Vision of the Future pt3

"I don't know," Luke said, stretching out to the Force and trying to decipher the sudden turmoil in the emotions of the aliens around him. There was no way to tell whether the assault team had discovered the hole he had cut or had simply found the level deserted and come to the logical conclusion.

What he could tell was that whatever it was they had discovered, their consternation had spread rapidly to the rest of the group. Clearly, they had a superb communications system in here.

Which meant that Mara's captors almost certainly also knew he was loose in the fortress.

Which meant he was out of time.

"I'm going in," he told the Qom Jha tightly, easing an eye around the end of the corridor. Just to the right, on the far side of a cross corridor, he could see an unmarked door. At the far end of that room, as near as he could tell, were the ysalamiri. "Artoo, Child Of Winds?come with me. The rest of you, scatter."

We obey, Walker Of Sky, Builder With Stones said; and with a multiple flutter of wings they were off.

"Stay behind me," Luke warned the droid and Qom Qae; and with a quick glance down the corridor he launched himself at the door, igniting Mara's lightsaber as he ran. He grabbed the release lever, twisting it and pushing the door open in a single motion, and leaped inside.

Only to find that he had miscalculated. The room he was in was long and dimly lit, with most of the left half filled with stacks of crates, and no sign of Mara.

But a second glance showed he hadn't miscalculated as badly as he thought. Laid out side by side, a group of ysalamiri on nutrient frames had been leaned against the back wall.

Artoo warbled questioningly. "She's in the next room over," Luke called over his shoulder as he raced toward the row of frames, a plan of action starting to take shape in his mind. Unless her interrogators were themselves Force-sensitive, they would have no way of knowing whether or not their protective barrier was still in place. If he could move enough of the ysalamiri out of the way to give Mara access to the Force again, the two of them together should be able to turn the tables on her captors and get her out of there. Skidding to a halt in front of one of the frames in the middle of the wall, feeling the sudden disconcerting silence in his mind as he stepped inside the meter-wide range of the creatures' effect, he set the lightsaber down on the floor and lifted up the frame.

Fortunately, given that there was no way for him to enhance his muscular strength this close to an ysalamir, the frame wasn't very heavy. He carried it a few steps away from the wall and propped it up against the nearest crate.

Stepping back to the next one in line, he picked it up and crossed toward the first?

With his Jedi senses blinded by the ysalamiri effect, Artoo's sudden squawk was his only warning. He looked up, dropping the frame and leaping backward, his hand instinctively stretching back toward the lightsaber on the floor. One of the blue-skinned aliens was crouching in a marksman's stance in the open doorway, another of the nutrient frames strapped to his back, his weapon up and tracking.

Luke took another step backward, the Force suddenly flooding in around him again as he moved out of the ysalamir's range. He felt the power tingling through his hand as he again called the lightsaber to him, wondering why it wasn't already in his hand?

And with a burst of understanding it belatedly hit him. He himself was clear of the ysalamiri effect, but the lightsaber wasn't.

The alien's weapon was lined up on him now. "Do not move," he ordered in accented Basic, his tone making it clear he was serious. Artoo started to roll cautiously toward him; the glowing red eyes flicked warningly toward the droid?

And with a screech that was half challenge and half pure terror, Child Of Winds dropped from the ceiling to land in full-taloned grip on the alien's gun arm.

The weapon fired, a brilliant blue flash that went wide, slicing past Luke into one of the nutrient frames along the wall. Luke dived backward in the opposite direction toward the cover of the stacked crates, grabbing for his own lightsaber still hanging from his belt and yanking it clear. His momentum slammed him into one of the other frames, sending it crashing to the floor.

And for one brief second, as he caromed off the wall and back toward the crates, he could feel Mara's presence again.

The touch didn't last long, perhaps half a second before he bounced back into range of the two ysalamiri he had set down beside the crates. But it was long enough. He could sense that she was all right, felt her own flash of relief that he was similarly unharmed, caught a sense of humans and aliens lined up along the wall in front of her. He had time for a single emotional instruction?Stall!?before the contact was cut off again. Digging his feet into the floor, he ignited his lightsaber and charged past the frames, wondering if he would make it through to the other side of the bubble before the alien got his aim back.

It was a close thing, and for a painful heartbeat he thought Child Of Winds's act of bravery was going to cost the Qom Qae his life. Instead of trying to wrench his winged assailant off his right arm, the alien had merely slammed his left hand into Child Of Winds's throat in an attempt to stun him, then transferred his gun to that hand. For an instant his first inclination seemed to be to use the weapon to kill the sharp-taloned nuisance clinging to him; but as he caught sight of Luke charging toward him with drawn lightsaber, he shifted his aim to the more threatening target and fired.

But he was too late. Luke was past the last of the ysalamiri now, and with access to the Force again there was no way a single gunman could penetrate his defenses. He sprinted forward, anticipating and sweeping his lightsaber across each of the alien's shots with practiced ease. Still firing, the alien dodged to the right, crossing behind Artoo. Luke switched direction to match his movement, wondering if the alien was planning to duck down and use the droid as a shield.

If so, he never got the chance. From midway down Artoo's body came the flash of an arc current?

And with an abrupt jolt of twitching leg muscles, the alien stumbled off balance and fell heavily sideways to the floor, taking Child Of Winds down with him.

Luke leaped over Artoo, landing with one foot on the gun and feeling the sudden blindness again as he came within range of the ysalamir backpack. The alien's glowing red eyes gazed up with an unreadable expression as Luke raised his lightsaber high and brought it sweeping down. Seeing his own death arcing down toward him?

And then, midway through his slash, Luke closed down the blade, and instead of decapitating the alien merely slammed the heavy metal of the handle across the back of his head. Without a sound, he collapsed limply to the floor, unconscious.

"You all right?" Luke asked Child Of Winds, helping pry the other's clenched feet off the gunman's arm. The points where the Qom Qae's claws had been, he noticed, were oozing with slowly growing spots of red.

I am unhurt, Child Of Winds said shakily. Why did you protect his life?

"Because there was no need to kill him," Luke answered, looking up at Artoo. The droid seemed a little shaky, too, but game as always as he retracted his arc welder back into its compartment. "Thanks for the assist? both of you. Come on, Mara needs us."

Running back to the wall, he began grabbing the nutrient frames and hurling them away behind him, all thoughts of subtlety replaced now by a desperate need for speed. That quick kaleidoscopic glimpse he'd had into Mara's mind had included the threat of drawn weapons. He threw three of the nutrient frames aside, risked taking the time to get rid of the one next to where Mara's lightsaber still lay on the floor, then stepped close to the wall.

And realized with a surge of fear that he had cut it a little too close.

Filtered through the emotional haze and clipped tactical thinking roiling together in Mara's mind, he could sense an indistinct, wavering image of the four aliens with their weapons pointed at her. Touching his forehead to the wall, he ran through his sensory enhancements...

"Skywalker put me into the trance," he heard her voice faintly through the thick stone. "And he's not here. I could die of shock, or bleed to death?"

"You'll do neither," another voice said. "I know both the power and limitations of Chiss weaponry. Think of it as an added incentive for Skywalker to surrender to us."

Luke didn't wait any longer. Straightening up, he drew back his lightsaber, stretching out to the Force as he pointed the tip of the glowing green blade at the wall, agonizingly aware that he would have only one shot at this. But if the Force could guide him with the pinpoint precision necessary to block blaster bolts...

And then, with a clarity that was startling in its unexpectedness, an image sprang into his mind: an alien standing with his back toward Luke, almost in front of him, raising a weapon toward Mara. Setting his teeth, Luke thrust his lightsaber through the wall to slash the green blade into the upper part of the alien's weapon.

And on the far side of that wall, he sensed the neatly arranged little scene dissolve into chaos.

Luke pulled the lightsaber downward, slicing an opening for himself as quickly as the stubborn black stone would permit, the emotional turmoil of sudden combat flooding over him as Mara exploded into action. He sensed a dizzying spin as she spun around and dropped into a crouch behind her chair, stretching out with the Force for her enemies' weapons. She yanked one straight out of its owner's hand?twisted another to the side to send his shot harmlessly into the ceiling?ducked back as another shot splattered across the corner of her chair back, sending tiny agonizing drops of liquid metal grazing across her cheek?

And then Luke's section of wall collapsed with a thud into the chaos. He caught Mara's eye as she crouched behind the chair and threw his lightsaber to her, stretched out with the Force to snatch hers from the floor behind him?

And with the old weapon flashing memories of Tatooine and Hoth and Bespin through his mind, he strode into the midst of the fight, the blue-white blade spattering bolts of enemy fire and shattering across the weapons themselves. One of the aliens leaped at him, a knife flashing into his hand; Luke grabbed him bodily with the Force and slammed him back against two others preparing for the same maneuver?

"Stop!" an authoritative voice ordered.

The aliens froze in their tracks, their eyes focused unblinkingly on Luke. Luke eyed them warily in return, his lightsaber held at the ready. Out of the corner of his eye he got a glimpse of the speaker: a gray-haired man wearing an Imperial admiral's uniform. "There's no point in anyone throwing their lives away here," the admiral said sternly. "Let them go."

Luke stretched out toward him with the Force, trying to gauge his sincerity. But both he and the other Imperial in the room were still being shielded by the remaining ysalamiri behind the side wall. "Mara?" Luke asked, risking a quick glance at her.

"What do you think?" she said with a snort as she came to his side, the green blade of his lightsaber held crossways at the ready between her and the aliens.

"He's trying to save his own neck."

"Of course, I am," the admiral conceded without embarrassment. "As I'm also attempting to protect the necks of my troops. If there was one thing Thrawn made certain his officers clearly understood, it was never to waste people for no reason." He smiled. "And it is well known that the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker does not kill needlessly or in cold blood."

"He's also stalling," Mara added. "They're probably setting up some kind of trap right now."

"Then we'd better get moving." Luke nodded at the group. "You think we should take one of them as a hostage?"

Mara hissed between her teeth. "No," she said. "Parck is too old?he'd slow us down?and I don't trust any of these Chiss not to be more trouble than they're worth. That goes double for General Fel."

Luke blinked, focusing his attention for the first time on the younger Imperial's face. Baron Fel? "Yes, it's me, Luke," Fel confirmed. "It's been a long time."

"Yes, it has," Luke murmured. Baron Fel, working for the Empire again?

Mara nudged him in the side. "Let's save the Rogue veterans' reunion for another time, okay? We've got to get moving."

"Right," Luke said, stepping back toward the wall and the opening he'd cut.

"Do think about our offer, Mara," the admiral called after them. "I think you'll find our struggle out here to be the most vitally important challenge you could ever face."

"And you think about my warning," Mara countered. "Stay away from Bastion."

The admiral shook his head minutely. "We'll do what we have to."

"Then so will I," Mara threatened. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Fel smiled at her. "Take your best shot."

"Perhaps your fear of what the Empire might do with our information will be an added motivation for you to join us," Parck added. "At any rate, I'm certain we'll see you again."

"Right," Mara said. "I'll look forward to it."

CHAPTER

29

Luke waited until Mara had ducked through the opening before backing out of the room himself. "I believe this one's yours," he told her, shutting down her lightsaber and handing it across.

"Thanks," she said, taking it as she passed his back to him. "Interesting grip yours has got. I think I like it better than mine."

"You can keep that in mind when you get around to making your own someday," Luke said, digging her sleeve blaster out of his jacket and tossing it to her. "Here's your blaster. Watch out?some of their people come equipped with ysalamir backpacks."

"I know," Mara said. She was at the door now, looking carefully out into the corridor. "Looks clear, but that won't last long. What's the plan? Back to the stairway?"

"Unfortunately, I had the Qom Jha lock it down," Luke told her, stepping into the doorway beside her as he threw a last glance back at the opening he'd cut.

He'd have thought one of the aliens?the Chiss, Mara had called them?might try for a final shot, but they had apparently decided to stay put.

Which meant Mara was right. They had something else planned.

He looked down the corridor, stretching out with the Force as well. "Child Of Winds, stay on top of Artoo," he told the Qom Qae. "I don't want you getting lost."

"Or getting in the way," Mara added. "So where are we going?"

Before Luke could answer, Artoo rolled out into the corridor, heading confidently off to the left with Child Of Winds balanced precariously atop his dome. "I guess we're following Artoo," Luke said, setting off after them. "He must have been able to download the floor plan like I asked him to."

"That, or he's looking for a recharger," Mara muttered as she fell into step beside him. "How good are you at spotting individual ysalamiri?"

"Not as good as I am with groups of them," he conceded, stretching out with the Force. He could sense the grim activity all around them as the Chiss mobilized for combat...

The small empty space to their right was so subtle that he nearly missed it. "Watch out!" he snapped to Mara, skidding to a halt and spinning to face that direction.

Even as he brought his lightsaber up, a half-meter-square concealed wall panel popped open and a weapon poked out. Behind it in the shadowy alcove he caught a glimpse of glowing red eyes and the glint of a nutrient frame above them?

From behind Luke came the flash of blaster fire; not targeted between the glowing eyes, as he might have expected, but above them. There was a sudden howl in his mind?

And the zone of silence around the gunman abruptly vanished.

There was a flash of blue as the alien weapon spat its fire toward Luke's chest.

But too late. With the ysalamir's bubble collapsed, Luke blocked the shot with ease. The gunman got off two more shots, also blocked, before the collapsing blue circles of a stun blast sent him slumping out of sight to the floor of his guard alcove.

"Oh, good," Mara said, hefting her blaster and working the select switch. "The stun setting works on them."

"That could be handy," Luke agreed, glancing around with eyes and mind. There were no other threats he could detect, at least not in the immediate area. "Any reason in particular why you didn't kill him?"

"Hey, you're the one who wants me to start acting like a Jedi," Mara retorted, starting down the corridor again. Artoo had gotten a few meters ahead, and was twittering with nervous impatience as he swung his dome back around to look at them. "Problem is, the stun setting on this thing has about the range of a thrown bantha. If they're smart enough to keep their distance, you'll have to block their shots while I pick off the ysalamiri."

"Right," Luke said, frowning as he picked up his pace. There was something ominous growing behind the protection of Mara's mental barrier: a dark thought, or equally dark purpose. For a moment he considered asking her about it; but the fact that she was hiding it from him strongly suggested he should leave it alone.

"Any idea what their plan is?" he asked instead as they caught up with Artoo.

"Short-term, to put us in deep storage for a few days," Mara said. "They figure making us go into healing trances is the easiest way to do that; hence, the gunfire."

"Friendly sorts," Luke murmured.

"Yeah," Mara agreed. "Long-term, they're waiting for Thrawn to return." There was a momentary flicker in her emotions, a deepening of that hidden darkness...

"And since they think he may have popped up at Bastion, Parck's decided to head out there and talk to them."

Luke felt suddenly cold. "And turn this place over to the Empire?"

"The place, and everything in it," Mara said grimly. "That may not be what they think they're going to do; but once the Empire knows they're here, they'll get hold of it. One way or another."

Ahead, Artoo warbled and made a right turn into a cross corridor. "Where are we going?" Mara demanded as they followed.

