferrier a handful of seconds for the offhanded sounding comment to register. When it did, his mouth dropped open. "You mean : me?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" Thrawn asked coldly.

"Uh :" Ferrier swallowed. "Admiral, with all due respect-"

"You have three standard months to get me either those ships or else their precise location," Thrawn cut him off. "Captain Dorja?"

Dorja stepped forward again. "Sir."

"You will release Captain Ferrier and his crew and supply them with an unmarked Intelligence freighter to use. Their own ship will remain aboard the Relentless until they've completed their mission."

"Understood," Dorja nodded.

Thrawn cocked an eyebrow. "One other thing, Captain Ferrier. On the off chance that you might feel yourself tempted to abandon the assignment and make a run for it, the freighter you'll be given will be equipped with an impressive and totally unbreakable doomsday mechanism. With exactly three standard months set on its clock. I trust you understand."

Above his beard, Ferrier's face had gone a rather sickly white. "Yes," he managed.

"Good." Thrawn shifted his attention back to Dorja. "I leave the details in your hands, Captain. Keep me informed of developments."

He tapped a switch, and the hologram faded away. "As I said, Captain," Thrawn said, turning to Pellaon. "I don't think an alliance with the Rebellion is necessarily inevitable."

"If Ferrier can pull it off"' Pellaeon said doubtfully.

"He has a reasonable chance," Thrawn assured him. "After all, we have a general idea ourselves of where they might be hidden. We just don't have the time and manpower at the moment to properly root them out. Even if we did, a large-scale attack would probably end up destroying the Dreadnaughts, and I'd rather capture them intact."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said grimly. The word capture had reminded him of why he'd come here in the first place. "Admiral, the report on Khabarakh's ship has come in from the scanning team." He held the data card over the double display circle.

For a moment Thrawn's glowing red eyes burned into Pellaeon's face, as if trying to read the reason for his subordinate's obvious tension. Then, wordlessly, he took the data card from the captain's hand and slid it into his reader. Pellaeon waited, tight-lipped, as the Grand Admiral skimmed the report.

Thrawn reached the end and leaned back in his seat, his face unreadable. "Wookiee hairs," he said.

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon nodded. "All over the ship."

Thrawn was silent another few heartbeats. "Your interpretation?"

Pellaeon braced himself "I can only see one, sir. Khabarakh didn't escape from the Wookiees on Kashyyyk at all. They caught him : and then let him go."

"After a month of imprisonment." Thrawn looked up at Pellaeon. "And interrogation."

"Almost certainly," Pellaeon agreed. "The question is, what did he tell them?"

"There's one way to find out." Thrawn tapped on the comm. "Hangar bay, this is the Grand Admiral. Prepare my shuttle; I'm going to the surface. I'll want a troop shuttle and double squad of stormtroopers ready to accompany me, plus two flights of Scimitar assault bombers to provide air cover."

He got an acknowledgment and keyed off. "It may be, Captain, that the Noghri have forgotten where their loyalties lie," he told Pellaeon, standing up and stepping out around the displays. "I think it's time they were reminded that the Empire commands here. You'll return to the bridge and prepare a suitable demonstration."

"Yes, sir." Pellaeon hesitated. "Do you want merely a reminder and not actual destruction?"

Thrawn's eyes blazed. "For the moment, yes," he said, his voice icy. "Let them all pray that I don't change my mind."

Chapter 12

It was the smell Leia noticed first as she drifted slowly awake: a smoky smell, reminiscent of the wood fires of the Ewoks of Endor but with a tangy sharpness all its own. A warm, homey sort of aroma, reminding her of the campouts she'd had as a child on Alderaan.

And then she woke up enough to remember where she was. Full consciousness flooded in, and she snapped open her eyes-

To find herself lying on a rough pallet in a corner of the Noghri communal bake house. Exactly where she'd been when she'd fallen asleep the night before.

She sat up, feeling relieved and a little ashamed. What with that unexpected visit last night by the Grand Admiral, she realized she'd half expected to wake up in a Star Destroyer detention cell. Clearly, she'd underestimated the Noghri's ability to stick by their promises.

Her stomach growled, reminding her it had been a long time since she'd eaten; a little lower down, one of the twins kicked a reminder of his own. "Okay," she soothed. "I get the hint. Breakfast time."

She tore the top off a ration bar from one of her cases and took a bite, looking around the bake house as she chewed. Against the wall by the door, the double pallet that had been laid out for Chewbacca to sleep on was empty. For a moment the fear of betrayal again whispered to her; but a little concentration through the Force silenced any concerns. Chewbacca was somewhere nearby, with a sense that gave no indication of danger. Relax, she ordered herself sternly, pulling a fresh jumpsuit out of her case and starting to get dressed. Whatever these Noghri were, it was clear they weren't savages. They were honorable people, in their own way, and they wouldn't turn her over to the Empire. At least, not until they'd heard her out.

She downed the last bite of ration bar and finished dressing, making sure as always that her belt didn't hang too heavily across her increasingly swollen belly. Retrieving her lightsaber from its hiding place under the edge of the pallet, she fastened it prominently to her side. Khabarakh, she remembered, had seemed to find reassurance of her identity in the presence of the Jedi weapon; hopefully, the rest of the Noghri would also respond that way. Stepping to the bake house door, she ran through her Jedi calming exercises and went outside.

Three small Noghri children were playing with an inflatable ball in the grassy area outside the door, their grayish-white skin glistening with perspiration in the bright morning sunlight. A sunlight that wasn't going to last, Leia saw: a uniform layer of dark clouds extending all the way to the west was even now creeping its way east toward the rising sun. All for the best; a thick layer of clouds would block any direct telescopic observations the Star Destroyer up there might make of the village, as well as diffusing the non-Noghri infrared signatures she and Chewbacca were giving off.

She looked back down, to find that the three children had halted their game and formed a straight line in front of her. "Hello," she said, trying a smile on them.

The child in the middle stepped forward and dropped to his knees in an awkward but passable imitation of his elders' gesture of respect. "Male'ary'ush," he mewed. "Miskh 'hara isf chrak 'mi 'sokh. Mires kha."

"I see," Leia said, wishing fervently that she had Threepio with her. She was just wondering if she should risk calling him on the comlink when the child spoke again. "Hai ghreet yhou, Mal'ary'ush," he said, the Basic words coming out mangled but understandable. "The maitrakh whaits for you bin the dukha."

"Thank you," Leia nodded gravely to him. Door wardens last night; official greeters this morning. Noghri children seemed to be introduced early into the rituals and responsibilities of their culture. "Please escort me to her."

The child made the respect gesture again and got back to his feet, heading off toward the large circular structure that Khabarakh had landed next to the night before. Leia followed, the other two children taking up positions to either side of her. She found herself throwing short glances at them as they walked, wondering at the light color of their skin. Khabarakh's skin was a steel gray; the maitrakh's had been much darker. Did the Noghri consist of several distinct racial types? Or was the darkening a natural part of their aging process? She made a mental note to ask Khabarakh about it when she had a chance.

The dukha, seen now in full daylight, was far more elaborate than she'd realized. The pillars spaced every few meters around the wall seemed to be composed of whole sections of tree trunk, stripped of bark and smoothed to a black marble finish. The shimmery wood that made up the rest of the wall was covered to perhaps half its height with intricate carvings. As they got closer, she could see that the reinforcing metal band that encircled the building just beneath the eaves was also decorated leafily, the Noghri believed in combining function and art. The whole structure was perhaps twenty meters across and four meters high, with another three or four meters for the conical roof and she found herself wondering how many more pillars they'd had to put inside to support the thing.

Tall double doors had been built into the wall between two of the pillars, flanked at the moment by two straight-backed Noghri children. They pulled open the doors as Leia approached; nodding her thanks, she stepped inside.

The interior of the dukha was no less impressive than its exterior. It was a single open room, with a thronelike chair two-thirds of the way to the back, a small booth with an angled roof and a dark-meshed window built against the wall between two of the pillars to the right, and a wall chart of some sort directly across from it on the left. There were no internal support pillars; instead, a series of heavy chains had been strung from the top of each of the wall pillars to the edge of a large concave dish hanging over the center of the room. From inside the dish-just inside its rim, Leia decided-hidden lights played upward against the ceiling, providing a softly diffuse illumination.

A few meters in front of the chart a group of perhaps twenty small children were sitting in a semicircle around Threepio, who was holding forth in their language with what was obviously some kind of story, complete with occasional sound effects. It brought to mind the condensed version of their struggle against the Empire that he'd given the Ewoks, and Leia hoped the droid would remember not to vilify Darth Vader here. Presumably he would; she'd drummed the point into him often enough during the voyage.

A small movement off to the left caught her eye: Chewbacca and Khabarakh were sitting facing each other on the other side of the door, engaged in some kind of quiet activity that seemed to involve hands and wrists. The Wookiee had paused and was looking questioningly in her direction. Leia nodded her assurance that she was all right, trying to read from his sense just what he and Khabarakh were doing. At least it didn't seem to involve ripping the Noghri's arms out of their sockets; that was something, anyway.

"Lady Vader," a gravelly Noghri voice said. Leia turned back to see the maitrakh walking up to her. "I greet you. You slept well?"

"Quite well," Leia told her. "Your hospitality has been most honorable." She looked over at Threepio, wondering if she should call him back to his duties as translator.

The maitraich misunderstood. "It is the history time for the children," she said. "Your machine graciously volunteered to tell to them the last story of our lord Darth Vader."

Vader's final, self-sacrificial defiance against the Emperor, with Luke's life hanging in the balance. "Yes," Leia murmured. "It took until the end, but he was finally able to rid himself of the Emperor's web of deception."

For a moment the maitrakh was silent. Then, she stirred. "Walk with me, Lady Vader."

She turned and began walking along the wall. Leia joined her, noticing for the first time that the dukha's inner walls were decorated with carvings, too. A historical record of their family? "My thirdson has gained a new respect for your Wookiee," she said, gesturing toward Chewbacca and Khabarakh. "Our lord the Grand Admiral came last eve seeking proof that my thirdson had deceived him about his flying craft being broken. Because of your Wookiee, he found no such proof."

Leia nodded. "Yes, Chewie told me last night about gimmicking the ship. I don't have his knowledge of spaceship mechanics, but I know it can't be easy to fake a pair of linked malfunctions the way he did. It's fortunate for all of us he had the foresight and skill to do so."

"The Wookiee is not of your family or clan," the maitrakh said. "Yet you trust him, as if he were a friend?"