"I don't know," Luke said, frowning. Twenty meters ahead, the corridor ended in a T-junction, and for some unknown reason his mind flashed back to the Cavrilhu Pirates' asteroid base and the very different T-junction at the far end of the Jedi trap they'd lured him into. Somewhere directly ahead, he could sense the blank area created by a group of ysalamiri.

And then Artoo twittered uncertainly and rolled to a stop, facing the wall blocking their corridor in obvious confusion...

"Artoo, get back!" Luke snapped, bringing up his lightsaber and taking a long step to put himself in front of Mara. "It's a trap!" Directly ahead, the wall exploded into a shower of dazzling sparks and completely disintegrated?

And standing shoulder to shoulder together in the corridor behind what was left of the false wall, a dozen ysalamiri-equipped Chiss opened fire.

Artoo squealed and swiveled around, racing back toward Luke as fast as he could, Child Of Winds scrambling frantically to hang on. Luke barely noticed them, his whole attention focused ahead on the Chiss. He forced himself to relax, letting the Force guide his hands as it had in so many such battles, swinging his lightsaber into blocking position in front of each shot.

But with the area around the Chiss closed to that subconscious prescience, a precious split second was being shaved off his normal preparation time. Behind him, Mara's blaster was flashing steadily over his shoulder, methodically picking off ysalamiri. If he could keep up their defense long enough for her to finish the job...

Somewhere at the edge of his mind he could hear Child Of Winds screeching something, but he had no concentration to spare for a translation. Ahead, through the massed line of Chiss he could see what appeared to be movement behind them; and then, without warning, they dropped in unison to one knee?

Revealing another line of troops that had come up behind them.

And suddenly there were twice as many bolts blazing his direction. Bolts he was slowly but steadily losing the race to stay ahead of.

Behind him, Mara barked something, and through his haze of concentration Luke saw one of the standing aliens jerk back and collapse as Mara abandoned her nonkilling policy. Luke clenched his teeth and leaned into his effort, dimly realizing that if Parck sent a team in from behind them right now, he and Mara would be finished. Child Of Winds screeched again?

And then, sweeping in from both directions down the cross corridor ahead, a group of Qom Jha dove straight into the middle of the battle.

The Chiss had no chance to react. Sweeping at full speed just over the heads of the standing warriors, the Qom Jha grabbed the tops of their nutrient frames, the momentum yanking the gunmen off their feet and slamming them hard onto their backs on the floor.

"Let's go," Luke heard himself shout, breaking into a cautious jog toward the remaining row of kneeling Chiss. If he could get close enough to get them in range of Mara's stun setting...

Half a corridor away, the Qom Jha braked from their mad rush, swiveled around with impossible grace, and charged back at the kneeling gunmen from behind.

Again they grabbed the nutrient frames as they passed, pulling the frames and the attached Chiss sprawling onto their faces.

Luke let his lightsaber come to a stop, arm muscles starting to tremble with adrenaline and suddenly released tension. Mara had already sprinted past him, waving the Qom Jha aside as her blaster swept its rings of blue stun fire across the downed Chiss. Even as Luke reached her side, the last of the gunmen twitched and stopped moving.

"That was fun," Mara gritted between clenched teeth, throwing a quick glance both directions down the corridor as she again worked her blaster's select switch. "I hope they haven't got many more of these little traps set up."

"I don't think we've got far to go," Luke said, looking at Artoo. The little droid was already rolling down the cross corridor to their left, heading toward a large, heavy-looking door blocking off the end of the passage fifteen meters away. A door, he noted, equipped with the same locking wheel and hand-grip release system as those of the hidden stairway far behind them. "Splitter Of Stones, get your people together and follow us."

He ran forward, closing down his lightsaber and clipping it onto his belt, reaching Artoo as the droid slowed to a stop in front of the door. Turning the wheel, Luke squeezed the grips and pulled. The door swung ponderously open, letting in a rush of cool air?

Skies of red blood, Keeper Of Promises muttered in amazement. What place is this?

"Our way out," Luke told him, feeling a touch of the same awe as he gazed across the view in front of them. Stretching away across the black stone floor, parked close together like troops on parade, were multiple rows of small starships like the pair that had attacked him on his way to the planetary surface.

Beside him, Mara whistled softly. "The hangar didn't look this big from the outside," she said.

"It must stretch back farther than its roof indicated," Luke agreed, wondering how such a closely packed group of ships could ever be properly serviced. A glance upward gave him his answer: the entire area beneath the high ceiling was crammed with service, monitor, and fueling equipment, all held together by metal frames and a network of catwalks. "There must be a hundred of them here."

"At least," Mara agreed... and as she spoke, Luke could sense that secret darkness deepen within her. It was about time he asked her about it?

There was a sudden flicker of sensation from behind him. "Look out!" Mara snapped, spinning around and firing a pair of quick shots past his shoulder through the open door.

Luke turned, too, snatching up his lightsaber and igniting it. A handful of Chiss were in the intersection they'd just left, scrambling reflexively out of the way of Mara's shots. "Keep firing," Luke told her, giving the door a quick look. There was no locking wheel on the hangar side, but there was a small hole where one had apparently been removed. Experimentally, he turned the wheel a few degrees; through the hole, the central axle of the locking mechanism could be seen turning.

Perfect. He turned the wheel back to full-open again and with a quick slash of his lightsaber sliced it off flush with the door. Ducking under Mara's covering shots, he pushed the door closed.

But it is still unlocked, Flier Through Spikes objected. They can use the grip-rocks to open it again.

"Not for long," Luke assured him. Crouching down, he gazed through the hole at the central axle and stretched out to the Force. Without the wheel's leverage it was much harder to turn, but the thought of armed Chiss descending on the hangar was more than enough incentive. Ten seconds later, the door was securely locked.

"That won't hold them for long," Mara warned. "If nothing else, they can head over the roof on foot and come in the other end."

"I know," Luke said, craning his neck to peer past the parked ships. She was right: as they'd guessed from their first look at the place, the whole front of the hangar was wide open, with only a slight overhang to protect it from rain or attack. The fortress's designers, he decided, must not have intended for their hangar to be packed this full. "But it should slow them down long enough for us to borrow a ship and get out of here."

"Then all we'll have to worry about is whatever they've got in those towers," Mara said tartly, pushing past him and ducking between two of the ships. "We'll have to take something from the front," she called back over her shoulder. "I'll try to get one started. You make sure that door is secured, then find a way to keep the rest of that front row from taking off after us."

"Got it," Luke said. "Artoo, take Child Of Winds and follow Mara?give her a hand figuring out the flight systems. Splitter Of Stones, you and your people had better head out while you can. Thank you for your help."

Our part is paid, Master Walker Of Sky, the Qom Jha said, his tone just slightly ominous. It will now be your part to rid us of the Threateners as you promised.

With that, he and the others flapped away over the parked ships. "We'll do our best," Luke murmured.

He double-checked the door, then took another moment to stretch his thoughts back into the corridor. It was empty. Apparently, the Chiss knew better than to waste their time with the impenetrable stone.

Particularly with such an obvious alternative available. Thirty seconds later, following the sound of Artoo's wheels across the black stone, he reached the front of the hangar.

Artoo and Child Of Winds were there, the latter again scrabbling for balance on top of the droid as the dome swiveled back and forth. Luke looked along the front line of ships, noting a gap in the neat array where one was apparently missing.

Mara, however, was nowhere to be seen. "Artoo, where's Mara?"

The droid warbled a negative, still looking around. Luke peered out into the dim sunlight and stretched out with the Force?

"What are you waiting for?" Mara demanded as she ran up from behind him. "We need these ships disabled."

"We were waiting for you," Luke told her, frowning. The dark secret still loomed in her mind; but there was something new to the texture now. All tinges of uncertainty or doubt had disappeared, replaced by a heavy cloud of deep and bitter sadness. Something vitally important had just happened...

"Well, don't," she growled, slapping a release panel on the side of the nearest ship. Above them, a hatchway swung open and a ladder unfolded to the floor.

"One of the ships seems to be missing," Luke pointed out.

"I know?Parck mentioned it was on its way in," Mara said, swinging herself up onto the ladder. "Nothing we can do about that one. Go on, get busy."

She disappeared inside. "Right," Luke murmured, reaching out with the Force to lift Artoo up and into the hatch behind her. Then, stepping to the next ship in line, he ran a quick eye over it. The fighter was three times the size of an X-wing, with a set of four TIE-fighter solar panels melding into a disturbing flow of alien lines.

And presumably with a set of repulsorlifts on the underside...

He ducked under the bow. There they were, one pair running longitudinally along each side of the centerline: the subtle but distinctive diamond pattern of repulsorlifts. Four quick slashes with his lightsaber, and they were no longer functional. Ducking around the landing gear, he moved on to the next ship.

He had disabled seven of them, with another seven to go, when he caught the change in Mara's emotional texture. Slowly, with the slightly awkward movements that came of a pilot unfamiliar with her craft, the ship lifted half a meter off the floor and eased forward. His comlink beeped?"We've got company," Mara's voice announced tightly; and as Luke concentrated he could sense both wary Chiss minds and ysalamiri-created blank areas approaching over the rooftop. "Snap it up?I'll try to keep them busy."

And she did. The interior of the hangar was flickering with reflected light from the firefight by the time Luke finished disabling the last of the fighters: soft blue flashes from the Chiss hand weapons, a sharper and brighter blue from Mara's ship. Ready, he thought toward her, sprinting across the line of disabled ships toward the end of the hangar opening where most of the brighter flashes seemed to be coming from. He reached it, eased a careful eye around the corner?

Get ready, Mara's acknowledgment flowed into his mind; and with a sandstorm blast of backwash, the ship dropped past the overhang and bounced to a rough landing in front of him.

Luke was ready. Even as the ship bounced up again, he was sprinting around its tail to its far side. The hatchway Mara had used earlier was standing open; throwing Jedi strength into his leg muscles, Luke leaped upward, catching the door and pulling himself inside to land in an undignified sprawl on the deck. "Go!" he shouted, stretching out with the Force to pull the hatch closed.

Mara needed no encouragement. Already the ship was jumping toward the sky, the roar of repulsorlifts not quite drowning the pinging of Chiss shots slapping into the underside and back.

Are we safe? Child Of Winds asked anxiously. He was pressed into the aft-most seat, his claws gripping the safety straps.

"I think so," Luke soothed him, listening to the fading pings of heat-stressed metal as Mara pulled for altitude. "All they seem to have is antipersonnel weapons down there. Unless they can get their heavier stuff on line quickly?"

"Luke, get up here," Mara's taut voice called back from the flight deck.

Luke scrambled to his feet, his mind reaching out to Mara's. The dark thought was still there, lurking in the back of her mind. But it had now been superseded by something else, a tangle and mixture he couldn't decipher. He dodged past Artoo, gurgling pensively in a droid alcove, and dropped into the copilot seat beside Mara. "What is it?" he snapped.

"Look at the fortress," Mara told him, turning the ship into a slow rotation.

"What, the weapons towers?" Luke asked, stretching out with the Force as he looked down at the structure turning lazily into view out the canopy. He couldn't see or sense any indication they were preparing to fire. He glanced at Mara's board, searching for the sensor displays?

"Forget the logistics and strategy for a minute," Mara said curtly. "Look at the fortress. Just look at it."

Luke felt his forehead wrinkling as he gazed down through the canopy again. It was a fortress. Walls; a flat, roundish, angled roof with a hangar in the middle; four weapons towers following the curve of the roof in back, one intact tower farther down in front?

"Look at it," Mara said again, very softly.

And with a sudden shock, he saw it. "Stars of Alderaan," he breathed.

"It's almost funny, isn't it?" Mara said, her voice sounding strange. "We automatically dismissed the whole idea that it could be some kind of superweapon.

Thrawn never used superweapons, we all said.

"And yet, that's exactly what it is. The only kind of superweapon someone like Thrawn ever used. The only kind he ever needed."

Luke thought about that galaxy holo in the command center, and all the planets and resources Thrawn had gathered under his control. Enough to tip the balance of power in any direction its inheritors chose. "Information," he said, a shiver running through him.

Mara nodded. "Information."

Luke nodded back, gazing down at the fortress now receding into the surrounding hills as Mara pulled the ship away again. The flat-roofed fortress with its four towers in back and one in front stretching upward toward the sky. Looking for all the world like four fingers and a thumb reaching to pluck the stars from the sky.

The Hand of Thrawn.

* * *

Just under a kilometer away from the fortress, shielded from view by a craggy ridge, was a deep indentation in the cliff face. Mara maneuvered the ship carefully in beneath the overhang and eased it as far back against the wall as she could. "That's it," she said, shutting down the repulsorlifts and feeling herself slump with fatigue and released tension. For the moment, at least, they were safe.

For the moment.

From the aft seat, Child Of Winds said something. Almost intelligibly this time, but Mara was too tired to even try to decipher it. "What did he say?" she asked.

"He asked what we're going to do now," Luke translated. "A good question, actually."

"Well, for right now, we're just going to sit here," Mara said, running a critical eye over Luke's outfit. There were a half-dozen new scorch marks where the Chiss' charric shots had made it through his defenses, and she could sense his automatic and almost unconscious suppression of the pain. "Looks to me like you could use a few hours in a healing trance."

"That can wait," Luke said, gazing through the canopy at the landscape beyond the overhang, fading into the growing darkness of evening. "My damage to their repulsorlifts won't hold them for long. We have to get back in there before they can mount an aerial search for us."

"Actually, I don't think they'll bother," Mara said, waving at her control board.

"For one thing, the sensors on these things seem to be pretty useless for close-order ground searches. My guess is that they'll move troops into the areas where they think we stashed our ships and leave it at that."

"You don't think they'll worry we might get back inside?"

"And do what?"

Luke frowned. "What do you mean?"

Mara took a deep breath. "I mean I'm not sure we should even try to interfere with what they're doing."

Child Of Winds made a noise like a choked-off comment. Luke glanced back at him, then turned again to Mara. "But they're enemies of the New Republic," he said. "Aren't they?"

Mara shook her head. "I don't know. Just because they're in Imperial uniforms..."

She sighed. "Look. Baron Fel was in there. The same Baron Fel who turned his back on the Empire years ago when he finally recognized how corrupt and vicious things had become under Isard and some of Palpatine's other successors.

"Yet here he is, wearing an Imperial uniform again. Braintwisting is useless against a man like him?you'd ruin the fine combat edge that makes him useful to you in the first place. Something must have happened to legitimately change his mind."

"Thrawn?"

"In a way," Mara said. "Fel said Thrawn took him to the Unknown Regions and showed him around... and that that was when he agreed to rejoin."

She could feel Luke's emotions darken. "There's something out there, isn't there?" he said quietly. "Something terrible."

"According to the Chiss, there are a hundred terrible somethings out there," Mara said. "Of course, that is only the Chiss talking. Odds are that a lot of the dangers would be pretty harmless to something with the size and resources of the New Republic. Threats we could swat without any trouble if they ever ventured in past the Outer Rim."

She shrugged uncomfortably. "On the other hand..."

"On the other hand, Fel knows our resources as well as we do," Luke finished for her. "And yet he's here."

Mara nodded. "He and Parck are both here. And neither of them seems to have any interest in wasting their resources in actions against the New Republic. That says a lot right there."

For a long minute the ship was silent. Then Luke stirred. "Unfortunately, there's still one more point we have to consider," he said. "Bastion and the Empire. You said Parck was going to open contact with them?"

"Yes," Mara confirmed, the quiet ache within her deepening. "And I don't trust the current Imperial leadership to see things with the same long-term perspective that Fel does. You give them the Hand of Thrawn and they will move against Coruscant."

Luke gazed out the canopy again. "We can't let that happen," he said quietly. "Not with the New Republic in the state it's in."

"Especially not if those resources are needed to battle some other threat," Mara agreed, unstrapping her restraints. "Which unfortunately means we have to get back in there and pull copies of that data for ourselves. At least then we'll have a chance of blocking whatever Bastion does to pull them in on the Imperial side."

She could sense Luke forcing the tiredness from his mind. "You're right," he said as he started unfastening his own straps. "If we can get Artoo to a computer jack so he can download everything?"

"Hold it, hold it," Mara said, reaching over and putting a restraining hand on his arm. "I didn't mean right this minute. We're not going anywhere until you get those burns healed."

"They're nothing," Luke protested, glancing down across the scorch marks. "I can handle them."

"Oh, bravely said," Mara said, fatigue and her private pain adding an unintended note of scorn into her voice. "Let me rephrase that: I'm not going anywhere with you until you're healed. You were just barely able to keep ahead of that last attack?I don't want any of your attention wasted on old injuries you could have gotten rid of with a few hours' rest. Understand?"

He glared at her. But behind the glare, she could sense his grudging agreement.

"All right, you win," he said with a sigh, resettling himself into his seat. "But you wake me right away if anything happens. I'll set up the phrase 'welcome back' to snap me out of it."

Mara nodded. "Got it."

"And even if nothing happens, wake me up in two hours," he added, closing his eyes. "It won't take them more than a few hours to get enough of the damaged ships out of the way to free up the ones in back. We'll need to get back there before then if we're going to stop Parck from handing all this over to Bastion."

Without waiting for a reply, he took another deep breath and leaned back against the headrest. His thoughts and emotions cleared and faded, and he was gone. "Don't worry about Bastion," Mara said softly. "I'll take care of it."

For a moment she sat there in the silence, gazing at his sleeping face, a tangle of emotions twisting through the darkness of her private agony. Ten years now they'd known each other, years that could have been filled with camaraderie and friendship. Years Luke had effectively wasted with his own lonely and arrogantly stupid wanderings through completely unnecessary pain and doubt.

She ran a fingertip gently across his forehead, brushing back a few loose strands of hair. And yet, after all that, here they were together again, and the man she'd once so highly respected and cared for was finally back on his proper path.

Or perhaps it was the two of them together who were on their proper path.

Perhaps.

Behind her came a tentative questioning warble. "It's just a healing trance," Mara assured the droid, pushing the last of her straps away and getting out of her seat. "He'll be all right. You watch over things in here, okay?"

The droid twittered again, his tone suddenly suspicious. "I'm going outside," Mara told him, making sure her sleeve blaster and lightsaber were secure. "Don't worry, I'll be back."

She slid past him, ignoring his sudden flurry of comments and questions and popped the hatch. Child Of Winds brushed past her as the ladder unfolded, chirping rapidly for a few seconds and then flapping off into the deepening darkness.

A darkness matched by the ache deep within her.

For a moment she looked back at the top of Luke's head, visible over the chair's headrest, wondering if he had guessed her plan. But no. She'd carefully held it secret within her, behind the mental barriers Palpatine had so long ago taught her how to create.

The old Luke, the one obsessed with solving every problem himself, might have forced his way in through those barriers to demand the truth. The new Luke, she knew, would never do such a thing.

Later, probably, he would regret not having done so. But by then it would be too late. The simple fact was that Parck and the Chiss had to be prevented from giving the Empire the secrets of this place.

And it was up to her to stop them. However she could. Whatever the cost.

The droid had run out of words and was watching her, his stance somehow reminding her of that of a frightened child. "Don't worry," she soothed him quietly. "It'll be all right. Watch over him, okay?"

The droid gave a forlorn moan of agreement. Stretching out with the Force, Mara turned and headed down the ladder.

However she could. Whatever the cost.

CHAPTER

30

Even late at night the Drev'starn spaceport was a bustling hive of activity, the pedestrians and vehicles casting long shadows in the bright light of the glow lamps as they hurried about their business. The same bright light, Navett thought as he strode along, that would make the spaceport an ideal target for the warships orbiting high above them.

He wondered if that same thought had occurred to the rest of the hurrying crowds.

Perhaps that was one of the reasons they were hurrying.

He reached the target zone and gave a soft whistle. It was answered immediately from a stack of shipping crates to his right. Stepping around the stack, he found Klif waiting. "Report," he murmured.

"We're set," Klif murmured back. "She went in about an hour ago and shut things down. I shorted out one of the glow lamps to give us an approach."

Navett edged an eye around the crates for a cautious look. The old woman's Sydon Pacifier was squatting silently in its landing circle, with nothing but parking lights showing. A long strip of shadow thrown by another stack of crates led nearly to its sealed hatchway. "Looks good," he said. "What about the New Rep agents?"

"Well, now, that's an interesting question," Klif said. "I did a quick slice into the spaceport computer; and according to its records, they're gone. "

Navett frowned. Gone? Now? "Where?"

"No idea," Klif said. "But I ran a global against both their registration and engine ID, and there's no indication they might have circled around and landed again, not here or anywhere else on Bothawui."

"Interesting, indeed," Navett murmured, stroking his chin as he gazed at the Pacifier. "Either we fooled them completely, or else they suddenly had something more urgent to do. Rogue Squadron's attached to Bel Iblis these days, isn't it?"

Klif nodded. "You think Bel Iblis is up to something?"

"That walking sack of annoyance is always up to something," Navett growled. "However, he's not our problem. We'll send word to Bastion and let them figure him out.

Right now"?he slid his blaster out of its concealed sheath?"we've got our own sack of annoyance to deal with. Come on."

They slipped out into the concealing shadow and headed for the Pacifier, eyes and ears alert for any sign of trouble. None came before they reached the ship, dropping into combat crouches on opposite sides of the hatchway. "Pop it," Navett muttered, blaster held ready as he tried to watch everywhere at once.

Antilles could conceivably have sent in other New Rep agents on his way out...

There was the muffled clicking of Klif's lockjim followed by a soft hiss, and the top of the hatchway swung smoothly down to the permacrete, its inside surface forming a ramp. Giving the area one final scan, Navett rose from his crouch and ducked up the ramp into the ship.

Inside was darkness, with only dim walk-lights marking the corridors. He could hear Klif's soft breathing behind him as he eased down toward the living section.

Still no signs of life; the old woman must already be asleep. He eased to the first door in line, eased it open...

And abruptly, all around them, the lights blazed on.

Navett dropped instantly into a crouch, cursing under his breath as he blinked against the sudden glare. There was a bump against his shoulders as Klif dropped into a mirror-image crouch at his back. "No one here," Klif hissed from behind him.

"Not here, either," Navett said, frowning as his eyes finished adjusting to the light and realizing that what had seemed so bright when they came on were apparently only the normal shipboard lights.

No gunmen, no automatic weapons, not even any eye-burning flash-flare defensive lights. What was going on?

"Good evening, gentlemen," a voice spoke up into the tense silence.

The old woman's voice.

"Klif?" Navett hissed, looking around again. There was still no one visible in his direction. "Anyone?"

"No, I'm not here," the voice assured him smugly. "I'm a recording. You wouldn't hurt an innocent little recording, would you?" She snorted. "Of course, considering who you are, maybe you would."

"There," Klif said, pointing. Half hidden behind a cable conduit was a small datapad with a recording rod sticking out of it.

"You must think you're pretty hot stuff," the woman continued. "Strutting around in plain sight, bamboozling the bumbling Bothans?hey, that's kind of cute?and in general running rings around everyone and everything."

Navett stepped over to the datapad. It was jammed into the space between the conduit and the wall as if hurriedly slapped in there.

On the other hand, it had been keyed to come on with the lights...

"Well, I'm sorry to so rudely pop your bubble," she said. "But you're not as smart as you think. Not nearly as smart as you think."

Navett caught Klif's eye and nodded toward the sleeping rooms. Klif nodded back and slipped down the corridor toward the farthest one. Putting his back to a wall, Navett leveled his blaster along the corridor leading to the flight deck.

This could still be nothing but a distraction.

"You see, I talked to a couple of friends this afternoon," the recording went on.

"They tell me that every time they try to get a handle on this big, loud Vengeance organization that's been making so much noise, it just kind of evaporates into nothing. Kind of like the bubble I just mentioned?nothing but hot air. Hot air blown by?dare I say it??a handful of Imperial agents."

There was a flicker of movement at the corner of Navett's eye. He glanced over to see Klif emerge from the sleeping room area and shake his head. He nodded in the direction of the cargo hold and lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

"So I guess that means it's down to just you folks and me," the old woman said.

"My New Rep friends have left?which you probably already know?and the vast organization you've been pretending to be doesn't exist. So. You and me. Should be fun."

Klif was staring at Navett, a bewildered frown on his face. "What in blazes is she talking about?" he hissed. "Is she challenging us?"

Navett shrugged.

"Oh, and help yourself to something in the galley if you want," she added. "Especially whichever of you was stuck out there watching my ship today. Stakeouts can be such thirsty work. Just put everything back in the cooler when you're done, okay?

Well, see you later. Which is not to say you'll see me, of course."

There was a soft click, and the recording stopped. "This woman is nuts," Klif declared, looking around. "Does she have any idea at all who she's dealing with?"

"I don't know," Navett said, eyeing the datapad thoughtfully. "She implied she knows we're Imperials; but she never once said anything about our covers here.

Or whether she even knows she's talked to us."

Klif grunted. "So she's fishing."

"She's fishing," Navett nodded. "More to the point, she's fishing alone. If she had any proof or official backing she'd have had more than just trick lights and a recording waiting here. Sounds like her plan now is simply to draw us out."

"So what do we do?" Klif demanded. "Keep after her?"

Navett rubbed his chin. "No, I think we'll back off," he said slowly. "If she starts wandering in too close again, we can reconsider. But with Antilles and his partner gone, she's not going to be all that effective."

He peered down the corridor toward the flight deck. "Unless she's still in here somewhere trying to get a look at us," he amended, hefting his blaster. "In which case, she's automatically vaped."

"Now you're talking," Klif growled.

"Just watch it," Navett warned. "She might have set up some booby traps."

* * *

They were there another hour, running a fine mesh over the ship before they finally gave up and left. Only three or four times after the recording shut off did they get close enough to the comlink hidden in the datapad for Moranda to pick up anything of what they were saying.

In most of those brief snippets, they were sounding pretty irritable.

Watching through her spy hole from inside the empty crate she'd set up on top of a stack of similar ones fifty meters from her ship, she watched the two of them slip out again into the bustle of activity. So she'd been right, she and Corran and Wedge. The Imperials were here, and they were planning something nasty.

And they were sufficiently rattled that they were willing to risk a murder right in the middle of the spaceport. That was very interesting.

And unless her ear had totally failed her, that careless and highly unprofessional conversation beside her rigged datapad had given her their identities: the earnest but stupid proprietors of the Exoticalia Pet Emporium.

Of course, knowing was one thing. Proving was something else entirely. And for possibly the first time in her life, that vast legal gap was going to work against her.

The Imperials had joined the pedestrians on one of the major walkways now, their postures and strides midway between casual and decisive. Imperial Intelligence, most likely, or even some of the folks from the Ubiqtorate underhanded tricks division. Either way, definitely experts who knew what they were doing.

Unfortunately, the New Republic rep in Drev'starn wouldn't be interested in any of this without proof. Neither would the Bothans.

In fact, come to think of it, there were probably still a couple of warrants outstanding against her on Bothawui. That definitely let out the Bothans.

The Imperials were gone now, vanished toward the western entrance and presumably out of the spaceport. Still, as Moranda had long ago learned, "presumably" never fed the sabacc pot or took the pets for a walk. Her new playmates might just have been irritated enough by her sneaking out on them to have left a spotter behind.

Opening her pocket flask, she took a sip of the tangy blue liqueur and consulted her chrono. Another two hours, maybe three, and it should be safe to move.

Taking another sip, she resealed the flask and settled herself comfortably against one of the corners of the crate. It was a long time since she'd dealt with an opponent of this caliber, and as long as she was stuck in here anyway she might as well start working out her next move.

* * *

"It's so good to hear your voice again, Han," Leia's voice came over the Lady Luck's speaker, and there was no mistaking the relief in her tone. "I've been so worried about you."

"Hey, hon, it was no big deal," Han assured her, only fudging the truth a little.

There would be plenty of time to tell her the whole story of their little trip to Bastion when he could hold her hand while he did it.

And besides, the last thing he wanted to put out on a HoloNet call, even an encrypted one, was the fact that Grand Admiral Thrawn was indeed still alive. "The point is that we got in and out okay and we're heading home," he went on.

"I'm glad you're safe," she said, a cautious hope creeping into her voice. "Did you?I mean??"

"We got it," Han told her. "At least, I think we got it."

There was a short pause. "What does that mean?"

"It means we got what we went for," Han said. "And it all looked all right to me.

But... well, there were a couple of complications. Let's leave it at that for now, okay?"

"Okay," she said reluctantly. Clearly not happy about letting it go like that, but as aware as he was of the limitations of HoloNet security. "But don't go to Coruscant. I'm on my way to Bothawui."

"Bothawui?"

"Yes," she said. "I was heading for Coruscant when I found out President Gavrisom was there trying to mediate this whole war fleet thing."

"Ah," Han said, frowning at the speaker. Considering he'd left her on Pakrik Minor ten days ago, she should have already been on Coruscant, not just on her way there. Had something happened with that meeting with Bel Iblis? "Your visitor get delayed or something?" he asked obliquely.

"The visitor arrived right on schedule," she said. "Only it wasn't exactly who I was expecting. And I then wound up taking a little side trip."

Han felt his hands curl into fists. "What kind of side trip?" he demanded. If someone had tried to hurt her again?"Are you all right?"

"No, no, I'm fine," she hastened to assure him. "Things just went differently than I was expecting, that's all. It's all tied in with why I have to talk to Gavrisom right away."

HoloNet security. "Yeah, all right, we'll head for Bothawui," Han said. "It'll be another couple of days before we can get there."

"That's fine," she said. "I won't be there until tomorrow myself."

Han grimaced. It would have been better if he could have gotten there ahead of her. From everything he was hearing, the sky over Bothawui was a flash point just begging to happen. "Well, you be careful, Leia, all right?"

"I will," she promised. "I'm just glad you're safe. I'll call Gavrisom right away and give him the good news about your mission."

"And tell him I'm not going to give it to him unless he promises you some real vacation time when this is over," Han warned.

"Absolutely," she agreed.

"Okay. I love you, Leia."

He could almost hear her smile. "I know," she said in their private joke. "I'll see you soon."

With a sigh, Han cut off the comm. Another two days to Bothawui, with Leia getting there a day ahead of them. Maybe Lando could get a little more speed out of this crate. He swiveled his chair around?

"So how's Leia?" Lando said from the bridge doorway.