Leia took a deep breath. "I never knew my true father, the Lord Vader, as I was growing up. I was instead taken to Alderaan and raised by the Viceroy as if I were his own child. On Alderaan, as seems to also be the case here, family relationships were the basis of our culture and society. I grew up memorizing lists of aunts and uncles and cousins, learning how to place them in order of closeness to my adoptive line." She gestured to Chewbacca. "Chewie was once merely a good friend. Now, he is part of my family. As much a part as my husband and brother are.

They were perhaps a quarter of the way around the dukha before the maitrakh spoke again. "Why have you come here?"

"Khabarakh told me his people needed help," Leia said simply. "I thought there might be something I could do."

"Some will say you have come to sow discord among us."

"You said that yourself last night," Leia reminded her. "I can only give you my word that discord is not my intention."

The maitrakh made a long hissing sound that ended with a sharp double click of needle teeth. "The goal and the end are not always the same, Lady Vader. Now we serve one overclan only. You would require service to another. This is the seed of discord and death."

Leia pursed her lips. "Does service to the Empire satisfy you, then?" she asked. "Does it gain your people better life or higher honor?"

"We serve the Empire as one clan," the maitrakh said. "For you to demand our service would be to bring back the conflicts of old." They had reached the wall chart now, and she gestured a thin hand up toward it. "Do you see our history, Lady Vader?"

Leia craned her neck to look. Neatly carved lines of alien script covered the bottom two-thirds of the wall, with each word connected to a dozen others in a bewildering crisscross of vertical, horizontal, and angled lines, each cut seemingly of a different width and depth. Then she got it: the chart was a genealogical tree, either of the entire clan Kihm'bar or else just this particular family. "I see it," she said.

"Then you see the terrible destruction of life created by the conflicts of old," the maitrakh said. She gestured to three or four places on the chart which were, to Leia, indistinguishable from the rest of the design. Reading Noghri genealogies was apparently an acquired skill. "I do not wish to return to those days," the maitrakh continued. "Not even for the daughter of the Lord Darth Vader."

"I understand," Leia said quietly, shivering as the ghosts of Yavin, Hath, Endor, and a hundred more rose up before her. "I've seen more conflict and death in my lifetime than I ever thought possible. I have no wish to add to the list."

"Then you must leave," the maitrakh said firmly. "You must leave and not come back while the Empire lives."

They began to walk again. "Is there no alternative?" Leia asked. "What if I could persuade all of your people to leave their service to the Empire? There would be no conflict then among you."

"The Emperor aided us when no one else would," the maitrakh reminded her.

"That was only because we didn't know about your need," Leia said, feeling a twinge of conscience at the half truth. Yes, the Alliance had truly not known about the desperate situation here; and yes, Mon Mothma and the other leaders would certainly have wanted to help if they had. But whether they would have had the resources to actually do anything was another question entirely. "We know now, and we offer you our help."

"Do you offer us aid for our own sakes?" the maitrakh asked pointedly. "Or merely to wrest our service from the Empire to your overclan? We will not be fought over like a bone among hungry stava."

"The Emperor used you," Leia said flatly. "As the Grand Admiral uses you now. Has the aid they've given been worth the sons they've taken from you and sent off to die?"

They had gone another twenty steps or so before the maitrakh answered. "Our sons have gone," she said softly. "But with their service they have bought us life. You came in a flying craft, Lady Vader. You saw what was done to our land."

"Yes," Leia said with a shiver. "It-I hadn't realized how widespread the destruction had been."

"Life on Honoghr has always been a struggle," the maitraldi said. "The land has required much labor to tame. You saw on the history the times when the struggle was lost. But after the battle in the sky:"

She shuddered, a peculiar kind of shaking that seemed to move from her hips upward to her shoulders. "It was like a war between gods. We know now that it was only large flying craft high above the land. But then we knew nothing of such things. Their lightning flashed across the sky, through the night and into the next day, brightening the distant mountains with their fury. And yet, there was no thunder, as if those same gods were too angry even to shout at each other as they fought. I remember being more frightened of the silence than of any other part of it. Only once was there a distant crash like thunder. It was much later before we learned that one of our higher mountains had lost its uppermost peak. Then the lightning stopped, and we dared to hope that the gods had taken their war away from us.

"Until the ground shake came."

She paused, another shudder running through her. "The lightning had been the anger of the gods. The groundshake was their war hammer. Whole cities vanished as the ground opened up beneath them. Fire-mountains that had been long quiet sent out flame and smoke that darkened the sky over all the land. Forests and fields burned, as did cities and villages that had survived the ground shake itself. From those who had died came sickness, and still more died after them. It was as if the fury of the sky gods had come among the gods of the land, and they too were fighting among themselves.

"And then, when finally we dared to hope it was over, the strange-smelling rain began to fall."

Leia nodded, the whole sequence of events painfully clear. One of the warring ships had crashed, setting off massive earthquakes and releasing toxic chemicals which had been carried by wind and rain to every part of the planet. There were any number of such chemicals in use aboard a modern warship, but it was only the older ships that carried anything as virulent as this chemical must have been.

Older ships : which had been virtually all the Rebel Alliance had had to fight with in the beginning.

A fresh surge of guilt twisted like a blade in her stomach. We did this, she thought miserably. Our ship. Our fault. "Was it the rain that killed the plants?"

"The Empire's people had a name for what was in the rain," the maitrakh said. "I do not know what it was."

"They came soon after the disaster, then. The Lord Vader and the others."

"Yes." The maitrakh waved her hands to encompass the area around them. "We had gathered together here, all who were left alive and could make the journey. This place had always been a truce ground between clans. We had come here to try to find a way for survival. It was here that the Lord Vader found us."

They walked in silence for another minute. "Some believed then that he was a god," the maitrakh said. "All feared him and the mighty silver flying craft that had bwught him and his attendants from the sky. But even amid the fear there was anger at what the gods had done to us, and nearly two tens of warriors chose to attack."

"And were duly slaughtered," Leia said grimly. The thought of effectively unarmed primitives taking on Imperial troops made her wince.

"They were not slaughtered," the maitrakh retorted, and there was no mistaking the pride in her voice. "Only three of the two tens died in the battle. In turn, they killed many of the Lord Vader's attendants, despite their lightning-weapons and rock-garments. It was only when the Lord Vader himself intervened that the warriors were defeated. But instead of destroying us, as some of the attendants counseled, he instead offered us peace. Peace, and the blessing and aid of the Emperor."

Leia nodded, one more piece of the puzzle falling into place. She had wondered why the Emperor would have bothered with what to him would have been nothing more than a tiny group of primitive nonhumans. But primitive nonhumans with that kind of natural fighting skill were something else entirely. "What sort of aid did he bring?"

"All that we needed," the maitrakh said. "Food and medicine and tools came at once. Later, when the strange rain began to kill our crops, he sent the metal droids to begin cleaning the poison from our land."

Leia winced, freshly aware of her twins' vulnerability. But the analysis kit had found no trace of anything toxic in the air as they approached the village, and Chewbacca and Khabarakh had done similar tests on the soil. Whatever it was that had been in the rain, the decon droids had done a good job of getting rid of it. "And still nothing will grow outside the cleaned land?"

"Only the kholm-grass," the maitrakh said. "It is a poor plant, of no use as food. But it alone can grow now, and even it no longer smells as it once did."

Which explained the uniform brown color that she and Chewbaca had seen from space. Somehow, that particular plant had adapted to the toxic soil. "Did any of the animals survive?" she asked.

"Some did. Those who could eat the kholm-grass, and those which in turn ate them. But they are few."

The maitrakh lifted her head, as if looking in her mind's eye toward the distant hills. "This place was never rich with life, Lady Vader. Perhaps that was why the clans had chosen it as a truce ground. But even in so desolate a place' there were still animals and plants without count. They are gone now."

She straightened up, visibly putting the memory behind her. "The Lord Vader helped us in other ways, as well. He sent attendants to teach our sons and daughters the ways and customs of the Empire. He issued new orders to allow all clans to share the Clean Land, though for all clans to live beside one another this way had never happened since the beginning." She gestured around her. "And he sent mighty flying craft into the desolation, to find and bring to us our clan dukhas."

She turned her dark eyes to gaze at Leia. "We have an honorable peace, Lady Vader. Whatever the cost, we pay it gladly."

Across the room, the children had apparently finished their lesson and were getting to their feet. One of them spoke to Threepio, making a sort of truncated version of their facedown bow. The droid replied, and the whole group turned and headed for the door, where two adults awaited them. "Break time?" Leia asked.

"The clan lessons are over for today," the maitrakh said. "The children must now begin their share of the work of the village. Later, in the evening, they will have the lessons which will equip them to someday serve the Empire."

Leia shook her head. "It's not right," she told the maitrakh as the children filed out of the dukha. "No people should have to sell their children in return for life."

The maitraich gave a long hiss. "It is the debt we owe," she said. "How else shall we pay it?"

Leia squeezed her thumb and forefinger together. How else, indeed? Clearly, the Empire was quite happy with the bargain it had made; and having seen the Noghri commandos in action, she could well understand its satisfaction. They wouldn't be interested in letting the Noghri buy out of their debt in any other way. And if the Noghri themselves considered their service to be a debt of honor to their saviors:"I don't know," she had to concede.

A movement to the side caught her attention: Khabarakh, still sitting on the floor across the room, had fallen over onto his side, with Chewbacca's hand engulfing his wrist. It looked like fighting, except that Chewbacca's sense didn't indicate anger. "What are they doing over there?" she asked.

"Your Wookiee has asked my thirdson to instruct him in our fighting methods," the maitrakh answered, pride again touching her voice. "Wookiees have great strength, but no knowledge of the subtlety of combat."

It was probably not an assessment the Wookiees themselves would have agreed with. But Leia had to admit that Chewbacca, at least, had always seemed to rely mainly on brute force and bowcaster accuracy. "I'm surprised he was willing to have Khabarakh teach him," she said. "He's never really trusted him."

"Perhaps it is that same distrust that whets his interest," the maitrakh said dryly.

Leia had to smile. "Perhaps."

For a minute they watched in silence as Khabarakh showed Chewbacca two more wrist and arm locks. They seemed to be variants of techniques Leia had learned in her youth on Alderaan, and she shivered once at the thought of those moves with Wookee muscle behind them. "You understand the cycle of our life now, Lady Vader," the maitrakh said quietly. "You must realize that we still hang by spider silk. Even now we do not have enough clean land to grow sufficient food. We must continue to buy from the Empire."

"Payment for which requires that much more service from your sons." Leia nodded, grimacing. Permanent debt-the oldest form of covert slavery in the galaxy.

"It also encourages the sending away of our sons," the maitrakh added bitterly. "Even if the Empire allowed it, we could not now bring all our sons home. We would not have food for them."