"She's fine," Han assured him, studying his friend's face. There was something very unpleasant lurking there behind his eyes. "Sounds like she had more than just a straight run home from Pakrik Minor, though, and we have to change course for Bothawui to meet her. What's up?"

"Trouble," Lando said darkly, jerking his head over his shoulder. "Come on back a minute."

Lobot and Moegid were waiting in the aft control room when he and Lando arrived, sitting on opposite sides of the computer table. Lobot just looked like Lobot, but Moegid's antennae were twitching in a way Han had never seen a Verpine do before.

And lying on the table between them was the datacard Thrawn had given them.

"Don't tell me," he warned as Lando picked up the datacard and slid it into the computer reader. "You said it was clean."

"We thought it was," Lando said, pulling up the Caamas Document on the large plotting display. "But then Moegid thought of something else to try." He pointed to the display. "Turns out it's been altered."

A whole string of Corellian curses ran through Han's mind. None of them was adequate for the situation. "Altered how?" he asked, just for the record.

"You have to ask?" Lando growled. "The list of the Bothans involved in the attack has been changed. The one thing we absolutely needed."

Han stepped closer, peering at the display. "You're sure," he asked. Again, just for the record.

"Moegid is," Lando said, looking down at the Verpine. "It's a masterful job, but there are some tricks the Verpines have come up with over the years." He pointed at the display. "Remember how surprised we were when we first looked it over and saw how many of the top Bothan families were implicated? Well, now we know why those names are there."

"A little something to stir the pot a little more," Han said with a grimace. "And to make the rest of the New Republic trust the Bothan leadership even less than they already do."

"You got it, old friend." Lando pulled out one of the other chairs and sat down.

"Which means we're right back at square one."

Han pulled out a chair for himself. "We're not even that lucky," he said glumly.

"I already told Leia we've got the document."

"You don't think she'll keep that information to herself?"

"Normally, yes," Han said heavily. "Unfortunately... she already said she was going to give Gavrisom the good news."

"And he won't keep it to himself?"

Han shook his head. "He's on Bothawui, trying to keep a war from starting. And he's not the type to not use every tool he's got."

"So in other words, we're going to show up at Bothawui with everyone expecting us to be the heroes of the day." Lando shook his head. "Where's an Imperial ambush when you need one?"

"I wouldn't joke about that if I were you," Han warned him. "You can bet that Thrawn will be keeping the Empire off our backs on this one; but there are a lot of people on our side who won't want to see the Bothans getting the chance to slip off the hook."

Lando winced. "I hadn't thought about that. Though come to think of it... no."

"What?"

"I was just thinking about what Thrawn said about Fey'lya's people stealing those Xerrol sniper blasters," he said slowly. "But if he was lying about the Caamas Document..."

"Doesn't necessarily mean he was lying about that, too," Han said. "For that matter, we don't have any proof that Thrawn was even the one who changed those names."

Lando snorted. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Someone's going to bring it up," Han pointed out. "I can guarantee that one."

Lando muttered something under his breath. "This just gets messier and messier.

So what do we do?"

Han shrugged. "We go to Bothawui on schedule and pretend nothing is wrong. Maybe the Bothans really do know who was involved. If they do, maybe we can bluff them into coming clean."

"And if they don't, or we can't?"

Han got to his feet. "We've got two days to come up with something else. Come on, let's go turn this crate toward Bothawui."

* * *

"That's it," Tierce said with grim satisfaction, waving at the display. "They've come."

"I'm not convinced," Disra growled, peering at the computer-enhanced image on the display. "Fine, so whoever they are seem to be using TIE fighter technology.

That doesn't prove a thing."

"They flew past Bastion," Tierce pointed out. "Clearly looking us over. And we've never seen anything like this anywhere else?"

"That doesn't even prove it was from the Unknown Regions," Disra sniffed. "Let alone that it was Parck or the Hand of Thrawn or whoever."

"?and Bastion is where Thrawn was last reported being seen," Tierce finished with a note of finality in his voice. "Doubt all you like, Your Excellency, but I can tell you right now that the scheme has worked. Thrawn's old allies are finally nosing around the bait."

"I hope you're right," Disra said. "With the Bothawui flash postponed, and with Pellaeon probably springing Vermel from Rimcee Station right at this moment?"

"I told you not to worry about that," Tierce said with some asperity. "There's no way he can hurt us."

"Who can't hurt us?" Flim's voice asked from off to the left.

Disra turned to see Flim emerge from the secret door. The con man had been doing a lot of that lately, he'd noticed: skulking around quietly eavesdropping on his two partners. As if he didn't trust them. "Admiral Pellaeon," Tierce told him. "We were just speculating that he and Colonel Vermel will probably be coming by at some point to demand an explanation for how we've been mistreating them."

"And were you also speculating about that alien ship that buzzed past Bastion a couple of days ago?" Flim demanded. "Or were you going to wait until the Hand of Thrawn knocked on the palace gate before you mentioned it?"

"I can assure you that the first thing they do will not be to show up here in person," Tierce said. "These are very cagey people, Admiral. Which, considering the card they're holding, they have every right to be. No, their first contact will be a cautious transmission from somewhere in deep space where they can make a fast escape if they decide it's necessary."

"I fail to see how that helps us any," Flim said icily. "One way or the other, they're still going to want to talk to Thrawn."

"Of course they are," Tierce explained patiently. "But calling in from off-planet allows me to take a message for you and to shake some useful information out of them along the way. Trust me, Admiral, I've been planning for this moment for a long time."

Flim grimaced. "That's going to be very comforting if Parck sees straight through it and blasts Bastion to rubble."

Tierce shook his head. "These people were extremely loyal to Thrawn, Admiral," he said. "No matter how cautious and skeptical they appear on the surface, they want Thrawn to have survived Bilbringi. You're a con man; surely you understand the effect wishful thinking has on a target."

"Oh, it's very useful," Flim grumbled. "It also means they're twice as dangerous when you finally pull the rug out from under them. Speaking of dangerous, did either of you know that General Bel Iblis has disappeared?"

Tierce and Disra exchanged glances. "What are you talking about?" Disra asked.

"We got a message from the strike team on Bothawui a couple of hours ago, " Flim said, strolling forward and tossing a datacard onto the desk. "He said a couple of Rogue Squadron pilots who'd been sniffing around had suddenly pulled out and left the system. He suggested that might mean Bel Iblis was up to something."

"Could be." Tierce nodded, stepping to the desk and picking up the datacard. "Let me check on it."

"I already did," Flim said, pulling over a chair and sitting down. "The official story is that Bel Iblis is out at Kothlis putting together a New Republic force to protect Bothawui. But if you start poking through the data, you can't find any evidence that he's anywhere near Bothan space."

"How did you learn about all this?" Disra interrupted.

Flim lifted his eyebrows in polite surprise. "I'm Grand Admiral Thrawn, Your Excellency," he reminded him. "I called Intelligence and asked."

"Did you get a written report?" Tierce asked him. He had the datacard in his datapad now and was skimming through it.

"It's at the end of that record," Flim told him. "They were quite helpful, actually?asked me if I'd like someone to do a flyby around Kothlis and see what they could find out."

"Waste of time," Tierce said, his voice starting to sound a little odd. "If Kothlis is a cover story, Bel Iblis will have made it far too vac-tight for any casual flyby to pick up on."

"That's exactly what I told them," Flim said smugly. "I'm starting to pick up a genuine feel for tactics, if I do say so myself."

"Don't flatter yourself," Tierce said absently, gazing at the datapad. "And in the future, kindly do not interact with anyone without Moff Disra or myself present. Now be quiet and let me think."

Disra watched the Guardsman's face, an unpleasant sensation creeping over him.

Tierce seemed to be doing more and more of this sort of thing lately, this staring off into space as if in some kind of trance as he thought. Was the pressure and strain starting to get to him? Or had he always been this way and Disra simply hadn't noticed?

Abruptly, Tierce's head snapped up. "Admiral, you said that the D'ulin woman had called one of the Mistryl leaders to come talk with us?"

"Yes," Flim said. "Last I heard, she was on her way here."

"Have D'ulin get in touch with her and tell her to change course," Tierce instructed him. "Tell her we'll meet with her instead at Yaga Minor."

"Yaga Minor?" Disra repeated, frowning.

"Yes," Tierce said, smiling tightly. "I believe we may be able to give the Mistryl a live demonstration of Thrawn's tactical genius. And help convince Captain Parck that Thrawn is indeed back; and deliver a humiliating blow to one of Coruscant's best and brightest in the bargain."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Disra protested. "You've lost me."

"I think he's trying to tell us Bel Iblis is going to be insane enough to hit Yaga Minor," Flim said, staring in obvious disbelief at Tierce.

The Guardsman inclined his head slightly. "Very good, Admiral. Only it's not insane?it's their very last chance to avert a civil war. Who better to send than Bel Iblis?"

"I think Flim was right the first time," Disra said. "You're talking about the Caamas Document; but they've already got the copy we gave Solo and Calrissian."

"But Bel Iblis doesn't know about that." Tierce tapped the datapad. "According to the report, he vanished to this supposed Kothlis buildup eight days before that traitor Carib Devist brought his falsified data to the Parshoone Ubiqtorate station, which was how Solo found Bastion. Assuming Bel Iblis has been basically out of contact with Coruscant?and that's the likely situation?he won't know anything about Solo's Bastion trip."

"And what if he checks in before he leaves for the attack and they tell him to stand down?" Disra countered.

"Then we simply impress the Mistryl with the size and power of an Imperial Ubiqtorate base," Tierce said. "They don't need to know we're expecting an attack until it actually happens."

He looked at Flim. "It's a classic con technique," he added. "If the target doesn't know what's supposed to happen, he can't be disappointed if it doesn't."

"He's right about that," Flim agreed.

"All right, fine," Disra said. "And what if Coruscant changes its mind and sends Bel Iblis to attack Bastion instead?"

Tierce shrugged. "On what grounds? We've given them the Caamas Document?"

"Altered."

"Which they don't know about and have no way of proving," Tierce reminded him. "The point is that if Bel Iblis so much as pokes his nose into this system they'll be handing us a propaganda weapon they'll regret for years to come. Give me some holos of an unprovoked New Republic attack on Bastion, and I'll have a thousand systems seceding from Coruscant in the first month alone. "

"Besides, Your Excellency," Flim said with a casual wave of his hand, "even if Bel Iblis did hit Bastion, the three of us will still be safe at Yaga Minor.

Unless you're so attached to your comforts here you couldn't bear to give them up."

"I was merely pointing out," Disra said stiffly, "that it would look bad for Thrawn to be somewhere else when the Imperial capital was under attack."

"Don't worry about it," Tierce said with a tone of finality in his voice. "Bel Iblis won't hit Bastion; and he will hit Yaga Minor. And once we've defeated him, we'll see the Empire's prestige rise considerably."

"We might also finally push Coruscant into launching a full-scale attack at us," Disra warned.

Tierce shook his head. "In five days Coruscant will have a civil war on its hands," he said. "And long before they're ready to turn any attention this direction, we'll have Parck and the Hand of Thrawn."

His eyes glittered. "And this time, there will be nothing that can stop us.

Nothing at all."

* * *

The corridor was long and drab and gray, lined with equally drab doors. Locked doors, of course?this was a prison, after all. The walls and ceiling were solid metal, the floor a metal grating that gave off a pair of hollow-sounding clinks with every footstep.

They were certainly making a lot of those clinks at the moment, Pellaeon thought, listening to the sound echo off the walls as he strode down the corridor toward the secondary security post just around the corner at the far end. It sounded like a parade, in fact, or a sudden burst of rain on a thin metal roof.

And those ahead had taken notice of the commotion. Already four of the guards had poked black-helmeted heads around the corner to see what all the commotion was about. Two of those guards were still visible; the others had ducked back out of sight, presumably to report to whoever was manning the security post.

The other two guards had reappeared by the time Pellaeon reached the corner, all four of them now standing stiffly at full military attention. Without a word or glance Pellaeon passed through the group and rounded the corner.

Four more guards were standing at attention behind the security post desk, three meters in front of an extra-secure-looking cell door. Seated at the desk, gazing up at Pellaeon with a mixture of uncertainty and surliness in his face, was a young major. He opened his mouth to speak?

"I'm Admiral Pellaeon," Pellaeon cut him off. "Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet. Open the door."

The major's cheek twitched. "I'm sorry, Admiral, but I have orders that the prisoner is to be kept strictly incommunicado."

For a few seconds Pellaeon just stared at him, a glare developed and honed and fine-tuned by long decades of Imperial command. "I'm Admiral Pellaeon," he said at last, biting out each word, his tone the verbal counterpart of that blade-edged glare. He'd been willing to give the guards the benefit of the doubt, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to put up with any nonsense whatsoever. "Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet. Open the door."

The major swallowed visibly. His eyes flicked away from Pellaeon to the dozen stormtroopers visible in the corridor behind him, his mind perhaps flicking to the other twelve stormtroopers out of sight around the corner that his guards would have told him about, then came reluctantly back to Pellaeon's face again.

"My orders come from Moff Disra himself, sir," he said, the words coming out with difficulty.

Beside Pellaeon, the stormtrooper commander stirred. "Moff Disra is a civilian," Pellaeon reminded the major, giving him one last chance. "And I'm countermanding those orders."

The major took a careful breath. "Yes, sir," he said, capitulating at last. Half turning, he nodded to one of the guards.

The guard, who had also been eyeing the stormtroopers and had obviously already done the math, showed no hesitation whatsoever. Stepping quickly to the cell door behind him, he keyed it open and moved smartly aside.

"Wait here,'' Pellaeon told the stormtrooper commander, rounding the desk and stepping into the cell, his pulse pounding in his neck. If Disra had somehow managed to get word here through the transmission blockade and ordered all witnesses disposed of...

Seated at a small table, a hand of single sabacc laid out in front of him, Colonel Vermel looked up, his eyes widening in astonishment. "Admiral!" he said, clearly not sure he believed it. "I?"

Abruptly, he scrambled to his feet. "Colonel Meizh Vermel, Admiral," he said briskly. "Request permission to return to duty, sir."

"Request granted, Colonel," Pellaeon said, not bothering to hide his relief. "And may I say how pleased I am to find you looking so well."

"Thank you, Admiral," Vermel said, heaving a sigh of relief of his own as he stepped around the table. "I hope you didn't come alone."

"Don't worry," Pellaeon assured him grimly, waving Vermel to the cell door. "I haven't exactly taken over Rimcee Station; but my men are in position to do so if any of Disra's people take exception to our leaving."

"Yes, sir," Vermel said, throwing an odd look back at him. "Regardless, may I suggest we hurry?"

"My sentiments exactly," Pellaeon agreed, frowning. There had been something in that look...

They passed the major and the guard station without comment and headed around the corner. The stormtroopers, as per Pellaeon's earlier instructions, fell into full escort array with twelve each front and rear. "You didn't sound very confident when I mentioned Disra's people a minute ago," Pellaeon commented as they headed down the long corridor.

"It may not be Disra's authority you'll have to go up against, Admiral," Vermel said, moving a bit closer to Pellaeon as if worried about being overheard. "When Captain Dorja brought me aboard after intercepting my ship at Morishim, he said he'd been personally ordered to do so by Grand Admiral Thrawn."

Pellaeon felt his throat tighten. "Thrawn."