Leia nodded again. It was as neat and tidy a box as she'd ever seen anyone trapped in. She should have expected no less from Vader and the Emperor. "You'll never be entirely out of their debt," she told the maitrakh bluntly. "You know that, don't you? As long as you re useful to them, the Grand Admiral will make sure of that."

"Yes," the maitrakh said softly. "It has taken a long time, but I now believe that. If all Noghri believed so, changes could perhaps be made."

"But the rest of the Noghri still believe the Empire is their friend?"

"Not all believe so. But enough." She stopped and gestured upward. "Do you see the starlight, Lady Vader?"

Leia looked up at the concave dish that hung four meters off the ground at the intersection of the wall support chains. About a meter and a half across, it was composed of some kind of black or blackened metal and perforated with hundreds of tiny pinholes. With the light from the inside rim of the dish winking through like stars, the whole effect was remarkably like a stylized version of the night sky. "I see it."

"The Noghri have always loved the stars," the maitrakh said, her voice distant and reflective. "Once, long ago, we worshiped them. Even after we knew what they were they remained our friends. There were many among us who would have gladly gone with the Lord Vader, even without our debt, for the joy of traveling among them."

"I understand," Leia murmured. "Many in the galaxy feel the same way. It's the common birthright of us all."

"A birthright which we have now lost."

"Not lost," Leia said, dropping her gaze from the star dish.

"Only misplaced." She looked over at Khabarakh and Chewbacca. "Perhaps if I talked to all the Noghri leaders at once."

"What would you say to them?" the maitrakh countered.

Leia bit at her lip. What would she say? That the Empire was using them? But the Noghri perceived it as a debt of honor. That the Empire was pacing the cleanup job so as to keep them on the edge of self-sufficiency without ever reaching it? But at the rate the decontamination was going she would be hard-pressed to prove any such lagging, even to herself. That she and the New Republic could give the Noghri back their birthright? But why should they believe her?

"As you see, Lady Vader," the maitraldi said into the silence. "Perhaps matters will someday change. But until then, your presence here is a danger to us as much as to you. I will honor the pledge of protection made by my thirdson, and not reveal your presence to our lord the Grand Admiral. But you must leave."

Leia took a deep breath. "Yes," she said, the word hurting her throat. She'd had such hopes for her diplomatic and Jedi skills here. Hopes that those skills, plus the accident of her lineage, would enable her to sweep the Noghri out from under the Empire's fist and bring them over to the New Republic.

And now the contest was over, almost before it had even begun. What in space was I thinking about when I came here? she wondered bleakly. "I will leave," she said aloud, "because I don't wish to bring trouble to you or your family. But the day will come, maitrakh, when your people will see for themselves what the Empire is doing to them. When that happens, remember that I'll always be ready to assist you."

The maitrakh bowed low. "Perhaps that day will come soon, Lady Vader. I await it, as do others."

Leia nodded, forcing a smile. Over before it had begun : "Then we must make arrangements to-"

She broke off as, across the room, the double doors flew open and one of the child door wardens stumbled inside. "Maitrakh!" he, all but squealed. "Mira'kh soar khee brach'inani vher ahk!"

Khabarakh was on his feet in an instant; out of the corner of her eye, Leia saw Threepio stiffen. "What is it?" she demanded.

"It is the flying craft of our lord the Grand Admiral" the maitrakh said, her face and voice suddenly very tired and very alien.

"And it is coming here."

Chapter 13

For a single heartbeat Leia stared at the maitrakh, her muscles frozen with shock, her mind skidding against the idea as if walking on ice. No-it couldn't be. It couldn't. The Grand Admiral had been here just last night-surely he wouldn't be coming back again. Not so soon.

And then, in the distance, she heard the faint sound of approaching repulsorlifts, and the paralysis vanished. "We've got to get out of here," she said. "Chewie-?"

"There is no time," Khabarakh called, sprinting to them with Chewbacca right on his heels. "The shuttle must already be in sight beneath the clouds."

Leia looked quickly around the room, silently cursing her moment of indecision. No windows; no other doors; no cover except the small booth that faced the wall genealogy chart from across the dukha.

No way out.

"Are you certain he's coming here?" Leia asked Khabarakh, realizing as she spoke that the question was a waste of breath. "Here to the dukha, I mean?"

"Where else would he come?" Khabarakh countered darkly, his eyes on the maitrakh. "Perhaps he was not fooled, as we thought."

Leia looked around the dukha again. If the shuttle landed by the double doors, there would be a few seconds before the Imperials entered when the rear of the building would be out of their view. If she used those seconds to cut them an escape hole with her lightsaber:

Chewbacca's growled suggestion echoed her own train of thought. "Yes, but cutting a hole isn't the problem," she pointed out. "It's how to seal it up afterward."

The Wookiee growled again, jabbing a massive hand toward the booth. "Well, it'll hide the hole from the inside, anyway, Leia agreed doubtfully. "I suppose that's better than nothing." She looked at the maitrakh, suddenly aware that slicing away part of their ancient clan dukha might well qualify as sacrilege. "Maitrakh-"

"If it must be done, then be it so," the Noghri cut her off harshly. She was still in shock her self but even as Leia watched she visibly drew herself together again. "You must not be found here."

Leia bit at the inside of her lip. She'd seen that same expression several times on Khabarakh's face during the trip from Endor. It was a look she'd come to interpret as regret for his decision to bring her to his home. "We'll be as neat as possible," she assured the maitrakh, pulling her lightsaber from her bolt. "And as soon as the Grand Admiral is gone, Khabarakh can get his ship back and take us away-"

She broke off as Chewbacca snarled for silence. Faintly, in the distance, they could hear the sound of the approaching shuttle; and then, suddenly, another all-too familiar whine shot past the dukha.

"Scimitar assault bombers," Leia breathed, hearing in the whine the crumbling of her impromptu plan. With Imperial bombers flying cover overhead, it would be impossible for them to sneak out of the dukha without being spotted.

Which left them only one option. "We'll have to hide in the booth," she told Chewbacca, doing a quick estimation of its size as she hurried toward it. If the slanting roof that sloped upward from the front edge back to the dukha wall wasn't just for show, there should be barely enough room for both her and Chewbacca inside-

"Will you want me in there as well, Your Highness?"

Leia skidded to a halt, spinning around in shock and chagrin. Threepio-she'd forgotten all about him.

"There will not be room enough," the maitraich hissed. "Your presence here has betrayed us, Lady Vader-"

"Quiet!" Leia snapped, throwing another desperate look around the dukha. But there was still no other place to hide.

Unless:

She looked at the star dish hanging over the middle of the room. "We'll have to put him up there," she told Chewbacca, pointing to it. "Do you think you can-?"

There was no need to finish the question. Chewbacca had already grabbed Threepio and was heading at top speed toward the nearest of the tree-trunk pillars, throwing the frantically protesting droid over his shoulder as he ran. The Wookiee leaped upward at the pillar from two meters out, his hidden climbing claws anchoring him solidly to the wood. Three quick pulls got him to the top of the wall; and, with the half hysterical droid balanced precariously, he began to race hand over hand along the chain. "Quiet, Threepio," Leia called to him from the booth door, giving the interior a quick look. The ceiling did indeed follow the slanting roof, giving the back of the booth considerably more height than the front, and there was a low bench like seat across the back wall. A tight fit, but they should make it. "Better yet, shut down-they may have sensors going," she added.

Though if they did, the whole game was over already. Listening to the approaching whine of repulsorlifts, she could only hope that after the negative sensor scan from the previous night, they wouldn't bother doing another one.

Chewbaca had reached the center now. Pulling himself partway up on the chain with one hand, he unceremoniously dumped Threepio into the star dish. The droid gave one last screech of protest, a screech that broke off halfway through as the Wookiee reached into the dish and shut him off. Dropping back to the floor with a thud, he hit the ground running as the repulsorlifts outside went silent.

"Hurry!" Leia hissed, holding the door open for him. Chewbacca made it across the dukha and dived through the narrow opening, jumping up on the bench and turning around to face forward, his head jammed up against the sloping ceiling and his legs spread to both sides of the bench. Leia slid in behind him, sitting down in the narrow gap between the Wookiee's legs.

There was just enough time to ease the door closed before the double doors a quarter of the way around the dukha slammed open.

Leia pressed against the back wall of the booth and Chewbacca's legs, forcing herself to breathe slowly and quietly and running through the Jedi sensory enhancement techniques Luke had taught her. From above her Chewbacca's breathing rasped in her ears, the heat from his body flowing like an invisible waterfall onto her head and shoulders. She was suddenly and acutely aware of the weight and bulge of her belly and of the small movements of the twins within it; of the hardness of the bench she was sitting on; of the intermingling smells of Wookiee hair, the alien wood around her, and her own sweat. Behind her, through the wall of the dukha, she could hear the sound of purposeful footsteps and the occasional clink of laser rifles against stormtrooper armor, and said silent thanks that they'd scrubbed her earlier plan of trying to escape that way.

And from the inside of the dukha, she could hear voices.

"Good morning, maitrakh," a calm, coolly modulated voice said. "I see that your thirdson, Khabarakh, is here with you. How very convenient."

Leia shivered, the rough rubbing of her tunic against her skin horribly loud in her ears. That voice had the unmistakable tone of an Imperial commander, but with a calmness and sheer weight of authority behind it. An authority that surpassed even the smug condescension she'd faced from Governor Tarkin aboard the Death Star.

It could only be the Grand Admiral.

"I greet you, my lord," the maitrakh's voice mewed, her own tone rigidly controlled. "We are honored by your visit."

"Thank you," the Grand Admiral said, his tone still polite but with a new edge of steel beneath it. "And you, Khabarakh clan Kihm'bar. Are you also pleased at my presence here?"

Slowly, carefully, Leia eased her head to the right, hoping to get a look at the newcomer through the dark mesh of the booth window. No good; they were all still over by the double doors, and she didn't dare get her face too close to the mesh. But even as she eased back to her previous position there was the sound of measured footsteps:and a moment later, in the center of the dukha, the Grand Admiral came into view.

Leia stared at him through the mesh, an icy chill running straight through her. She'd heard Han's description of the man he'd seen on Myrkr-the pale blue skin, the glowing red eyes, the white Imperial uniform. She'd heard, too, Fey'lya's casual dismissal of the man as an impostor, or at best a self-promoted Moff. And she'd wondered privately if Han might indeed have been mistaken.

She knew now that he hadn't been.

"Of course, my lord," Khabarakh answered the Grand Admiral's question. "Why should I not be?"

"Do you speak to your lord the Grand Admiral in such a tone?" an unfamiliar Noghri voice demanded.

"I apologize," Khabarakh said. "I did not mean disrespect."