"Yes, sir," Vermel said. "I've been hoping it was just some trick of Disra's?I remember you mentioning how totally against these peace talks he was. But Dorja seemed so sure."

"Yes," Pellaeon murmured. "I've heard some of those rumors myself. He's allegedly been seen by various people in the New Republic, too."

Vermel was silent a moment. "But you haven't actually seen him yourself?"

"No." Pellaeon braced himself. "But I think it's time I did," he said. "If he has indeed returned."

"You might be in trouble with him for pulling me out," Vermel pointed out reluctantly, glancing back over his shoulder. "Perhaps it would be better if I went back."

"No," Pellaeon said firmly. "Thrawn never punished his officers for doing what they sincerely thought was right. Especially when he hadn't given them orders or the necessary information to understand otherwise."

They reached the end of the corridor and turned into the main guard nexus. The guards and officers were still sitting where Pellaeon had left them, glowering under the silently watchful eye of yet another contingent of the Chimaera's stormtroopers. "No, we're going to go back to Bastion and see what Moff Disra has to say about all this," he continued as they passed through the nexus and headed toward the landing bay where their shuttles were berthed. "If the rumors are false, then we should have no further trouble with Moff Disra. Commander Dreyf and I have obtained a set of datacards?in Disra's personal encrypt, no less?that lays out his entire operation: names, places, and deals, including all his links to the Cavrilhu Pirates and various shady financiers on both sides of the border."

He felt his face harden. "And including the details of his efforts to incite civil war within the New Republic. That alone should be worth a great deal to us in any future negotiations with Coruscant. It will certainly put Disra away for a long time."

"Yes, sir," Vermel murmured. "And if the rumors are true?"

Pellaeon swallowed. "If the rumors are true, we'll deal with them then."

Vermel nodded. "Yes, sir."

"In the meantime," Pellaeon went on conversationally, "your last report is far overdue. I'd like to hear exactly what happened at Morishim."

CHAPTER

31

The preparations had taken six hours: six hours of frantic work as every flight-worthy spaceship on Exocron was hurriedly fitted out for battle. It took another hour to get the whole ensemble into space, and one more to arrange them into something resembling a combat perimeter. And with that, their estimated eight-hour grace period was over.

And now, with the entire Rei'Kas pirate gang on its way, the most pitiful defense fleet Shada had ever seen stood by in trembling readiness to defend its world or die trying.

Most likely, to die trying.

"Report from ground, Adm'ral David," Chin reported from the Wild Karrde's bridge comm station, looking over at the helm. "Supreme Adm'ral Darr says we all in good position. Also says Airfleet ships ready if pirates get past."

Looming over Dankin, his hands clasped stiffly behind his back, Admiral Trey David nodded. "Very good," he said, his formal tone nevertheless hinting at a great deal of energy below the surface. "Signal the rest of the fleet to be ready. They could be here at any moment."

"Oh, my," Threepio said miserably from beside Shada at the spotting station. "I do so hate space combat."

"I can't argue with you on this one," Shada agreed, looking over her status board. She had wondered at first?wondered with a great deal of suspicion, actually?why Admiral David would ask to direct the battle from the Wild Karrde instead of one of Exocron's own combat ships. But her subsequent assessment of those ships and their capabilities had unfortunately provided her with the answer.

Eight hours ago, she had snidely suggested to Entoo Nee that the Exocron space force might find anything more formidable than an occasional smuggler beyond its strength. Never before in her life had one of her offhanded comments nailed the truth so accurately.

There was a brush of air beside her. "It becomes a waiting game now," Karrde said, kneeling down beside her seat. "What do you think?"

"We haven't got a chance," Shada told him bluntly. "Not unless Rei'Kas doesn't bother to send anything bigger than the Corsairs he hit us with at Dayark."

She thought she'd spoken quietly enough for only Karrde to hear. David apparently had good ears. "No, he'll bring everything he has," the admiral assured her. "His full armada, with himself at the head of it. He's wanted to get his hands on Exocron's wealth for a long time."

He smiled tightly. "Besides which, I understand from Entoo Nee that you gave him something of a bruised eye at Dayark. For the revenge part alone he'd be sure to be here."

Shada felt Karrde's silent sigh as a breath of warm air on her cheek. "Which may ultimately give us our only real chance," he said. "If we can pretend to start running, we may be able to draw enough of them away for your forces to deal with the rest."

"Possibly," David agreed. "Not that that would do us personally much good, of course."

"It's my fault he's here," Karrde reminded him. "It's not too late for you to transfer to one of the other ships?"

At the sensor station, H'sishi suddenly snarled. [They come,] she announced. [Three Sienar Marauder-class Corvettes, four Duapherm Discril-class Attack Cruisers, four combat-modified CSA Etti Lighter freighters, and eighteen Corsair-class attack vessels.]

"Confirmed," Shada said, running her eyes over her spotting displays, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The Wild Karrde could take any one of those ships or give any two of them a decent fight. But all of them together...

"Stand by turbolasers," Karrde said, rising to his feet beside her.

"Turbolasers standing by," Shada confirmed, keying targeting information over to the three weapons stations. Just because it was hopeless didn't mean they shouldn't do their best. "Looks like the Corsairs are forming up a screen around the bigger ships."

"Cap't?" Chin called from the comm. "We getting call from one of the Marauders.

You want make him an answer?"

Shada could feel Karrde tense. "Yes, go ahead," he said.

Chin keyed the comm?"Hey, there, Karrde," a familiar gloating voice boomed from the bridge speaker. "I told you you'd see me again before you died, didn't I?"

"Yes, Xern, you did," Karrde agreed, his voice betraying none of the tension Shada knew he was feeling. "I'm surprised you're still alive after that fiasco at Dayark. Rei'Kas must be going soft in his old age."

From the background came a distant flurry of Rodian invective. "Rei'Kas says he'll maybe save you for last for that one," Xern said. "You like that, huh?"

Across the bridge, David cleared his throat. "Rei'Kas, this is Admiral Trey David of the Exocron Combined Air-Space Fleet," he said.

"Oh, an admiral, huh?" Xern said sarcastically. "You mean this collection of scrap rates a whole admiral?"

"You're in violation of Exocron space," David said calmly, ignoring the insult.

"This is your last chance to withdraw peaceably."

Xern laughed. "Oh, that's rich. That's really rich. We definitely got to save you for last. Then we can gut you all and feed you to the scavengers."

There was another burst of Rodian. "Hey, we got to go, Karrde?time to make the big scrap into lots of little scrap. See you later, Admiral."

The comm keyed off. "They're sure well stocked in the confidence department, aren't they?" Shada murmured.

"Yes," Karrde said. His hand brushed past her shoulder, hesitated, then came back almost reluctantly to rest there. "I'm sorry, Shada," he said, his voice just loud enough for her to hear. "I should never have brought you into this."

"It's all right," Shada said. So this was it: the end of the long journey. Back at the Orowood Tower, facing the Noghri and their blasters, she had been ready to die. Had almost hoped they would overreact and kill her, in fact. The easy way out, she had thought then.

Now, facing the incoming pirates, she realized that there were no easy ways out.

No way of dying that didn't involve abandoning a responsibility, or leaving necessary work undone?

She glanced up at Karrde, gazing out the viewport, his face set in hard lines.

Or, indeed, of leaving friends behind.

Distantly, she wondered when in all of this she had started to think of Karrde as a friend.

She didn't know. But it didn't matter. What mattered was doing their best to clean up the mess they'd created here. Shifting her attention back to her displays, she began tagging primary and secondary targets. The leading ships were almost in range...

"Signal to all ships," Admiral David announced. "Pull back. Repeat: pull back."

Shada flashed him a frown. "What?"

"I said pull back," David repeated, flashing an almost curious look at her in return. "Which part didn't you understand?"

Shada started to say something blistering; choked it back as Karrde squeezed her shoulder warningly. "She was thinking about the fact that the Wild Karrde isn't as maneuverable close in to a gravitational field as it is in open space," he told David. "Neither are most of the ships in your fleet."

"Understood," David said. "The order remains. Pull back."

"Chief?" Dankin asked.

Shada glanced up again. Karrde was looking at David, measuring the man with his eyes. "Transmit the order, Chin," he said, his tone suddenly thoughtful. "Dankin, go ahead and retreat, but keep us in formation with the other ships. Shada, have the gunners lay down covering fire."

"Right." Shada keyed her intercom, her eyes searching the displays as she tried to figure out what was going on. The usual tactical reason for pulling back toward a planetary surface was to lure an enemy within range of either ground-based weapons or a surface-launched ambush. But every ship Exocron had was already up here, and H'sishi's sensor probes would certainly have picked up any ground weaponry powerful enough to reach this far into space.

The fleet was beginning to move now, backing toward Exocron as ordered. Some of the armed civilian ships were already firing uselessly at the Corsairs arrowing silently in at them, wasting energy on out-of-range targets. Shada looked at David, but either he hadn't noticed or didn't especially care what they did.

Were the civilians nothing but sacrificial lures to him? "Keep retreating," he said instead. "All ships."

The Corsairs were nearly in range, the larger warships formed up behind them now in a straightforward assault line. Little wonder; considering the opposition, there was no need for them to try anything fancy. A. straight slice through the ships arrayed against them, then probably a low strafing loop over Exocron's major population centers, taking out Supreme Admiral Darr's pitiful Airfleet along the way...

"Keep retreating," David said again. "Tactical display, please."

H'sishi hissed acknowledgment and the tactical overlay came up. The defenders were all well within Exocron's gravity field now, far too late for any of them to change their minds and try to escape to hyperspace. Was that what David was going for? Shada wondered. Putting them in a position where they had no choice but to fight to the death?

Even as that disturbing thought occurred to her, the last of the pirates passed within that invisible boundary, as well. They were all totally committed to this battle now. Neither the attackers nor the defenders would be leaving Exocron until one side or the other had been destroyed.

"Here they come," David murmured.

Shada looked at him, a bitter retort bubbling in her throat. Of course they were coming?

And abruptly, H'sishi snarled in disbelief.

Shada snapped her attention back to the viewport. The pirates were still there, still coming.

But they weren't the ones David had been referring to. Behind the pirates' line, something else had appeared.

It was a spaceship, of course. But it was a ship like nothing Shada had ever seen. Roughly ovoid, half again as big as the Marauders, it was covered with thick hull plates that gave it the appearance of some sort of armored sea creature. Conical projections, possibly exhaust ports or thruster pods, jutted out from the hull with no symmetry or pattern that Shada could spot. A magnified image popped up on one of the displays, showing an intricate array of symbols and alien glyphs covering the hull. At close range, the hull itself looked disturbingly like something alive...

Someone on the bridge swore, very quietly. Shada looked at the viewport again, just in time to see three more of the ships wink into existence. Not jump in, with the characteristic flicker of pseudomotion of a normal hyperspace jump, but simply appear.

And then, almost casually, the first alien ship drove up behind one of Rei'Kas's Marauders; and with a glittering, filigreed sheet of blue-green energy discharge sliced it in half.

H'sishi snarled. [What are these?] she demanded.

"They're called the Aing-Tii monks," David said, his tone a strange mixture of satisfaction and awe. "Alien beings who spend most of their lives near the Kathol Rift. There's not a lot we know about them."

"Yet they're coming to your aid," Karrde pointed out. "More significantly, you knew they would."

"They hate slavers," David said. "Rei'Kas is a slaver. It's very simple."

A second Marauder flashed with fire and streaming air as one of the other Aing-Tii ships sent another of the strange flower-blossoms of energy through its side.

Ahead of the wrecked ships, the confident battle line collapsed as the remaining attackers swung around to face this new threat that had appeared so unexpectedly behind them. But to no avail. The Aing-Tii ships shrugged off the frantic turbolaser fire with ease as they systematically drove through the attackers' ranks, cutting up the larger ships and crushing the smaller ones against their own hulls.

"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple, Admiral," Karrde said to David. "According to Bombaasa, Rei'Kas has been setting up in this area for the past year. Why did your Aing-Tii wait this long to move against them?"

"As I said, they prefer to stay near the Rift," David said. "It takes something special to make them come out even as far as Exocron."

"In other words," Karrde said quietly, "you needed someone to lure Rei'Kas into their territory. And that someone was us."

David didn't move, but Shada could see a subtle new tension now in his face and posture. Perhaps wondering what would happen to him if a bridge full of hardened smugglers decided to be offended at having been used as bait. "It was your actions we used, Captain Karrde," he said. "Your decision to come to Exocron, and your inability to keep Rei'Kas's people from tracking you. It wasn't you personally we were using."

His eyes flicked around the bridge. "Not any of you."

For a long moment the bridge was silent. Shada looked back at the viewport, to find the destruction of the pirates nearly complete. Only three of the Aing-Tii were visible now, and as she watched another of them winked out, leaving as mysteriously as it had arrived. The last two alien ships stayed just long enough to finish their task before they too vanished into the darkness.

"You say we" Karrde said. "Is that just you and the rest of the Exocron military?"

"That's an odd question," David said obliquely. "Who else could be involved?"

"Who, indeed?" Karrde murmured. "Chin, open a transmission frequency to the surface. Threepio, I want a message translated into Old Tarmidian for me."

Shada looked up at him. Karrde's face was carved from stone, his expression unreadable. "Old Tarmidian?" she asked, frowning. "Car'das's language?"

He nodded. "Here's the message, Threepio: 'This is Karrde. I'd like permission to come down and see you again.' "

"Of course, Captain Karrde," Threepio said, moving uncertainly over toward the comm station. Chin nodded, and the droid leaned over his shoulder. "Merirao Karrde tuliak," he said. "Mu parril'an se'tuffriad moa sug po'porai?"

He looked back at Karrde. "You understand, of course, that there may not be an answer for some time?"

"Se'po brus tai," a voice boomed from the speaker, making the droid jump.

A strong, vibrant voice, with no hint of weakness or illness. Shada looked up at Karrde again, to find his stonelike expression had hardened even further. "Translation?" he asked.

Threepio seemed to brace himself. "He said, sir... come ahead."

* * *

Entoo Nee was waiting for them as the Wild Karrde put down again in Circle 15 of the Rintatta City landing field. His casual manner, his cheerful chatter, and the landspeeder ride along with Shada and Threepio toward the pale blue house against the mountain were like a ghostly repetition of Karrde's last trip through the area a few hours earlier.

But there was one big difference. Then, the driving emotions behind his mood had been fear and dread and the morbid contemplation of his own looming death. Now...

Now, he wasn't sure what his mood was. Puzzlement and uncertainty, perhaps, tinged with a hint of resentment at having been twitched along like a puppet.

And overlaying it all a renewed haze of dread. Car'das, he couldn't help remembering, had always spoken fondly of predators who played with their prey before finally killing them.

The blue house itself was unchanged, just as old and sagging and dusty as it had been before. But as Entoo Nee led the way to the bedroom door, Karrde noted that the odor of age and sickness had vanished.

And this time the door opened by itself as they approached. Steeling himself, only vaguely aware that Shada had deftly inserted a shoulder in front of him, the two of them together stepped through the door.

The built-in shelves, with all their useless knickknacks and exotic medical supplies, were gone. The sickbed and its stacks of blankets were gone.

And standing where the bed had been, still just as old but now as vitally alive as he had been feeble then, was Jorj Car'das.

"Hello, Karrde," Car'das said, the vast network of facial wrinkles shifting as he smiled. "It's good to see you again."

"Not that it's been all that long," Karrde said stiffly. "I congratulate you on your amazing recovery."

The smile didn't even falter. "You're angry with me, of course," Car'das said calmly. "I understand that. But it'll all become clear soon. In the meantime?"

He half turned and waved at the back wall; and abruptly the wall was no longer there. In its place was a long tunnel equipped with four guiderails that faded off into the distance. Just beyond where the wall had been, an enclosed quadrail car was waiting. "Let me take you across to my real home," Car'das continued. "It's much more comfortable than this place."

He waved a hand toward the car, and a side door swung invitingly open in response. "Please; after you."

Karrde looked at the open door, an odd tightness squeezing his heart. Predators playing with their prey... "Why don't just you and I go?" he offered instead. "Shada and Threepio can return to the Wild Karrde?"

"No," Shada cut him off firmly. "You want to show someone around, Car'das, you take me. Then if?if?I decide it's safe, I'll consider letting Karrde join us."

"Really," Car'das said, regarding her with such obvious amusement that Karrde found himself cringing. Being amused at someone like Shada wasn't an especially healthy thing to do. "Such quick and short-tempered loyalty you inspire in your people, Karrde."

"She's not one of my people," Karrde told him quickly. "She was asked to come along by High Councilor Leia Organa Solo of the New Republic. She has absolutely nothing to do with me, or with anything I might have done in the past?"

"Please," Car'das interrupted, holding up a hand. "I admit this is highly entertaining to watch. But in all seriousness, you're both worrying about nothing."

He looked Karrde straight in the eye. "I'm not the man you once knew, Talon," he said quietly. "Please give me the chance to prove that."

Karrde let his eyes drift away from that unblinking gaze. Predators playing with their prey...

But if Car'das truly wanted them dead, it didn't really matter whether they played along or not. "All right," he said. "Come on, Shada."

"Excuse me, sir?" Threepio spoke up hesitantly. "I presume you won't be needing me any further?"

"No, no, please," Car'das said, waving the droid forward. "I'd love to sit down later and have a chat with you?it's been such a long time since I've had anyone I could speak Old Tarmidian with." He smiled over at Entoo Nee. "Entoo Nee tries, but it's not the same."

"Not really, no," Entoo Nee conceded regretfully.

"So please join us," Car'das added to Threepio. "By the way, you don't also happen to know the Cincher dialectory, do you?"

Threepio seemed to brighten. "Of course I do, sir," he said, pride temporarily superseding nervousness. "I am fluent in over six million?"

"Excellent," Car'das said. "Let's be going, then."

A minute later they were all in the quadrail car, speeding smoothly down the tunnel. "I mostly keep to myself these days," Car'das commented, "but occasionally I still need to deal with Exocron officialdom. I use that house back there for such meetings. It's convenient and keeps them from being overawed by my real home."

"They know who you are?" Shada asked, her tone just short of a demand. "I mean, who you really are?"

Car'das shrugged. "They have bits and pieces of my past," he said. "But as you'll soon see, much of that history is now irrelevant."

"Well, before we get to history, let's try some current events," Shada said. "Starting with these Aing-Tii monks of yours. David can spin his anti-slaver slant all he wants, but we all know there's more to it than that. You called them in, didn't you?"

"The Aing-Tii and I have had some dealings together," Car'das agreed soberly, his wrinkled face thoughtful. Abruptly he smiled. "But that's history again, isn't it? All in its proper time."

"Fine," Shada said. "Let's try again. David says you didn't use us to lure Rei'Kas in. I say you did."

Car'das looked at Karrde. "I like her, Talon," he declared. "She has a fine spirit." He shifted his eyes to Shada. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in a new job, would you?"

"I wasted a dozen years with a smuggling gang, Car'das," Shada growled. "I'm not interested in joining another."

"Ah," he said with a nod. "Forgive me. Here we are."

The tunnel had come to an end in a small, well-lighted room. Car'das popped the door and bounded out as the quadrail slid smoothly to a stop. "Come, come," he urged the others. "You're going to love this place, Talon, you really are. All ready? Let's go."

Almost bouncing with childlike anticipation, he led the way to an archway-topped door. He waved his hand as he approached; and as the wall at the blue house had done, the door simply vanished.

And stretched out beyond the doorway was a dream world.

Karrde stepped through, his first impression being that they had stepped out into the open air into a meticulously tended garden. Directly in front of them was a wide expanse of flowers and small plants and shrubs, all carefully and artistically arranged, stretching for perhaps a hundred meters ahead of them. A winding path led through the garden, with stone benches set at various points along it. At its side edges the garden gave way to a forest of tall trees of dozens of different species, with leaves whose colors varied from dark blue to brilliant red. From somewhere within the forest came the bubbling sound of water running over a rock-bottomed creek, but from their position he couldn't see where it was.

It wasn't until he followed the tallest trees up to their tops that he spotted the sky-blue dome above them. A dome that flowed down into unobtrusive walls behind the stands of trees...

"Yes, it's all inside," Car'das confirmed. "Very much inside, in fact? we're under one of the mountains to the east of Rintatta City. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"You tend it yourself?" Karrde asked.

"I do most of the work," Car'das said, starting forward toward the path. "But there are a few others, as well. This way."

He led them through the garden to a concealed door between two red-trunked trees on the far side. "Must have been some job putting all this together," Shada commented as the door again vanished at a wave of Car'das's hand. "Your Aing-Tii friends help?"

"In an indirect way, yes," Car'das said. "This is my conversation room. As beautiful as the garden, in its own way."

"Yes," Karrde agreed, looking around. The conversation room was laid out in more or less classic High Alderaanian style, done up in dark wood and intertwined plants, with the same feeling of expansiveness as the garden outside. "What did you mean by indirect help?"

"It's rather ironic, really," Car'das said, angling off through the conversation room toward a door to their right. "When I arrived on Exocron I started building my home under these mountains purely for defensive reasons. Now that defense is no longer an issue, I find I enjoy the place for its solitude."

Karrde glanced at Shada. Defense no longer an issue? "Was Rei'Kas that much of a threat?"

Car'das frowned. "Rei'Kas? Oh, no, Talon, you misunderstand. Rei'Kas was a threat, certainly, but only to the rest of Exocron. I helped get rid of him in order to protect my neighbors, but I myself was in no danger at all. Come; you'll particularly want to see this."

He waved the door away, and gestured them forward. Karrde stepped inside?

And stopped in amazement. He was standing at the outer rim of a circular room that appeared to be even bigger across than the garden they'd just left. The floor of the room dipped, amphitheater fashion, toward the center, where he could see the edge of what looked like a work station or computer desk. Arrayed in concentric circles around the desk, with only narrow walkways separating them, were circle after circle of two-meter-high data cases.

And filling each of the shelves on each of the data cases were datacards.

Thousands and thousands of datacards.

"Knowledge, Talon," Car'das said quietly from beside him. "Information. My passion, once; my weapon and my defense and my comfort." He shook his head. "Amazing, isn't it, what we sometimes persuade ourselves are the most important things in life."

"Yes," Karrde murmured. Car'das's library... and the Caamas Document.

"So Entoo Nee lied to us," Shada spoke up, the edge in her voice cutting into Karrde's sense of wonder. "He said he didn't know what happened to your library."

"Entoo Nee?" Car'das called. "Did you lie to them?"

"Not at all, Jorj," Entoo Nee's distant voice protested from behind them. Karrde turned, to see the little man still on the far side of the conversation room, busying himself with drinks. "I merely said that whatever you had done with it had been done before I came to be in your service."

"Which is perfectly true," Car'das agreed, gesturing them back out of the library. "But come sit down. I know you have so many questions."

"Let me start with the most important one," Karrde said, not moving. "The reason we came here was to look for a vitally important historical document. It involves?"

"Yes, I know," Car'das said with a sigh. "The Caamas Document."

"You know about that?" Shada asked.

"I'm not the frail bedridden old man you met a few hours ago," Car'das reminded her mildly. "I still have a few sources of information, and I try to keep in touch with what's happening back home." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, I can't help you. As soon as the Caamas matter first broke I checked through all my files to see if I had a copy. But I'm afraid I don't."

Karrde felt his heart sink. "You're absolutely sure?"

Car'das nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Karrde nodded back. After all the work and danger in getting here, there it was.

The end of the road; and at its finish, an empty hand.

Shada wasn't ready to let it go quite that easily. "And what if you had found a copy?" she demanded. "You can talk all you want about keeping in touch, but the fact is that for the past twenty years you've been taking it easy out here and letting everyone else do all the work."

Car'das lifted his eyebrows. "Suspicious and unforgiving both," he commented. "That's rather sad. Isn't there anyone or anything you trust?"

"I'm a professional bodyguard," Shada bit out. "Trust isn't part of the job. And don't try to change the subject. You sat out the whole Rebellion, not to mention Thrawn's first bid for power. Why?"

Something unreadable flicked across Car'das's face. "Thrawn," he murmured, his eyes sweeping slowly around his library. "A most interesting person, indeed. I have most of his history with the Empire on file here?pulled it all out recently, reading through it. There's more to his story than meets the eye?I'm convinced of it. Far more."

"You still haven't answered my question," Shada said.

Car'das lifted his eyebrows. "I wasn't aware you'd asked one," he said. "All I heard were accusations that I'd been letting others do all the work. But if that was intended as a question..." He smiled. "I suppose it's true, in a way. But only in a way. I've merely let others do their work, while I've been doing mine.

But come?Entoo Nee's rusc'te will be getting cold."

He led the way across the conversation room to the sunken circle. Entoo Nee was waiting patiently there, his now loaded tray set on a pillar table. "What have you told the lady about me, Talon?" Car'das asked as he gestured the two of them to seats on one side of the circle. "Just to avoid repeating things."

"I've told her the basics," Karrde said, gingerly sitting down. Despite all of the geniality and surface friendliness, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more going on beneath the surface. "How you started the organization, then abruptly left twenty years ago."

"And did you tell her about my kidnapping by the Bpfasshi Dark Jedi?" Car'das asked, his tone suddenly odd. "That's where it all really began."

Karrde threw a glance at Shada. "I mentioned it, yes."

Car'das sighed, not looking up at Entoo Nee as the latter put a steaming cup into his hands. "It was a terrible experience," he said quietly, gazing into the cup. "Possibly the first time in my life I'd felt truly and genuinely terrified.

He was half mad with rage?maybe more than half mad?with all of Darth Vader's power and none of his self-control. One of my crewmen he physically ripped to shreds, literally tearing his body apart. The other three he took over mentally, twisting and searing their minds and turning them into little more than living extensions of himself. Me?"

He took a careful sip of his drink. "Me, he left mostly alone," he continued. "I'm still not sure why, unless he thought he might need my knowledge of ports and spacelanes to make his escape. Or perhaps he simply wanted an intact mind left aboard who could recognize his power and greatness and be properly frightened by it."

He sipped again. "We headed across the spacelanes, dodging or avoiding the forces gathering against him. I thought up scheme after scheme to defeat him as we traveled, none of which ever made it past the planning stage for the simple reason that he knew about each of them almost before I did. I got the feeling that my pitiful efforts greatly amused him.

"Finally, for reasons I still don't entirely understand, we made for a little backwater system not even important enough to make it onto most of the charts. A planet with nothing but swamps and dank forests and frozen slush.

"A planet named Dagobah."

There was a whiff of some exotic spice from Karrde's side, and he looked up to see Entoo Nee hand him his cup. The little man's usual cheerful expression had vanished, replaced by a profound seriousness Karrde had never seen in him before.

"I don't know if the Dark Jedi expected to be all alone down there," Car'das went on. "But if he did, he was quickly disappointed. We'd barely stepped outside the ship when we spotted a funny-looking little creature with big, pointed ears standing at the edge of the clearing where we'd put down.

"He was a Jedi Master named Yoda. I don't know whether that was his home, or whether he had just flown in specially for the occasion. What I do know is that he was definitely waiting for us."

An odd shiver ran through Car'das's thin body. "I won't try to describe their battle," he said in a low voice. "Even after forty-five years of thinking about it, I'm not sure I can. For nearly a day and a half the swamp blazed with fire and lightning and things I still don't understand. At the end of it the Dark Jedi was dead, disintegrating in a final, massive blaze of blue fire."

He took a shuddering breath. "None of my crew survived that battle. Not that there was much left of what they'd been anyway. I didn't expect to survive, either. But to my surprise, Yoda took it upon himself to nurse me back to life."

Karrde nodded. "I've seen a little of what Luke Skywalker can do with healing trances," he said. "Better than bacta in some cases."

Car'das snorted. "In my case bacta would have been completely useless," he stated flatly. "As it was, it took Yoda quite a while to return me to health. I still don't know how long. Afterward I was able to jury-rig the ship well enough to get it spaceworthy and limp home.

"It wasn't until I was back with the organization that I began to realize that, somewhere in that whole procedure, some part of me had been changed."

He looked at Karrde. "I'm sure you remember, Talon. I seemed to have gained the ability to outthink my opponents?to guess their strategies and plans, to know when one of them was planning a move against me. Abilities I assumed I'd somehow absorbed from Yoda during the healing process."

He looked up at the ceiling, a new fire in his eyes and voice. "And suddenly, there were no limits to what I could do. None. I began expanding the organization, swallowing up any group that seemed potentially useful and eliminating everyone that didn't. Victory after victory after victory? everywhere I went I conquered. I saw the Hutts' criminal cartels and planned how I would take them down; foresaw the gathering of power around Senator Palpatine and considered where and how I could best insert myself into the coming struggle for my own advantage. There was literally nothing that could stop me, and I and the universe both knew it."

Abruptly, the fire faded away. "And then," he said quietly, "without warning, everything suddenly collapsed."

He took a long drink from his cup. "What happened?" Shada asked into the silence.

Karrde stole a look at her, mildly surprised at the intense concentration in her expression. Despite all her professed distrust of Car'das himself, she clearly found his story riveting.

"My health fell apart," Car'das said. "Over a period of just a few weeks, all the youth and vigor that Yoda's healing had woven into my body seemed to evaporate." He looked at Shada. "Very simply, I was dying."

Karrde nodded, the last mystery of that beckon call lying abandoned in the Dagobah swamp suddenly falling into place. "And so you went back to Yoda and asked for help."

"Asked?" Car'das gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. "Not asked, Talon.

Demanded."

He shook his head at the memory. "It must have looked quite absurd, really.

There I stood, towering over him with a blaster in one hand and my beckon call in the other, threatening to bring my ship and all its awesome weaponry to bear on this short, wizened creature leaning on a staff in front of me. Of course, I was the single-handed creator of the greatest smuggling organization of all time, while he was nothing but a simple little Jedi Master." He shook his head again.

"I'm surprised he didn't kill you on the spot," Shada said.

"At the time, I almost wished he had," Car'das said ruefully. "It would have been far less humiliating. Instead, he simply took the beckon call and blaster away from me and sent them spinning off into the swamp, then held me suspended a few centimeters above the ground and let me scream and flail to my heart's content.

"And when I finally ran out of strength and breath, he told me I was going to die."