Leia winced. Undoubtedly not; but the damage was already done. Even with her relative inexperience of the subtleties of Noghri speech, the words had sounded too quick and too defensive. To the Grand Admiral, who knew this race far better than she did:

"What then did you mean?" the Grand Admiral asked, turning around to face Khabarakh and the maitrakh.

"I-" Khabarakh floundered. The Grand Admiral stood silently, waiting. "I am sorry, my lord," Khabarakh finally got out. "I was overawed by your visit to our simple village."

"An obvious excuse," the Grand Admiral said. "Possibly even a believable one:except that you weren't overawed by my visit last night." He cocked an eyebrow. "Or is it that you didn't expect to face me again so soon?"

"My lord-"

"What is the Noghri penalty for lying to the lord of your overclan?" the Grand Admiral interrupted, his cool voice suddenly harsh. "Is it death, as it was in the old days? Or do the Noghri no longer prize such outdated concepts as honor?"

"My lord has no right to bring such accusations against a son of the clan Kihm'bar," the maitrakh spoke up stiffly.

The Grand Admiral shifted his gaze slightly. "You would be well advised to keep your counsel to yourself, maitrakh. This particular son of the clan Kihm'bar has lied to me, and I do not take such matters lightly." The glowing gaze shifted back. "Tell me, Khabarakh clan Kihm'bar, about your imprisonment on Kashyyyk."

Leia squeezed her lightsaber hard, the cool metal ridges of the grip biting into the palm of her hand. It had been during Khabarakh's brief imprisonment on Kashyyyk that he'd been persuaded to bring her here to Honoghr. If Khabarakh blurted out the whole story-

"I do not understand," Khabarakh said.

"Really?" the Grand Admiral countered. "Then allow me to refresh your memory. You didn't escape from Kashyyyk as you stated in your report and repeated last night in my presence and in the presence of your family and your clan dynast. You were, in fact, captured by the Wookiees after the failure of your mission. And you spent that missing month not meditating, but undergoing interrogation in a Wookiee prison. Does that help your memory any?"

Leia took a careful breath, not daring to believe what she was hearing. However it was the Grand Admiral had learned about Khabarakh's capture, he'd taken that fact and run in exactly the wrong direction with it. They'd been given a second chance : if Khabarakh could, hold on to his wits and poise a little longer.

Perhaps the maitrakh didn't trust his stamina, either. "My thirdson would not lie about such matters, my lord," she said before Khabarakh could reply. "He has always understood the duties and requirements of honor."

"Has he, now," the Grand Admiral shot back. "A Noghri commando, captured by the enemy for interrogation-and still alive? Is this the duty and requirement of honor?"

"I was not captured, my lord," Khabarakh said stiffly. "My escape from Kashyyyk was as I said it."

For a half dozen heartbeats the Grand Admiral gazed in his direction in silence. "And I say that you lie, Khabarakh clan Kihm'bar," he said softly. "But no matter. With or without your cooperation I will have the truth about your missing month : and whatever the price was you paid for your freedom. Rukh?"

"My lord," the third Noghri voice said.

"Khabarakh clan Kihm'bar is hereby placed under Imperial arrest. You and Squad Two will escort him aboard the troop shuttle and take him back to the Chimaera for interrogation."

There was a sharp hiss. "My lord, this is a violation-"

"You will be silent, maitrakh," the Grand Admiral cut her off. "Or you will share in his imprisonment."

"I will not be silent," the maitrakh snarled. "A Noghri accused of treason to the overclan must be given over to the clan dynasts for the ancient rules of discovery and judgment. It is the law."

"I am not bound by Noghri law," the Grand Admiral said coldly. "Khabarakh has been a traitor to the Empire. By Imperial rules will he be judged and condemned."

"The clan dynasts will demand-"

"The clan dynasts are in no position to demand anything," the Grand Admiral barked, touching the comlink cylinder pocketed beside his tunic insignia. "Do you require a reminder of what it means to defy the Empire?"

Leia heard the faint sound of the maitrakh's sigh. "No, my lord," she said, her voice conceding defeat.

The Grand Admiral studied her. "You shall have one anyway.

He touched his comlink again-

And abruptly the interior of the dukha flashed with a blinding burst of green light.

Leia jerked her head back into Chewbacca's legs, squeezing her eyelids shut against the sudden searing pain ripping through her eyes and face. For a single, horrifying second she thought that the dukha had taken a direct hit, a turbolaser blast powerful enough to bring the whole structure down in flaming ruin around them. But the afterimage burned into her retina showed the Grand Admiral still standing proud and unmoved; and belatedly she understood.

She was trying desperately to reverse her sensory enhancement when the thunderclap slammed like the slap of an angry Wookiee into the side of her head.

She would later have a vague recollection of several more turbolaser blasts, seen and heard only dimly through the thick gray haze that clouded over her mind, as the orbiting Star Destroyer fired again and again into the hills surrounding the village. By the time her throbbing head finally dragged her back to full consciousness the Grand Admiral's reminder was over, the final thunderclap roiling away into the distance.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes, squinting a little against the pain. The Grand Admiral was still standing where he'd been, in the center of the dukha:and as the last thunderclap faded into silence he spoke. "I am the law on Honoghr now, maitrakh," he said, his voice quiet and deadly. "If I choose to follow the ancient laws, I will follow them. If I choose to ignore them, they will be ignored. Is that clear?"

The voice, when it came, was almost too alien to recognize. If the purpose of the Grand Admiral's demonstration had been to frighten the maitrakh half out of her mind, it had clearly succeeded. "Yes, my lord."

"Good." The Grand Admiral let the brittle silence hang in the air for another moment. "For loyal servants of the Empire, however, I am prepared to make compromises. Khabarakh will be interrogated aboard the Chimaera; but before that, I will allow the first stage of the ancient laws of discovery." His head turned slightly. "Rukh, you will remove Khabarath clan Kihm'bar to the center of Nystao and present him to the clan dynasts. Perhaps three days of public shaming will serve to remind the Noghri people that we are still at war."

"Yes, my lord."

There was the sound of footsteps, and the opening and closing of the double doors. Hunched against the ceiling above her, his sense in unreadable turmoil, Chewbacca rumbled softly to himself. Leia clenched her teeth, hard enough to send flashes of pain through her still throbbing head. Public shaming : and something called the laws of discovery.

The Rebel Alliance had unwittingly destroyed Honoghr. Now, it seemed, she was going to do the same to Khabarakh.

The Grand Admiral was still standing in the middle of the dukha. "You are very quiet, maitrakh," he said.

"My lord ordered me to be silent," she countered.

"Of course." He studied her. "Loyalty to one's clan and family is all well and good, maitrakh. But to extend that loyalty to a traitor would he foolish. As well as potentially disastrous to your family and clan."

"I have not heard evidence that my thirdson is a traitor."

The Grand Admiral's lip twitched. "You will," he promised softly.

He walked toward the double doors, passing out of Leia's sight, and there was the sound of the doors opening. The footsteps paused, clearly waiting; and a moment later the quieter paces of the maitrakh joined him. Both left, the doors dosed again, and Leia and Chewbacca were alone.

Alone. In enemy territory. Without a ship. And with their only ally about to undergo an Imperial interrogation. "I think, Chewie," she said softly, "we're in trouble."

Chapter 14

One of the first minor truths about interstellar flight that any observant traveler learned was that a planet seen from space almost never looked anything at all like the official maps of it. Scatterings of cloud cover, shadows from mountain ranges, contour-altering effects of large vegetation tracts, and lighting tricks in general, all combined to disguise and distort the nice clean computer-scrubbed lines drawn by the cartographers. It was an effect that had probably caused a lot of bad moments for neophyte navigators, as well as supplying the ammunition for innumerable practical jokes played on those same neophytes by their more experienced shipmates.

It was therefore something of a surprise to find that, on this particular day and coming in from this particular angle, the major continent of the planet Jomark did indeed look almost exactly like a precisely detailed map. Of course, in all fairness, it was a pretty small continent to begin with.

Somewhere on that picture-perfect continent was a Jedi Master.

Luke tapped his fingers gently on the edge of his control board, gazing out at the greenish-brown chunk of in is X-wing's canopy. He could sense Jedi's presence-had been able to sense it, in fact, since first dropping out of hyperspace-but so far he'd been unable to make a more direct contact. Master C'baoth? he called silently, trying one more time. This is Luke Skywalker. Can you hear me?

There was no response. Either Luke wasn't doing it right, or C'baoth was unable to reply : or else this was a deliberate test of Luke's abilities.

Well, he was game. "Let's do a sensor focus on the main continent, Artoo," he called, looking over his displays and trying to put himself into the frame of mind of a Jedi Master who'd been out of circulation for a while. The bulk of Jomark's land area was in that one small continent-not much more than an oversized island, really-but there were also thousands of much smaller islands scattered in clusters around the vast ocean. Taken all together, there were probably close to three hundred thousand square kilometers of dry land, which made for an awful lot of places to guess wrong. "Scan for technology, and see if you can pick out the main population centers."

Artoo whistled softly to himself as he ran the X-wing's sensor readings through his programmed life-form algorithms. He gave a series of beeps, and a pattern of dots appeared superimposed on the scope image. "Thanks," Luke said, studying it. Not surprisingly, most of the population seemed to be living along the coast. But there were a handful of other, smaller centers in the interior, as well. Including what seemed to be a cluster of villages near the southern shore of an almost perfectly ring-shaped lake.

He frowned at the image, keyed for a contour overlay. It wasn't just an ordinary lake, he saw now, but one that had formed inside what was left of a cone-shaped mountain, with a smaller cone making a large island in the center. Probably volcanic in origin, given the mountainous terrain around it.

A wilderness region thick with mountains, where a Jedi Master could have lived in privacy for a long time. And a cluster of villages nearby where he could have emerged from his isolation when he was finally ready to do so.

It was as good a place to start as any. "Okay, Artoo, here's the landing target," he told the droid, marking it on his scope. "I'll take us down; you watch the sensors and let me know if you spot anything interesting."

Artoo beeped a somewhat nervous question. "Yes, or anything suspicious," Luke agreed. Artoo had never fully believed that the Imperial attack on them the last time they'd tried to come here had been purely coincidence.

They dropped in through the atmosphere, switching to repulsorlifts about halfway down and leveling off just below the tops of the highest mountains. Seen up close, the territory was rugged enough but not nearly as desolate as Luke had first thought. Vegetation was rich down in the valley areas between mountains, though it was sparse on the rocky sides of the mountains themselves. Most of the gaps they flew over seemed to have at least a couple of houses nestled into them, and occasionally even a village that had been too small for the X-wing's limited sensors to notice.

They were coming up on the lake from the southwest when Artoo spotted the mansion perched up on the rim.

"Never seen a design like that before," Luke commented. "You getting any life readings from it?"