Entoo Nee stepped to his side, silently pouring more of the spice drink into his cup. "I thought the first part had been humiliating," Car'das went on. "The next part was worse. As I sat there panting on a rock, swamp water seeping into my boots, he told me in exquisitely painful detail just how badly I'd squandered the gift of life he'd given back to me a quarter century earlier. How my utterly selfish pursuit of personal power and aggrandizement had left me empty of spirit and vacant of purpose."

He looked at Karrde. "By the time he finished, I knew I could never go back.

That I could never, ever face any of you again."

Karrde looked down at his cup, suddenly aware he was gripping it tightly. "Then you didn't... I mean, you weren't..."

"Angry with you?" Car'das smiled at him. "On the contrary, old friend: you were the single bright spot in the whole painful mess. For the first time since I'd left Dagobah, I found myself thinking about all the people in my organization.

People who I'd now abandoned to the viciousness of internecine warfare as my lieutenants, most of them as selfish as I was, fought for their individual slices of the fat bruallki I'd created."

He shook his head, his old eyes almost misty. "I didn't hate you for taking over, Talon. Far from it. You held the organization together, treating my people with the dignity and respect they deserved. The dignity and respect I'd never bothered to give them. You transformed my selfish ambition into something to be proud of... and for twenty years I've wanted to thank you for that."

And to Karrde's surprise, he stood up and crossed the circle. "Thank you, " he said simply, holding out his hand.

Karrde stood up, a terrible weight lifting from his shoulders. "You're welcome," he murmured, gripping the extended hand. "I just wish I'd known sooner."

"I know," Car'das said, letting go and returning to his seat. "But as I said, for the first few years I was too ashamed to even face you. And then later, when your Mara Jade and Lando Calrissian came sniffing around, I assumed you would soon be showing up yourself."

"I should have," Karrde conceded. "But I wasn't exactly eager to do so."

"I understand," Car'das said. "It's as much my fault as it was yours." He waved a hand. "Still, as it turned out, your arrival was just what we needed to eliminate the threat from Rei'Kas and his pirates." He pointed toward the ceiling. "That's one of the many things I've been learning from the Aing-Tii, in fact. Though not all is predetermined, all is somehow still being guided. I still don't quite understand that, but I'm working on it."

"Sounds like something a Jedi would say," Karrde suggested.

"Similar, but not the same," Car'das agreed. "The Aing-Tii have an understanding of the Force; but it's a different understanding from that of the Jedi. Or perhaps it's merely a different aspect of the Force that they relate to. I'm not really sure which.

"Yoda couldn't heal me, you see. Or rather, didn't have the time the task would require. He told me he needed to prepare for what he said was possibly the most important instruction he had had for the past hundred years."

Karrde nodded, another piece of the puzzle falling into place. "Luke Skywalker."

"Was it him?" Car'das asked. "I've always suspected that, but was never able to confirm he actually trained on Dagobah. At any rate, Yoda said my only chance to postpone my death was to seek out the Aing-Tii monks of the Kathol Rift, who might?might?be willing to help me."

Karrde gestured toward him. "Obviously, they did."

"Oh, yes, they did," Car'das said, his mouth twisting wryly. "But at what a price."

Karrde frowned, a shiver running through him. "What kind of price?"

Car'das smiled. "Nothing less than my life, Talon," he said. "My life, to be spent learning their ways of the Force."

He held up a hand. "Don't misunderstand, please. It wasn't their demand, but my choice. All my life, you see, I've relished challenges?the bigger the better.

Once I'd gotten a taste of what they had discovered out here..." He waved his hand around the room. "It was the biggest challenge I'd ever faced. How could I pass it up?"

"I thought you needed a certain amount of inborn aptitude to be a Jedi," Shada pointed out.

"A Jedi, perhaps." Car'das nodded. "But as I said, the Aing-Tii have a different view of the Force. Not in terms of Jedi and Dark Jedi?of black and white, as it were?but in a way I like to think of as a full-color rainbow. Here, let me show you. Would you move your tray, please, Entoo Nee?"

The little man picked up the tray, leaving the pillar table empty, as Car'das set his cup down on the floor in front of him. "Now watch," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's see if I can do this." He settled his shoulders and gazed hard at the pillar table...

And abruptly, with a sharp pop of displaced air, a small crystalline decanter appeared.

Karrde jerked violently, his drink sloshing up the side of his cup and over the edge onto his fingers. Never in any of his dealings with Skywalker or Mara had he seen anything like that.

"It's all right," Car'das said hastily. "I'm sorry?I didn't mean to startle you."

"You created that?" Shada asked, her voice sounding stunned.

"No, no, of course not," Car'das assured her. "I merely moved it in here from the cooking area. One of the little tricks the Aing-Tii taught me. The idea is to see the room, and then envision it with the decanter already here?"

He broke off, retrieving his cup and getting to his feet. "I'm sorry. I could go on all day about the Aing-Tii and the Force; but you're both tired, and I'm neglecting my duties as host. Let me show you to your rooms and let you relax for a while while I see about a meal."

"That's very kind of you," Karrde said, standing up and shaking the drops of spice drink off his fingers. "But I'm afraid we have to leave. If you can't provide us with the Caamas Document, we need to start back to New Republic space right away."

"I understand your commitments and obligations, Talon," Car'das said. "But you can certainly afford to take one night just to relax."

"I wish we could," Karrde said, trying not to sound too impatient. "I really do.

But?"

"Besides, if you leave now, it'll actually take you much longer to get home," Car'das added. "I've spoken to the Aing-Tii, and they've agreed to send a ship tomorrow to carry the Wild Karrde anywhere you want to go."

"And how does that gain us anything?" Shada asked.

"It gains you because their star drive is considerably different from ours," Car'das told her. "As you may have noticed from the battle. Instead of using the usual hyperspace travel, their ships are able to make an instantaneous jump to whatever point they wish to go to."

Karrde looked at Shada. "You were on the spotter scopes," he said. "Was that what they were doing?"

She shrugged. "It's as good an explanation as any," she conceded. "I know H'sishi scrubbed the data and she couldn't figure out what had happened, either." She looked suspiciously at Car'das. "So why can't they do this for us now?"

"Because I told them you wouldn't need the ship until morning," Car'das said with a smile. "Come now, indulge an old man's desire for company, won't you? I'm sure your crew could use a good night's rest, too, after all they've been through on this trip."

Karrde shook his head in defeat. "Still a master manipulator, aren't you, Jorj?"

The smile widened. "A man can change only so much," he said genially. "And while they're freshening up," he added, shifting his eyes to Threepio, "you can come help me cook while we have our talk."

"Certainly, sir," Threepio said brightly. "Do you know, I have become quite a fair chef during my service to Princess Leia and her family."

"Wonderful," Car'das said. "Perhaps you can teach me some of your culinary expertise. Why don't you call your ship, Talon, and tell them to settle down until morning. And then I'll show you and the lady to your rooms."

CHAPTER

32

The starlines collapsed down into stars; and gazing out the Falcon's viewport, Leia inhaled sharply.

"Councilor?" Elegos asked, frowning at her from the copilot's seat.

Leia pointed out at the planet Bothawui directly ahead. The planet, and the vast armada of warships swarming around it. "It's worse than I thought it would be," she said in a low voice. "Look at them all."

"Yes," Elegos said softly. "Ironic, isn't it? All those mighty ships of war, preparing to fight and kill and die. Widespread carnage arising from their deep respect for the Caamasi Remnant."

Leia looked across the cockpit at him. There was a profound sadness in his face as he stared out at the ships, a sadness tinged with an almost bitter acceptance of the inevitable. "You've tried to talk to them," she reminded him. "You and the other Trustants. I'm afraid they're beyond listening to reason."

"Reason and calm are always the first casualties of such confrontations." Elegos gestured toward the gathered warships. "All that's left is the thirst for vengeance and the righting of perceived wrongs. Whether those wrongs exist at all, or whether the object of the vengeance is responsible for them."

He craned his neck. "Tell me, can we see the comet from here?"

"Comet?" Leia asked, glancing down at her midrange display. There was a comet there, all right, below and to portside, blocked by the Falcon's main hull.

Rolling the ship a few degrees, she brought it up around and into view.

"Yes?there it is," Elegos said. "Magnificent, isn't it?"

"Yes," Leia agreed. It wasn't as big as some comets she'd seen, nor was its tail much more than average. But its proximity to the planet more than made up for its modest size. Still on its way inward toward its loop around the sun, it had apparently just passed through Bothawui's orbit.

"We rarely saw comets from Caamas," Elegos said, his voice sounding distant. "There were few in our system, and none that came nearly so close to our world as these planet-skimmers do. There are, what, twenty of them in this group?"

"Something like that," Leia said. "I remember hearing once that whole branches of Bothan folklore had grown up around them."

"Most identifying them as omens of momentous or terrifying occurrences, no doubt," Elegos said.

"Having something like that blaze past overhead barely half a million kilometers away would tend to make you worry," Leia agreed. "Especially with them coming by once or twice a year." She grimaced. "Of course, with Bothan back-stab politics the way they are, momentous and terrifying events probably had a hard time keeping up with the comets."

"I imagine so," Elegos said. "I pity them, Councilor. I really do. For all the strength and mental agility they claim their political techniques provide to their species, I see them as an essentially unhappy people. Their whole outlook on life breeds mistrust; and without trust, there can be no genuine peace.

Neither in politics, nor in the quiet individuality of the heart and spirit."

"I don't think I've ever thought of it quite that way before," Leia said, rotating the Falcon back to its original attitude and putting the comet again out of sight. "Did your people try to enlighten them to all that?"

"I'm sure some of us did," Elegos said. "But I don't think Bothan resentment toward us was the reason they sabotaged our shields, if that's what you were wondering."

Leia felt her face flush. "You sure you don't have any Force sensitivity? "

He smiled. "None at all," he assured her. "But the Caamasi Remnant has thought long and hard about this puzzle ever since our world's destruction."

He gave a full-body shrug. "My own belief is that while the saboteurs were probably threatened or blackmailed into their action by Palpatine or his agents, there was something more personal involved. Some dark secret those particular Bothans held that they feared the Caamasi knew and might someday reveal."

"But you don't know what that secret might be?"

Elegos shook his head. "I don't. Others of the Remnant might have learned that memory, but if so are probably unaware of its significance."

Leia frowned. "Learned the memory?"

"There are certain unique qualities to Caamasi memories," he told her. "Someday, perhaps, I'll tell you about them."

"Councilor?" Sakhisakh's voice cut in sharply over the intercom. "Trouble ahead: twelve degrees by four."

Leia looked out that direction. An Ishori war cruiser on the near edge of the swarm of ships seemed to be drifting toward a pair of much smaller Sif'krie skiffs. "Looks like he's trying to get into a lower orbit," she said.

"Unfortunately, that particular space is already occupied," Elegos pointed out.

"Yes," Leia agreed, frowning. Odd; despite the hopeless mismatch in size and firepower, the skiffs were nevertheless holding their ground...

And suddenly she saw why. Coming up fast on the skiffs' far side were a pair of Diamalan blockade carriers.

Elegos saw them, too. "I believe," he said, "someone has decided to force the issue."

Leia glanced across the rest of the gathered ships. Others were starting to react to the imminent confrontation, starting to drift out of their confining orbital slots or opening fighter bay doors or rotating so as to better target the nearest of the opposition.

The Sif'krie skiffs were starting to waver now, clearly not eager to be at the center of a massive firefight. The Ishori, recognizing their hesitation, increased its speed toward them; in response, the two Diamala also picked up their pace, splitting formation into a flank/crossfire stance.

"They're going to run down those Sif'kries," Elegos murmured. "Or else the Diamala will open fire on the Ishori to prevent it. Either way, both sides will claim the other was the instigator."

"And either way, the shooting starts," Leia said tightly, running her fingers down the sensor data. New Republic ships?there had to be some New Republic ships out there somewhere. If one of them was close enough to intervene, or even get in between the Ishori and Diamala...

But there were only three Corellian Corvettes carrying New Republic IDs, all on the far side of the pack of ships. No chance at all that they could get to the confrontation in time.

Which meant it was up to her.

"Everyone hang on," she called toward the intercom. Without waiting for a reply from the two Noghri, she turned the Falcon's nose toward the Ishori cruiser and threw full power to the sublight drive.

The engines roared to life, the acceleration pushing Leia momentarily into her seat before the compensators could catch up. "I trust you have a plan," Elegos said calmly over the noise. "Do bear in mind that your High Council authority will not likely be enough to stop them."

"I wasn't even going to bring that up," Leia said, glancing at the nav display and easing the helm yoke back just a bit. The Falcon was now on a collision course with the Ishori cruiser's stern. "Take over," she added, pulling off her restraints and snagging her lightsaber as she got up from her seat. "Keep us on this course."

"Understood," Elegos's voice came distantly back to her as she sprinted down the tunnel and skidded past the exit hatchway toward the aft cargo bay bulkhead door.

She stretched out to the control switch with the Force as she approached, sending the door sliding open?

"Councilor?" Barkhimkh's anxious voice called from the upper quad laser.

"Stay there," Leia called to him as she ducked into the cargo bay and crossed to the starboard side of the ship. Through one more door, and she came at last to the access grill protecting the starboard power converters and ion flux stabilizer.

Han was going to kill her, but it was their only chance. Igniting her lightsaber, clenching her teeth, she jabbed the glowing blade into one of the power converters and dragged it across into the stabilizer.

And grabbed for a handhold as the Falcon bucked like a stung tauntaun. It bucked again; and suddenly the drone of the engines changed to an ominous whine.

Twenty seconds later she was back in the cockpit. "Report?" she asked as she slid back into her seat.

"We've lost starboard maneuvering," Elegos said. "The engines appear to be trying to go into a feedback instability." He glanced at her. "I certainly hope this is part of your plan."

"Trust me," Leia assured him, trying to feel as confident as she sounded as she keyed the comm. "Ishori cruiser, this is the freighter Millennium Falcon. We're in serious trouble and urgently request assistance."

There was no answer. "Ishori cruiser?"

"This is the Ishori War Cruiser Predominance," an angry-sounding Ishori voice snarled from the speaker. "Identify yourself."

"This is New Republic High Councilor Leia Organa Solo aboard the freighter Millennium Falcon," Leia said. "We've lost maneuvering and power control in our starboard engines. Our current course has us passing too close to your hull. I need you to move immediately out of our path while we try to regain control."

There was another long pause. Leia watched the warship looming ever nearer, uncomfortably aware that if the Ishori commander chose he could easily turn this whole thing to his own advantage. He had only to use her request as an excuse to speed up his drive toward the Sif'krie skiffs...

"I ask you to please hurry," Leia said. A thought occurred to her, and she reached over to blur the fine-focus of her comm a bit. Just enough to let some of the other ships beyond the Ishori eavesdrop on the transmission... "My passenger, Trustant Elegos A'kla, is attempting to effect repairs, but I'm afraid the equipment aboard is not within standard Caamasi technical expertise."

Without a word, Elegos unstrapped and got to his feet, disappearing out through the cockpit door. "Ishori Cruiser Predominance, do you still copy?" Leia added.

"Repeating?"