Artoo warbled a moment: inconclusive. "Well, let's give it a try," Luke decided, keying in the landing cycle. "If we're wrong, at least it'll be a downhill walk to everywhere else."

The mansion was set into a small courtyard bordered by a fence that appeared more suited for decoration than defense. Killing the X-wing's forward velocity, he swung the ship parallel to the fence and set it down a few meters outside its single gate. He was in the process of shutting down the systems when Artoo's trilled warning made him look up again.

Standing just outside the gate, watching them, was the figure of a man.

Luke gazed at him, heart starting to beat a little harder. The man was old, obviously-the gray-white hair and long beard that the mountain winds were blowing half across his lined face were evidence enough of that. But his eyes were keenly alert, his posture straight and proud and unaffected by even the harder gusts of wind, and the halfopen brown robe revealed a chest that was strongly muscled.

"Finish shutting down, Artoo," Luke said, hearing the slight quaver in his voice as he slipped off his helmet and popped the X-wing's canopy. Standing up, he vaulted lightly over the cockpit side to the ground.

The old man hadn't moved. Taking a deep breath, Luke walked over to him. "Master C'baoth," he said, bowing his head slightly. "I'm Luke Skywalker."

The other smiled faintly. "Yes," he said. "I know. Welcome to Jomark."

"Thank you," Luke said, letting his breath out in a quiet sigh. At last. It had been a long and circuitous journey, what with the unscheduled stopovers at Myrkr and Sluis Van. But at last he'd made it.

C'baoth might have been reading his mind. Perhaps he was. "I expected you long before now," he said reproachfully.

"Yes, sir," Luke said. "I'm sorry. Circumstances lately have been rather out of my control."

"Why?" C'baoth countered.

The question took Luke by surprise. "I don't understand."

The other's eyes narrowed slightly. "What do you mean, you don't understand?" he demanded. "Are you or are you not a Jedi?"

"Well, yes-"

"Then you should be in control," C'baoth said firmly. "In control of yourselt, in control of the people and events around you. Always."

"Yes, Master," Luke said cautiously, trying to hide his confusion. The only other Jedi Master he'd ever known had been Yoda : but Yoda had never talked like this.

For another moment C'baoth seemed to study him. Then, abruptly, the hardness in his face vanished. "But you've come," he said, the lines in his face shifting as he smiled. "That's the important thing. They weren't able to stop you."

"No," Luke said. "They tried, though. I must have gone through four Imperial attacks since I first started out this way."

C'baoth looked at him sharply. "Did you, now. Were they directed specifically at you?"

"One of them was," Luke said. "For the others I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe the right place at the right time," he corrected.

The sharp look faded from C'baoth's face, replaced by something distant. "Yes," he murmured, gazing into the distance toward the edge of the cliff and the ring-shaped lake far below. "The wrong place at the wrong time. The epitaph of so many Jedi." He looked back at Luke. "The Empire destroyed them, you know."

"Yes, I know," Luke said. "They were hunted down by the Emperor and Darth Vader.

"And one or two other Dark Jedi with them," C'baoth said grimly, his gaze turned inward. "Dark Jedi like Vader. I fought the last of them on-" He broke off, shaking his head slowly. "So long ago."

Luke nodded uncomfortably, feeling as if he was standing in loose sand. All these strange topic and mood shifts were hard to follow. A result of C'baoth's isolation? Or was this another test, this time of Luke's patience? "A long time ago," he agreed. "But the Jedi can live again. We have a chance to rebuild."

C'baoth's attention returned to him. "Your sister," he said. "Yes. She'll be giving birth to Jedi twins soon."

"Potential Jedi, anyway," Luke said, a little surprised that C'baoth had heard about Leia's pregnancy. The New Republic's publicists had given the news wide dissemination, but he'd have thought Jomark too far out of the mainstream to have picked up on it. "The twins are the reason I came here, in fact."

"No," C'baoth said. "The reason you came here was because I called you."

"Well:yes. But-"

"There are no buts, Jedi Skywalker," C'baoth cut him off sharply. "To be a Jedi is to be a servant of the Force. I called you through the Force; and when the Force calls, you must obey."

"I understand," Luke nodded again, wishing that he really did. Was C'baoth just being figurative? Or was this yet another topic his training had skipped over? He was familiar enough with the general controlling aspects of the Force; they were what kept him alive every time he matched his lightsaber against blaster fire. But a literal "call" was something else entirely. "When you say the Force calls you, Master C'baoth, do you mean-?"

"There are two reasons why I called you," C'baoth interrupted him again. "First, to complete your training. And second : because I need your help."

Luke blinked. "My help?"

C'baoth smiled wanly, his eyes suddenly very tired. "I am nearing the end of my life, Jedi Skywalker. Soon now I will be making that long journey from this life to what lies beyond."

A lump caught in Luke's throat. "I'm sorry," was all he could think of to say.

"It's the way of all life," C'baoth shrugged. "For Jedi as well as for lesser beings."

Luke's memory flicked back to Yoda, lying on his deathbed in his Dagobah home:and his own feeling of helplessness that he could do nothing but watch. It was not an experience he really wanted to go through again. "How can I help?" he asked quietly.

"By learning from me," C'baoth said. "Open yourself to me; absorb from me my wisdom and experience and power. In this way will you carry on my life and work."

"I see," Luke nodded, wondering exactly what work the other was referring to. "You understand, though, that I have work of my own to do-"

"And are you prepared to do it?" C'baoth said, arching his eyebrows. "Fully prepared? Or did you come here with nothing to ask of me?"

"Well, actually, yes," Luke had to admit. "I came on behalf of the New Republic, to ask your assistance in the fight against the Empire."

"To what end?"

Luke frowned. He'd have thought the reasons self evident. "The elimination of the Empire's tyranny. The establishment of freedom and justice for all the beings of the galaxy."

"Justice." C'baoth's lip twisted. "Do not look to lesser beings for justice, Jedi Skywalker." He slapped himself twice on the chest, two quick movements of his fingertips. "We are the true justice of this galaxy. We two, and the new legacy of Jedi that we will forge to follow us. Leave the petty battles to others, and prepare yourself for that future."

"I :" Luke floundered, searching for a response to that.

"What is it your sister's unborn twins need?" C'baoth demanded.

"They need-well, they're someday going to need a teacher," Luke told him, the words coming out with a strange reluctance. First impressions were always dicey, he knew; but right now he wasn't at all sure that this was the sort of man he wanted to be teaching his niece and nephew. C'baoth seemed to be too mercurial, almost on the edge of instability. "It's sort of been assumed that I'd be teaching them when they're old enough, like I'm teaching Leia. The problem is that just being a Jedi doesn't necessarily mean you can be a good teacher." He hesitated. "Obi-wan Kenobi blamed himself for Vader's turn to the dark side. I don't want that to happen to Leia's children. I thought maybe you could teach me the proper methods of Jedi instruction-"

"A waste of time," C'baoth said with an off handed shrug. "Bring them here. I'll teach them myself."

"Yes, Master," Luke said, picking his words carefully. "I appreciate the offer. But as you said, you have your own work to do. All I really need are some pointers-"

"And what of you, Jedi Skywalker?" C'baoth interrupted him again. "Have you yourself no need of further instruction? In matters of judgment, perhaps?"

Luke gritted his teeth. This whole conversation was leaving him feeling a lot more transparent than he really liked. "Yes, I could use some more instruction in that area," he conceded. "I think sometimes that the Jedi Master who taught me expected me to pick that up on my own.

"It's merely a matter of listening to the Force," C'baoth said briskly. For a moment his eyes seemed to unfocus; then they came back again. "But come. We will go down to the villages and I will show you."

Luke felt his eyebrows go up. "Right now?"

"Why not?" C'baoth shrugged. "I have summoned a driver; he will meet us on the road." His gaze shifted to something over Luke's shoulder. "No-stay there," he snapped.

Luke turned. Artoo had raised himself out of the X-wing's droid socket and was easing his way along the upper hull. "That's just my droid," he told C'baoth.

"He will stay where he is," C'baoth bit out. "Droids are an abomination-creations that reason, but yet are not genuinely part of the Force."

Luke frowned. Droids were indeed unique in that way, but that was hardly a reason to label them as abominations. But this wasn't the time or the place to argue the point. "I'll go help him back into his socket," he soothed C'baoth, hurrying back to the ship. Drawing on the Force, he leaped up to the hull beside Artoo. "Sorry, Artoo, but you're going to have to stay here," he told the droid. "Come on-let's get you back in."

Artoo beeped indignantly. "I know, and I'm sorry," Luke said, herding the squat metal cylinder back to its socket. "But Master C'baoth doesn't want you coming along. You might as well wait here as on the ground-at least this way you'll have the X-wing's computer to talk to."

The droid warbled again, a plaintive and slightly nervous sound this time. "No, I don't think there's any danger," Luke assured him. "If you're worried, you can keep an eye on me through the X-wing's sensors." He lowered his voice to a murmur. "And while you're at it, I want you to start doing a complete sensor scan of the area. See if you can find any vegetation that seems to be distorted, like that twisted tree growing over the dark side cave on Dagobah. Okay?"

Artoo gave a somewhat bemused acknowledging beep. "Good. See you later," Luke said and dropped back to the ground. "I'm ready," he told C'baoth.

The other nodded. "This way," he said, and strode off along a path leading downward.

Luke hurried to catch up. It was, he knew, something of a long shot: even if the spot he was looking for was within Artoo's sensor range, there was no guarantee that the droid would be able to distinguish healthy alien plants from unhealthy ones. But it was worth a try. Yoda, he had long suspected, had managed to stay hidden from the Emperor and Vader only because the dark side cave near his home had somehow shielded his own influence on the Force. For C'baoth to have remained unnoticed, it followed that Jomark must also have a similar focus of dark side power somewhere.

Unless, of course, he hadn't gone unnoticed. Perhaps the Emperor had known all about him, but had deliberately left him alone.

Which would in turn imply : what?

Luke didn't know. But it was something he had better find out.

They had walked no more than two hundred meters when the driver and vehicle C'baoth had summoned arrived: a tall, lanky man on an old SoroSuub recreational speeder bike pulling an elaborate wheeled carriage behind it. "Not much more than a converted farm cart, I'm afraid," C'baoth said as he ushered Luke into the carriage and got in beside him. Most of the vehicle seemed to be made of wood, but the seats were comfortably padded. "The people of Chynoo built it for me when I first came to them."

The driver got the vehicles turned around-no mean trick on the narrow path-and started downward. "How long were you alone before that?" Luke asked.

C'baoth shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Time was not something I was really concerned with. I lived, I thought, I meditated. That was all."

"Do you remember when it was you first came here?" Luke persisted. "After the Outbound Flight mission, I mean.

Slowly, C'baoth turned to face him, his eyes icy. "Your thoughts betray you, Jedi Skywalker," he said coldly. "You seek reassurance that I was not a servant of the Emperor."

Luke forced himself to meet that gaze. "The Master who instructed me told me that I was the last of the Jedi," he said. "He wasn't counting Vader and the Emperor in that list."

"And you fear that I'm a Dark Jedi, as they were?"

"Are you?"

C'baoth smiled; and to Luke's surprise, actually chuckled. It was a strange sound, coming out of that intense face. "Come now, Jedi Skywalker," he said. "Do you really believe that Joruus C'baoth-Joruus C'baoth- would ever turn to the dark side?"

The smile faded. "The Emperor didn't destroy me, Jedi Skywalker, for the simple reason that during most of his reign I was beyond his reach. And after I returned :"

He shook his head sharply. "There is another, you know. Another besides your sister. Not a Jedi; not yet. But I've felt the ripples in the Force. Rising, and then falling."

"Yes, I know who you're talking about," Luke said. "I've met her."

C'baoth turned to him, his eyes glistening. "You've met her?" he breathed.

"Well, I think I have," Luke amended. "I suppose it's possible there's someone else out there who-"

"What is her name?"

Luke frowned, searching C'baoth's face and trying unsuccessfully to read his sense. There was something there he didn't like at all. "She called herself Mara Jade," he said.

C'baoth leaned back into the seat cushions, eyes focused on nothing. "Mara Jade," he repeated the name softly.

"Tell me more about the Outbound Flight project," Luke said, determined not to get dragged off the topic. "You set off from Yoga Minor, remember, searching for other life outside the galaxy. What happened to the ship and the other Jedi Masters who were with you?"

C'baoth's eyes took on a faraway look. "They died, of course, he said, his voice distant. "All of them died. I alone survived to return." He looked suddenly at Luke. "It changed me, you know."

"I understand," Luke said quietly. So that was why C'baoth seemed so strange. Something had happened to him on that flight : "Tell me about it."

For a long moment C'baoth was silent. Luke waited, jostled by the bumps as the carriage wheels ran over the uneven ground. "No," C'baoth said at last, shaking his head. "Not now. Perhaps later." He nodded toward the front of the carriage. "We are here."

Luke looked. Ahead he could see half a dozen small houses, with more becoming visible as the carriage cleared the cover of the trees. Probably fifty or so all told: small, neat little cottages that seemed to combine natural building elements with selected bits of more modern technology. About twenty people could be seen moving about at various tasks; most stopped what they were doing as the speeder bike and carnage appeared. The driver pulled to roughly the center of the village and stopped in front of a thronelike chair of polished wood protected by a small, dome-roofed pavilion.

"I had it brought down from the High Castle," C'baoth explained, gesturing to the chair. "I suspect it was a symbol of authority to the beings who carved it."

"What's it used for now?" Luke asked. The elaborate throne seemed out of place, somehow, in such a casually rustic setting as this.

"It's from there that I usually give my justice to the people," C'baoth said, standing up and stepping out of the carriage. "But we will not be so formal today. Come."

The people were still standing motionless, watching them. Luke reached out with the Force as he stepped out beside C'baoth, trying to read their overall sense. It seemed expectant, perhaps a little surprised, definitely awed. There didn't seem to be any fear; but there was nothing like affection, either. "How long have you been coming here?" he asked C'baoth.

"Less than a year," C'baoth said, setting off casually down the street. "They were slow to accept my wisdom, but eventually I persuaded them to do so."

The villagers were starting to return to their tasks now, but their eyes still followed the visitors. "What do you mean, persuaded them?" Luke asked.

"I showed them that it was in their best interests to listen to me." C'baoth gestured to the cottage just ahead. "Reach out your senses, Jedi Skywalker. Tell me about that house and its inhabitants."

It was instantly apparent what C'baoth was referring to. Even without focusing his attention on the place Luke could feel the anger and hostility boiling out of it. There was a flicker of something like murderous intent- "Uh-oh," he said. "Do you think we should-?"

"Of course we should," C'baoth said. "Come." He stepped up to the cottage and pushed open the door Keeping his hand on his lightsaber, Luke followed.

There were two men standing in the room, one holding a large knife toward the other, both frozen in place as they stared at the intruders. "Put the knife down, Tarm," C'baoth said sternly. "Svan, you will likewise lay aside your weapon.

Slowly, the man with the knife laid it on the floor. The other looked at C'baoth, back at his now unarmed opponent-"I said lay it aside!" C'baoth snapped.

The man cringed back, hastily pulled a small slugthrower from his pocket and dropped it beside the knife. "Better," C'baoth said, his voice calm but with a hint of the fire still there. "Now explain yourselves."

The story came out in a rush from both men at once, a loud and confusing babble of charges and countercharges about some kind of business deal gone sour. C'baoth listened silently, apparently having no trouble following the windstorm of fact and assumption and accusation. Luke waited beside him, wondering how he was ever going to untangle the whole thing. As near as he could understand it, both men seemed to have equally valid arguments.

Finally, the men ran out of words. "Very well," C'baoth said. "The judgment of C'baoth is that Svan will pay to Tarm the full wages agreed upon." He nodded at each man in turn. "The judgment will be carried out immediately."

Luke looked at C'baoth in surprise. "That's all?" he asked.

C'baoth turned a steely gaze on him. "You have something to say?"

Luke glanced back at the two villagers, acutely aware that arguing the ruling in front of them might undermine whatever authority C'baoth had built up here. "I just thought that more of a compromise might be in order."

"There is no compromise to be made," C'baoth said firmly. "Svan is at fault, and he will pay."

"Yes, but-"

Luke caught the flicker of sense a half second before Svan dived for the slugthrower. With a single smooth motion he had his lightsaber free of his belt and ignited. But C'baoth was faster. Even as Luke's green-white blade snapped into existence, C'baoth raised his hand; and from his fingertips flashed a sizzling volley of all-too-well-remembered blue lightning bolts.

Svan took the blast full in the head and chest, snapping over backwards with a scream of agony. He slammed into the ground, screaming again as C'baoth sent a second blast at him. The slugthrower flew from his hand, its metal surrounded for an instant by a blue-white coronal discharge.

C'baoth lowered his hand, and for a long moment the only sound in the room was a soft whimpering from the man on the floor. Luke stared at him in horror, the smell of ozone wrenching at his stomach. "C'baoth-!"

"You will address me as Master," the other cut him off quietly.

Luke took a deep breath, forcing calm into his mind and voice. Closing down his lightsaber, he returned it to his belt and went over to kneel beside the groaning man. He was obviously still hurting, but aside from some angry red burns on his chest and arms, he didn't seem to be seriously hurt. Laying his hand gently on the worst of the burns, Luke reached out with the Force, doing what he could to alleviate the other's pain.

"Jedi Skywalker," C'baoth said from behind him. "He is not permanently damaged. Come away.

Luke didn't move. "He's in pain."

"That is as it should be," C'baoth said. "He required a lesson, and pain is the one teacher no one will ignore. Now come away."

For a moment Luke considered disobeying. Svan's face and sense were in agony:

"Or would you have preferred that Tarm lie dead now?" C'baoth added.

Luke looked at the slugthrower lying on the floor, then at Tarm standing stiffly with wide eyes and face the color of dirty snow. "There were other ways to stop him," Luke said, getting to his feet.

"But none that he will remember longer." C'baoth locked eyes with Luke. "Remember that, Jedi Skywalker; remember it well. For if you allow your justice to be forgotten, you will be forced to repeat the same lessons again and again."

He held Luke's gaze a pair of heartbeats longer before turning back to the door. "We're finished here. Come."

The stars were blazing overhead as Luke eased open the low gate of the High Castle and stepped out of the courtyard. Artoo had clearly noticed his approach; as he closed the gate behind him the droid turned on the X-wing's landing lights, illuminating his path. "Hi, Artoo," Luke said, walking to the short ladder and wearily pulling himself up into the cockpit. "I just came out to see how you and the ship were doing."

Artoo beeped his assurance that everything was fine. "Good," Luke said, flicking on the scopes and keying for a status check anyway. "Any luck with the sensor scan I asked for?"

The reply this time was less optimistic. "That bad, huh?" Luke nodded heavily as the translation of Artoo's answer scrolled across the X-wing's computer scope. "Well, that's what happens when you get up into mountains."

Artoo grunted, a distinctly unenthusiastic sound, then warbled a question. "I don't know," Luke told him. "A few more days at least. Maybe longer, if he needs me to stay." He sighed. "I don't know, Artoo. I mean, it's just never what I expect. I went to Dagobah expecting to find a great warrior, and I found Master Yoda. I came here expecting to find someone like Master Yoda:and instead I got Master C'baoth."

Artoo gave a slightly disparaging gurgle, and Luke had to smile at the translation. "Yes, well, don't forget that Master Yoda gave you a hard time that first evening, too," he reminded the droid, wincing a little himself at the memory. Yoda had also given Luke a hard time at that encounter. It had been a test of Luke's patience and of his treatment of strangers.

And Luke had flunked it. Rather miserably.

Artoo warbled a point of distinction. "No, you're right," Luke had to concede. "Even while he was still testing us Yoda never had the kind of hard edge that C'baoth does."

He leaned back against his headrest, staring past the open canopy at the mountaintops and the distant stars beyond them. He was weary-wearier than he'd been, probably, since the height of that last climactic battle against the Emperor. It had been all he could do to come out here to check on Artoo. "I don't know, Artoo. He hurt someone today. Hurt him a lot. And he pushed his way into an argument without being invited, and then forced an arbitrary judgment on the people involved, and-" He waved a hand helplessly. "I just can't see Ben or Master Yoda acting that way. But he's a Jedi, just like they were. So which example am I supposed to follow?"

The droid seemed to digest that. Then, almost reluctantly, he trilled again. "That's the obvious question," Luke agreed. "But why would a Dark Jedi of C'baoth's power bother playing games like this? Why not just kill me and be done with it?"

Artoo gave an electronic grunt, a list of possible reasons scrolling across the screen. A rather lengthy list-clearly, the droid had put a lot of time and thought into the question. "I appreciate your concern, Artoo," Luke soothed him. "But I really don't think he's a Dark Jedi. He's erratic and moody, but he doesn't have the same sort of evil aura about him that I could sense in Vader and the Emperor." He hesitated. This wasn't going to be easy to say. "I think it's more likely that Master C'baoth is insane."

It was possibly the first time Luke had ever seen Artoo actually startled speechless. For a minute the only sound was the whispering of the mountain winds playing through the spindly trees surrounding the High Castle. Luke stared at the stars and waited for Artoo to find his voice.

Eventually, the droid did. "No, I don't know for sure how something like that could happen," Luke admitted as the question appeared on his screen. "But I've got an idea."

He reached up to lace his fingers behind his neck, the movement easing the pressure in his chest. The dull fatigue in his mind seemed to be matched by an equally dull ache in his muscles, the kind he sometimes got if he went through an overly strenuous workout. Dimly, he wondered if there was something in the air that the X-wing's biosensors hadn't picked up on. "You never knew, but right after Ben was cut down-back on the first Death Star-I found out that I could sometimes hear his voice in the back of my mind. By the time the Alliance was driven off Hath, I could see him, too."

Artoo twittered. "Yes, that's who I sometimes talked to on Dagobah," Luke confirmed. "And then right after the Battle of Endor, I was able to see not only Ben but Yoda and my father, too. Though the other two never spoke, and I never saw them again. My guess is that there's some way for a dying Jedi to-oh, I don't know; to somehow anchor himself to another Jedi who's close by."

Artoo seemed to consider that, pointed out a possible flaw in the reasoning. "I didn't say it was the tightest theory in the galaxy," Luke growled at him, a glimmer of annoyance peeking through his fatigue. "Maybe I'm way off the mark. But if I'm not, it's possible that the five other Jedi Masters from the Outbound Flight project wound up anchored to Master C'baoth."

Artoo whistled thoughtfully. "Right," Luke agreed ruefully. "It didn't bother me any to have Ben around-in fact, I wish he had talked to me more often. But Master C'baoth was a lot more powerful than I was. Maybe it was different with him."

Artoo made a little moan, and another, rather worried suggestion appeared on the screen. "I can't just leave him, Artoo," Luke shook his head tiredly. "Not with him like this. Not when there's a chance I can help him."

He grimaced, hearing in the words a painful echo of the past. Darth Vader, too, had needed help, and Luke had similarly taken on the job of saving him from the dark side. And had nearly gotten himself killed in the process. What am I doing? he wondered silently. I'm not a healer. Why do I keep trying to be one?

Luke?

With an effort, Luke dragged his thoughts back to the present. "I've got to go," he said, levering himself out of the cockpit seat. "Master C'baoth's calling me.

He shut down the displays, but not before the translation of Artoo's worried jabbering scrolled across the computer display. "Relax, Artoo," Luke told him, leaning back over the open cockpit canopy to pat the droid reassuringly. "I'll be all right. I'm a Jedi, remember? You just keep a good eye on things out here. Okay?"

The droid trilled mournfully as Luke dropped down the ladder and onto the ground. He paused there, looking at the dark mansion, lit only by the backwash of the X-wing's landing lights. Wondering if maybe Artoo was right about them getting out of here.

Because the droid had a good point. Luke's talents didn't lean toward the healing aspects of the force-that much he was pretty sure of. Helping C'baoth was going to be a long, time consuming process, with no guarantee of success at the end of the road. With a Grand Admiral in command of the Empire, political infighting in the New Republic, and the whole galaxy hanging in the balance, was this really the most efficient use of his time?

He raised his eyes from the mansion to the dark shadows of the rim mountains surrounding the lake below. Snowcapped in places, barely visible in the faint light of Jomark's three tiny moons, they were reminiscent somehow of the Manarai Mountains south of the Imperial City on Coruscant. And with that memory came another one: Luke, standing on the Imperial Palace rooftop gazing at those other mountains, sagely explaining to Threepio that a Jedi couldn't get so caught up in galactic matters that he was no longer concerned about individual people.

The speech had sounded high and noble when he'd given it. This was his chance to prove that it hadn't been just words.

Taking a deep breath, he headed back toward the gate.

Chapter 15

"Tangrene was our real crowning achievement," Senator Bel Iblis said, draining the last of his glass and raising it high above his head. Across the expansive but largely empty headquarters lounge the bartender nodded in silent acknowledgment and busied himself with his drinks dispenser. "We'd been sniping at the Imperials for probably three years at that point," Bel Iblis continued. "Hitting small bases and military supply shipments and generally making as much trouble for them as we could. But up till Tangrene they weren't paying much attention to us."

"What happened at Tangrene?" Han asked.

"We blasted a major Ubiqtorate center into fine powder," Bel Iblis told him with obvious satisfaction. "And then waltzed out right under the collective nose of the three Star Destroyers that were supposed to be guarding the place. I think that was when they finally woke up to the fact that we were more than just a minor irritant. That we were a group to be taken seriously."

"I'll bet they did," Han agreed, shaking his head in admiration. Even getting within sight of one of Imperial Intelligence's Ubiqtorate bases was a tricky job, let alone blasting it and getting out again. "What did it cost you?"

"Amazingly enough, we got all five warships out," Bel Iblis said. "There was a fair amount of damage all around, of course, and one of them was completely out of commission for nearly seven months. But it was worth it."

"I thought you said you had six Dreadnaughts," Lando spoke up.

"We have six now," Bel Iblis nodded. "At the time we only had five."

"Ah," Lando said, and lapsed back into silence.

"So after that was when you started moving your base around?" Han asked.

Bel Iblis eyed Lando a moment longer before turning back to Han. "That was when mobility became a top priority, yes," he corrected. "Though we hadn't exactly been sitting still before that. This place is, what, our thirteenth location in seven years, Sena?"

"Fourteenth," Sena said. "That's if you count Womrik and the Mattri asteroid bases."

"Fourteen, then," Bel Iblis nodded. "You probably noticed that every building here is built of hi-state memory plastic. Makes it relatively simple to fold everything up and toss it aboard the transports." He chuckled. "Though that's ben known to backfire on us. Once on Lelmra we got hit by a violent thunderstorm, and the lightning strikes were hitting so close to us that the edge currents triggered the flip-flop on a couple of barracks buildings and a targeting center. Folded them up neat as a set of birthday presents, with nearly fifty people still inside."

"That was terrific fun," Sena put in dryly. "No one was killed, fortunately, but it took us the better part of the night to cut them all free. With the storm still blazing on around us."

"Things finally quieted down just before daylight," Bel Iblis said. "We were out of there by the next evening. Ah."

The bartender had arrived with the next round of drinks. Twistlers, Bel Iblis had called them: a blend of Corellian brandy with some unidentified but very tart fruit extract. Not the sort of drink Han would have expected to find in a military camp, but not bad either. The Senator took two of the drinks off the tray and handed them across to Han and Sena; took the other two off-

"I'm still good, thanks," Lando said before Bel Iblis could offer him one.

Han frowned across the table at his friend. Lando was sitting stiffly in his lounge chair, his face impassive, his glass still half full. His first glass, Han realized suddenly-Lando hadn't had a refill in the hour and a half since Bel Iblis had brought them here. He caught Lando's eye, raised his eyebrows fractionally. Lando looked back, his expression still stony, then dropped his gaze and took a small sip of his drink.

"It was about a month after Tangrene," Bel Iblis went on, "that we first met Borsk Fey'lya."

Han turned back to him, feeling a twitch of guilt. He'd gotten so wrapped up in Bel Iblis's storytelling that he'd completely forgotten why he and Lando had set off on this mission in the first place. Probably that was what had Lando glaring crushed ice in his direction. "Yeah-Fey'lya," he said. "What's your deal with him?"

"Considerably less of a deal than he'd like, I assure you," Bel Iblis said. "Fey'lya did us some favors during the height of the war years, and he seems to think we should be more grateful for them."

"What sort of favors?" Lando asked.

"Small ones," Bel Iblis told him. "Early on he helped us set up a supply line through New Cov, and he whistled up some Star Cruisers once when the Imperials started nosing around the system at an awkward moment. He and some of the other Bothans also shifted various funds to us, which enabled us to buy equipment sooner than we otherwise would have. That sort of thing."

"So how grateful are you?" Lando persisted.

Bel Iblis smiled slightly. "Or in other words, what exactly does Fey'lya want from me?"

Lando didn't smile back. "That'll do for starters," he agreed.

"Lando," Han said warningly.

"No, that's all right," Bel Iblis said, his own smile fading. "Before I answer, though, I'd like you to tell me a little about the New Republic hierarchy. Mon Mothma's position in the new government, Fey'lya's relationship to her-that sort of thing."

Han shrugged. "That's pretty much public record."

"That's the official version," Bel Iblis said. "I'm asking what things are really like."

Han glanced over at Lando. "I don't understand," he said.

Bel Iblis took a swallow of his Twistler. "Well, then, let me be more direct," he said, studying the liquid in his glass. "What's Mon Mothma really up to?"

Han felt a trickle of anger in his throat. "Is that what Breil'lya told you?" he demanded. "That she's up to something?"

Bel Iblis raised his eyes over the rim of his glass. "This has nothing to do with the Bothans," he said quietly. "It's about Mon Mothma. Period."

Han looked back at him, forcing down his confusion as he tried to collect his thoughts. There were things he didn't like about Mon Mothma-a lot of things, when you came right down to it. Starting with the way she kept running Leia off her feet doing diplomacy stuff instead of letting her concentrate on her Jedi training. And there were other things, too, that drove him crazy. But when you came right down to it : "As far as I know," he told Bel Iblis evenly, "the only thing she's trying to do is put together a new government."

"With herself at its head?"

"Shouldn't she be?"

A shadow of something seemed to cross Bel Iblis's face, and he dropped his eyes to his glass again. "I suppose it was inevitable," he murmured. For a moment he was silent. Then he looked up again, seeming to shake himself out of the mood. "So you'd say that you're becoming a republic in fact as well as in name?"

"I'd say that, yes," Han nodded. "What does this have to do with Fey'lya?"

Bel Iblis shrugged. "It's Fey'lya's belief that Mon Mothma wields altogether too much power," he said. "I presume you'd disagree with that assessment?"

Han hesitated. "I don't know," he conceded. "But she sure isn't running the whole show, like she did during the war.

"The war's still going on," Bel Iblis reminded him.

"Yeah. Well :"

"What does Fey'lya think ought to be done about it?" Lando spoke up.

Bel Iblis's lip twitched. "Oh, Fey'lya has some rather personal and highly unsurprising ideas about the reapportionment of power. But that's Bothans for you. Give them a sniff of the soup pot and they climb all over each other to be in charge of the ladle."

"Especially when they can claim to have been valued allies of the winning side," Lando said. "Unlike others I could mention."

Sena stirred in her seat; but before she could say anything, Bel Iblis waved a hand at her. "You're wondering why I didn't join the Alliance," he said calmly. "Why I chose instead to run my own private war against the Empire."

"That's right," Lando said, matching his tone. "I am.

Bel Iblis gave him a long, measuring look. "I could give you several reasons why I felt it was better for us to remain independent," he said at last. "Security, for one. There was a great deal of communication going on between various units of the Alliance, with a correspondingly large potential for interception of that information by the Empire. For a while it seemed like every fifth Rebel base was being lost to the Imperials through sheer sloppiness in security."

"We had some problems," Han conceded. "But they've been pretty well fixed."

"Have they?" Bel Iblis countered. "What about this information leak I understand you have right in the Imperial Palace?"

"Yeah, we know it's there," Han said, feeling strangely like a kid who's been called on the carpet for not finishing his homework. "We've got people looking into it."

"They'd better do more than just look," Bel Iblis warned. "If our analysis of Imperial communique's is correct, this leak has its own name-Delta Source-and is furthermore reporting personally to the Grand Admiral."

"Okay," Lando said. "Security. Let's hear some of the other reasons."

"Ease off, Lando," Han said, glaring across the table at his friend. "This isn't a trial, or-"

He broke off at a gesture from Bel Iblis. "Thank you, Solo, but I'm quite capable of defending my own actions," the Senator said. "And I'll be more than happy to do so : when I feel the time is right for such a discussion."

He looked at Lando, then at his watch. "But right now, I have other duties to attend to. It's getting late, and I know you really haven't had time to relax since landing. Irenez has had your baggage taken to a vacant officers' efficiency back toward the landing pad. It's small, I'm afraid, but I trust you'll find it comfortable enough." He stood up. "Perhaps later over dinner we can continue this discussion."

Han looked at Lando. Such convenient timing, the other's expression said; but he kept the thought to himself. "Sounds fine," Han told Bel Iblis for both of them.

"Good," Bel Iblis smiled. "I'll need Sena with me, but we'll point you in the direction of your quarters on our way out. Unless you'd rather I assign you a guide."

"We can find it," Han assured him.

"All right. Someone will come to get you for dinner. Until later, then."

They walked in silence for probably half the distance to their quarters before Lando finally spoke. "You want to go ahead and get it over with?"

"Get what over with?" Han growled.

"Chewing me out for not bowing and scraping in front of your pal the Senator," Lando said. "Do it and get it over with, because we have to talk."

Han kept his eyes straight ahead. "You weren't just not bowing and scraping, pal," he bit out. "I've seen Chewie in a bad mood be more polite than you were back there."

"You're right," Lando acknowledged. "You want to be mad a little longer, or are you ready to hear my reasons?"

"Oh, this should be interesting," Han said sarcastically. "You've got a good reason to be rude to a former Imperial Senator, huh?"

"He's not telling us the truth, Han," Lando said earnestly. "Not the whole truth, anyway.

"So?" Han said. "Who says he has to tell strangers everything?"

"He brought us here," Lando countered. "Why do that and then lie to us about it?"

Han frowned sideways at his friend : and through his annoyance he saw for the first time the tension lines in Lando's face. Whatever Lando was reaching for here, he was serious about it. "Okay," he said, a little more calmly. "What did he lie about?"

"This camp, for starters, Lando said, gesturing toward the nearest building. "The Senator said they move around a lot-fourteen sites in seven years, remember? But this place has been here a lot longer than half a year.

Han looked at the building as they passed it. At the smoothness of the edges where the memory-plastic would fold up, at the signs of wear in the subfoundation : "There are other things, too," Lando went on. "That headquarters lounge back there-did you notice all the decoration they had in that place? Probably a dozen sculptures scattered around on those corner ledges between the booths, plus a lot of light poles. And that doesn't even count all the stuff on the walls. There was a whole antique repeater display panel mounted over the main bar, a ship's chrono next to the exit-"

"I was there, too, remember?" Han cut him off. "What's your point?"

"My point is that this place isn't ready to pack up and ship off planet on three minutes' notice," Lando said quietly. "Not anymore. And you don't get this soft and comfortable if you're still in the business of launching major attacks against Imperial bases."

"Maybe they decided to lie low for a while," Han said. This business of having to defend Bel Iblis was starting to feel uncomfortable.

"Could be," Lando said. "In that case, the question is why? What else could he be holding his ships and troops back for?"

Han chewed at the inside of his cheek. He saw where Lando was going with this, all right. "You think he's made a deal with Fey'lya."

"That's the obvious answer, Lando agreed soberly. "You heard how he talked about Mon Mothma, like he expected her to declare herself Emperor any day now. Fey'lya's influence?"

Han thought it over. It was still crazy, but not nearly as crazy as it had seemed at first blush. Though if Fey'lya thought he could stage a coup with six private Dreadnaughts, he was in for a rude surprise.

But on the other hand- "Wait a minute, Lando, this is crazy, he said. "If they're plotting against Mon Mothma, why bring us here?"

Lando hissed softly between his teeth. "Well, that brings us to the worst case scenario, Han old buddy. Namely, that your friend the Senator is a complete phony : and that what we've got here is a giant Imperial scam."

Han blinked. "Now you've lost me."

"Think about it," Lando urged, lowering his voice as a group of uniformed men rounded a corner of one of the buildings and headed off in another direction. "Garm Bel Iblis, supposedly killed, suddenly returned from the dead? And not only alive, but with his own personal army on top of it? An army that neither of us has ever heard of?"

"Yeah, but Bel Iblis wasn't exactly a recluse," Han pointed out. "There were a lot of holos and recordings of him when I was growing up. You'd have to go to a lot of effort to look and sound that much like him."

"If you had those records handy to compare him with, sure," Lando agreed. "But all you've got is memories. It wouldn't take that much effort to rig a fairly close copy. And we know that this base has been sitting here for more than a year. Maybe abandoned by someone else; and it wouldn't take much effort to throw a fake army together. Not for the Empire."

Han shook his head. "You're skating on drive trails, Lando. The Empire's not going to go to this much effort just for us."

"Maybe they didn't," Lando said. "Maybe it was for Fey'lya's benefit, and we just happened to stumble in on it."

Han frowned. "Fey'lya's benefit?"

"Sure," Lando said. "Start with the Empire gimmicking Ackbar's bank account. That puts Ackbar under suspicion and ripe for someone to push him off his perch. Enter Fey'lya, convinced that he's got the support of the legendary Garm Bel Iblis and a private army behind him. Fey'lya makes his bid for power, the New Republic hierarchy is thrown into a tangle; and while no one's watching, the Empire moves in and takes back a sector or two. Quick, clean, and simple."

Han snorted under his breath. "That's what you call simple, huh?"

"We're dealing with a Grand Admiral, Han," Lando reminded him. "Anything is possible."

"Yeah, well, possible doesn't mean likely," Han countered. "If they're running a con game, why would they bring us here?"

"Why not? Our presence doesn't hurt the plan any. Might even help it a little. They show us the setup, send us back, we blow the whistle on Fey'lya, and Mon Mothma pulls back ships to protect Coruscant from a coup attempt that never materializes. More chaos, and even more unprotected sectors for the Imperials to gobble up."

Han shook his head. "I think you're jumping at shadows."

"Maybe," Lando said darkly. "And maybe you're putting too much trust in the ghost of a Corellian Senator."

They had reached their quarters now, one of a double row of small square buildings each about five meters on a side. Han keyed in the lock combination Sena had given them, and they went inside.

The apartment was about as stark and simple as it could be while still remaining even halfway functional. It consisted of a single room with a compact cooking niche on one side and a door leading to what was probably a bathroom on the other. A brown fold down table/console combo and two old-fashioned contour chairs upholstered in military gray occupied much of the space, with the cabinets of what looked like two fold-down beds positioned to take up the table's share of the floor space at night. "Cozy," Lando commented.

"Probably can be packed up and shipped off planet on three minutes' notice, too," Han said.

"I agree," Lando nodded. "This is exactly the sort of feel that lounge should have had, only it didn't.

"Maybe they figured they ought to have at least one building around here that didn't look like it came out of the Clone Wars," Han suggested.

"Maybe," Lando said, squatting down beside one of the chairs and peering at the edge of the seat cushion. "Probably pulled them out of that Dreadnaught up there." Experimentally he dug his fingers under the gray material. "Looks like they didn't even add any extra padding before they reupholstered them with this-"

He broke off, and abruptly his face went rigid. "What is it?" Han demanded.

Slowly, Lando turned to look up at him. "This chair," he whispered. "It's not gray underneath. It's blue-gold."

"Okay," Han said, frowning. "So?"

"You don't understand. The Fleet doesn't do the interiors of military ships in blue-gold. They've never done them in blue-gold. Not under the Empire, not under the New Republic, not under the Old Republic. Except one time."

"Which was?" Han prompted.

Lando took a deep breath. "The Katana fleet."

Han stared at him, an icy feeling digging up under his breastbone. The Katana fleet : "That can't be right, Lando," he said. "Got to be a mistake."

"No mistake, Han," Lando shook his head. Digging his fingers in harder, he lifted the edge of the gray covering high enough to show the material beneath it. "I once spent two whole months researching the Dark Force. This is it."

Han gazed at the age-dulled blue-gold cloth, a sense of unreality creeping over him. The Katana fleet. The Dark Force. Lost for half a century : and now suddenly found.

Maybe. "We need something better in the way of proof," he told Lando. "This doesn't do it by itself."

Lando nodded, still half in shock. "That would explain why they kept us aboard the Lady Luck the whole way here," he said. "They'd never be able to hide the fact that their Dreadnaught was running with only two thousand crewers instead of the normal sixteen. The Katana fleet."

"We need to get a look inside one of the ships," Han persisted. "That recognition code Irenez sent-I don't suppose you made a recording of it?"

Lando took a deep breath and seemed to snap out of it. "We can probably reconstruct it," he said. "But if they've got any sense, their code for getting in won't be the same as their code for getting out. But I don't think we have to get aboard the ships themselves. All I need is a good, close look at that,t repeater display panel back in the headquarters lounge."

"Okay," Han nodded grimly. "Let's go and get you that look."

Chapter 16

It took them only a few minutes to make their way back to the headquarters lounge. Han kept an eye on the pedestrian and vehicle traffic as they walked, hoping they were still early enough for the place to be empty. Getting a close look at that repeater display would be tricky enough without a whole bunch of people sitting around with nothing better to do than watch what was happening at the bar. "What exactly are we looking for?" he asked as they came in sight of the building.

"There should be some specialized input slots on the back for the full-rig slave circuitry readouts," Lando told him. "And there'll be production serial numbers, too."

Han nodded. So they were going to need to get the thing off the wall. Great. "How come you know so much about the fleet?"

"Like I said, I did a lot of studying." Lando snorted under his breath. "If you must know, I got stuck with a fake map to it as part of a deal back when I was selling used ships. I figured if I could learn enough about it to look like an expert I might be able to unload the map on someone else and get my money back."

"Did you?"