"No need to repeat," the voice snarled again. Leia felt automatic anger stirring in response to the tone, forced herself to remember that all the emotion in the Ishori voice meant there was some serious thinking going on. She shifted her eyes to the cruiser again and held her breath...

And abruptly, the Ishori's advance toward the skiffs slowed, its stern rotating instead out of the Falcon's path. "We stand ready to assist you and Trustant A'kla," the Ishori bit out, his voice already sounding calmer. The thinking was over, and it was time for action. "Lower your shields and prepare for acceleration impact," he continued. "We will attempt to lock a tractor beam onto you to slow your rush."

"Thank you," Leia said, keying off the shields. They didn't affect tractor beams all that much, but there was no point in making a tricky high-speed grab any harder than it already was. "Once we're in your beam, we'll try a cold shutdown and see if we can bring this under control."

"We stand ready to provide any assistance you and Trustant A'kla require, " the Ishori said. "Stand ready..."

The Falcon jerked as the tractor beam caught it, wobbled a moment, then settled down as the lock firmed. Reaching across to the engine controls, Leia threw the shutdown switches.

The engine whine ran down the scale and faded into silence. On the control board, indicators turned red; around her, the lights flickered once as battery power took over. "We read successful shutdown," the Ishori reported. "If you wish, we will bring you aboard our ship to assist you in your repairs. "

For a moment Leia was tempted. Having a Caamasi aboard one of the most outspoken and confrontational species' ships might help stretch the peace out here. But on the other hand, it could also be misinterpreted as Elegos's tacit endorsement of the Ishori's anti-Bothan stance. "Thank you again," she told the alien. "But we have an urgent appointment with President Gavrisom that we can't delay. If you could escort us over to the group of New Republic ships, we would very much appreciate it."

"Of course," the Ishori said with only the barest hesitation. The Diamala had reached the Sif'krie skiffs now, the four of them standing together in quiet defiance against any further action. The chance had been missed, and the Ishori knew it.

As did the rest of the armada. All around them, Leia saw, the other ships were starting to settle back into their taut, watchful waiting.

The flash point was safely past. Or at least, this flash point was.

She keyed off the comm. "You're really taking a beating this trip, aren't you," she murmured, patting the Falcon's control board sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

The door behind her slid open. "I see it worked," Elegos said, slipping into the copilot seat again. "You have a fine and unique gift of diplomacy, Councilor."

"And sometimes I'm just lucky," Leia said.

Elegos lifted his eyebrows. "I thought Jedi didn't believe in luck."

"It comes of hanging around Han and this ship," Leia said dryly. "Where did you go, anyway? Back to look at the stabilizer?"

The Caamasi nodded. "I didn't expect to be able to do anything, certainly not after you'd finished with it. But you'd indicated I was trying to repair it, and I wanted there to be some truth in what you were saying."

"Truth." Leia sighed. "That's what we need here, Elegos. What we need desperately. Truth."

"Captain Solo will have that truth here within another day," Elegos reminded her quietly. "All you and President Gavrisom need to do is hold things together that long."

Leia stretched out with the Force, trying to get a feel for the future. "No, I don't think so," she said slowly. "Something tells me it's not going to be that easy. Not nearly that easy."

* * *

Navett and Klif had cut through the floor of the Ho'Din tapcafe's storage subbasement floor their first night of work, a ten-minute task with the fusion cutter Pensin had scrounged from somewhere. But after that the job had switched over to something longer, harder, and considerably more tedious.

"Four more days of this, huh?" Klif grunted, heaving another shovelful of noxious Bothawui dirt out of the chest-deep hole onto the large drop cloth they'd spread out to catch it.

"Well, if we really put our backs into it, maybe it'll only take three," Navett pointed out, scooping up the dirt from the cloth in turn and dumping it into their Valkrex fusion disintegration canister. He sympathized with Klif's frustration, but there wasn't a lot either of them could do about it. The vibrations of their digging were iffy enough; but if they tried operating heavy equipment within range of the power conduit's sensors, they'd bring Bothan Security down on them in double-quick time.

"Thanks lots," Klif said dryly, dumping another shovelful. "You know, I don't mind dying for the Empire, but to Vader with these preliminaries."

"Watch your words," Navett warned him, glancing at the door at the top of the stairway. Pensin was supposed to be keeping an eye on the door to the subbasement, but there were a handful of other staff and night guards still up in the tapcafe, and a wrong word overheard by one of them could ruin everything.

He scooped up the next shovelful?

There was a scrabbling sound at the door. Navett let the shovel down silently onto the cloth, dropping to one knee and drawing his blaster in a single smooth motion. He leveled the weapon on the door, then lifted it at the soft two-one-two knock. The door opened and Horvic stuck his head around the corner. "Pack it up," he hissed. "The night guards think they've spotted an intruder, and they might come down here looking."

Klif was already out of the hole, manhandling the square of duracrete floor they'd cut back into place. "They get a good look?" Navett asked, holstering his blaster and giving Klif a hand.

"I don't know," Horvic said grimly. "But personally, my money's on that old woman of yours. I spotted someone with your description of her sitting off in a corner booth when Pensin and I came on duty."

"Terrific," Navett snarled under his breath, leaving Klif to disguise the edges of their trapdoor as he shut off the disintegrator and carried it back to its hiding place behind a stack of vodokrene cases. "Well, don't just stand there?go help them find her."

"Right," Horvic said. "What about you?"

"We'll head outside," he said. "Maybe we can tag her on her way out."

"Happy hunting," Horvic said, and disappeared.

It took thirty seconds to fold up the drop cloth and hide it, and another minute to ease their way up through the main basement to the gimmicked back door. The streets in this part of Drev'starn were mostly deserted at this hour, the high-mounted glow panels dimmed to a fairly low light. "I'll take back here," Navett murmured to Klif. "You circle around front. Don't let anyone see you."

"Don't worry." Moving like a shadow, Klif headed down the side alley and disappeared around the corner of the building. Checking both directions, Navett crossed to a trash container a few meters away. Sinking into its shadow, he balanced his blaster across one knee and waited.

And waited. Occasionally he spotted figures hurrying by in front of the lighted windows of the tapcafe, and several times the Ho'Din or one of his night guards poked their head out the back door, double-checked the lock, and went back in.

But no one came out and stayed out. Not the woman or anyone else.

It was an hour before the commotion seemed to finally die down inside. Navett waited another thirty minutes, irritably counting the number of shovelfuls behind schedule this was costing them, before finally pulling out his comlink. "Klif?"

"Nothing," Klif's voice came back. He sounded irritated, too. "Sounds like they've given up."

"Must have been a false alarm," Navett said. "Come on around and we'll get back to work."

A few minutes later they were back in the subbasement. Klif retrieved the drop cloth as Navett headed around the stacked vodokrene cases for the disintegrator.

And paused there. Lying on top of the disintegrator was a comlink. "Klif? " he called softly. "Come here."

A moment later the other was at his side. "I don't believe it," he said, sounding stunned. "How in blazes did she pull this one off?"

"Why don't we ask her," Navett said, carefully picking up the comlink. It was a binary-linked type, he noted, the sort typically carried on small starships and connected only to another specific comlink. He gave it a quick once-over for booby traps, then flicked it on. "You're very inventive," he said. "I'll give you that."

"Why, thank you," the old woman's voice came back promptly. "That's very flattering. Particularly coming from an Imperial dirty tricks team."

Navett glanced at Klif. "You know, that's the second time you've accused us of being Imperials," he reminded her. "You are just guessing, of course."

"Oh, hardly," she said scornfully. "Who else would be looking to take down the Bothans' planetary shields?"

"You're still just guessing," Navett said, straining his ears for some sign of telltale sounds in the background and wishing viciously he had the equipment that would let him trace the transmission. "If you were sure, you'd have called Bothan Security instead of still skulking around yourself this way."

"Who says I haven't called them?" she said. "Or maybe I like skulking around. It could be I used to do this sort of thing all the time against Hutts and other slime. Maybe I'm looking for a new challenge."

"Or maybe you're looking for an early and violent death," Navett countered. "How did you find us, anyway?"

"Oh, come on," she chided. "You don't really think your cover is that good, do you? My New Rep buddies and I had you pegged first time off the rack. So what was the deal with those metalmites at the shield generator, anyway?"

Navett smiled tightly. "Fishing now, are we? Please."

"You never can tell," she said. "Incidentally, whichever of you gimmicked that back door lock needs to do a better job next time?it was so obvious you might as well have hung a sign on it. It did come in handy, though."

"I imagine it did," Navett said. "You're still in the building, aren't you?"

"Now who's fishing?" she countered. "Actually, no, I left some time ago? there's a crawlspace beneath the ceiling that leads to a handy skylight. That was a free one."

"Thank you," Navett said between clenched teeth. Who did this little fringe slime think she was talking to, anyway? "Here's some free advice in return. Go back to your ship and clear off Bothawui. If you don't, you are going to die on this dirtball. I will personally guarantee that."

"With all due respect, Lieutenant?or is it Major? Colonel? Oh, well, with the Empire in shambles these days I guess rank doesn't really matter. With all due respect, Imperial, I've been threatened by far more impressive folks than you.

Anytime you want to come out and do a face-to-face, I'm ready."

"Oh, we'll do a face-to-face, all right," Navett promised, forcing down his anger. Anger, and the muddled thinking that accompanied it, were exactly what she was angling for. "Don't worry about that. But when we do, it'll be a time and place of my choosing, not yours."

"Whatever you want," she said. "Nighttime would work best?that way you can use that Xerrol Nightstinger of yours to full advantage. You didn't just throw it away after that riot a few weeks back, did you? The one where you framed Solo for shooting into the crowd?"

Navett glared at the comlink. Aside from being a general all-around pain in the neck, this woman was far too well informed. Who in space did she work for, anyway? "You're fishing again," he said.

"Not really," she said offhandedly. "Just putting two and two together."

"Sometimes that kind of math doesn't work the way you think it does," Navett warned her. "And sometimes if the mathematician hangs around where she's not welcome, she doesn't live to finish her sums."

She clucked. "You're starting to repeat yourself, Imperial. If I were you, I'd try to work up some fresh threats. However, it's well past my bedtime and I know you have work to do, so I'll let you go. Unless you'd like to go fetch your Xerrol and come out and play, that is. I'll wait."

"Thanks," Navett said. "I'll pass for now."

"Entirely up to you," she said. "Go ahead and keep the comlink?I've got plenty of spares. Good night, and happy digging."

The transmission clicked off. "And restless and unpleasant dreams to you, too," Navett murmured, dropping the comlink into the disintegrator.

He looked back at Klif. "This," he said darkly, "is just exactly what we needed."

"Oh, exactly," Klif ground out. "So what are we going to do about her?"

"For now, nothing," Navett said, picking up the disintegrator and lugging it over to the drop cloth. "For all her fishing and accusations, she doesn't really know anything."

"Like blazes she doesn't," Klif retorted. "She knows we're digging over one of the shield building's power conduits. What more does she need?"

"My point exactly," Navett said. "She's spotted our digging, but hasn't called Security down on us." He squatted down and eased his shovel blade under the edge of their trapdoor. "Why not?"

"How should I know?" Klif grumbled, getting his shovel into place under the other side. "Maybe she figures she'll pick up a bounty if she can deliver everything in a neat package."

"Could be," Navett said, lifting carefully. The block came up, and he got his fingers under the edge. "I think it's more likely she's got some trouble of her own with the Bothans that means she can't go to them with any accusations."

"That wouldn't stop her from calling in an anonymous tip," Klif grunted as they eased the trapdoor off the hole. "The mood they're in out there, they're probably jumping at every cracked twig."

"No," Navett said, gazing into the hole. "No, she's not the type for anonymous tips. I think that for whatever reason, she's decided to take this whole thing personally. Professional pride, maybe?I don't know. The point is that she's turned this into a private duel between her and us."

Klif grunted. "Pretty stupid."

"Stupid for her," Navett agreed. "Useful for us."

"Maybe," Klif said. "So what now?"

"We get back to work," Navett said, dropping into the hole. "And when we're done," he added, digging his shovel into the packed dirt at his feet, "I'll go retrieve the Xerrol. Maybe tomorrow night we'll take her up on her invitation to come out and play."

* * *

Gavrisom looked up from Leia's datapad, his prehensile wing tips flicking restlessly across the desk beside it. "And you truly believe he is sincere about this?" he said.

"Very sincere," Leia said, feeling a frown creasing her forehead. She had expected a considerably more positive reaction to Pellaeon's peace proposal. "And I examined the credentials he brought from the Imperial Moffs. Everything was in order."

"Or so it appeared," Gavrisom said, shaking his mane. "So it appeared."

He looked back down at the datapad, touched the control to scroll back. Leia watched him, trying to understand this strange and unexpected emotional conflict she could sense in him. An end to the long war might finally be at hand. Surely this was news for at least cautious excitement.

So why wasn't he cautiously excited?

Gavrisom looked up at her again. "There's no mention of Thrawn anywhere in here," he pointed out. "Did you ask Pellaeon about that?"

"We discussed it briefly," Leia said. "At that time he'd received no word from Bastion that Thrawn had assumed supreme command. Nor had he had any indication that the Moffs had rescinded his authorization to begin peace talks."

"Neither of which means anything at all," Gavrisom said, his tone suddenly and uncharacteristically harsh. "With Thrawn on the scene, officially or otherwise, this is utterly meaningless." He slapped a wing tip across the datapad.

"I understand your concerns," Leia said, choosing her words carefully. "But if it's not a trick, this may be our chance to finally end this long war? "

"It is most certainly a trick, Councilor," Gavrisom ground out. "That much we can all be sure of. The only question is what exactly Thrawn hopes to gain from it."

Leia drew back in her seat. The flash of emotion right then... "You don't want Pellaeon's offer to be genuine, do you?" she asked. "You want it to be a trick."

Gavrisom turned his eyes away from her, snorting a soft, whinnying sigh. "Look all around us, Leia," he said quietly, turning his head to gaze out the stateroom viewport. "Look at them. Nearly two hundred warships, dozens of peoples, all ready to begin a civil war over their own individual concepts of what constitutes justice for Caamas. The New Republic is poised ready to destroy itself... and there's nothing I can do to prevent it."

"Han has a copy of the Caamas Document," Leia reminded him. "He'll have it here tomorrow. That should defuse a lot of the tension."

"I'm sure it will," Gavrisom agreed. "But at this point I'm not willing to rely on even that to stop them. You and I both know that for many of the potential combatants Caamas has merely become a convenient excuse for restarting old wars with old enemies."

"I realize that," Leia said. "But once that excuse is taken away from them, they'll have to back down."

"Or create a different excuse," Gavrisom countered bitterly. "The fact is, Leia, that the New Republic is in danger of fragmenting, of being driven apart by our own vast diversity. We need time to counter those forces; time to talk, time to plan, time to try to build all these different peoples into some sort of unity."

He waved a wing toward the viewport. "But we no longer have that time? this crisis has snatched it away from us. We need to get it back."

"The Caamas Document will do that," Leia insisted. "I'm sure it will."

"Perhaps," Gavrisom said. "But as President, I can't afford to put all my hopes on it. I must prepare to muster every common purpose I can find for the New Republic. Every common purpose, every common goal, every common cultural ethos."

He tapped the datapad, gently this time. "And, if necessary, every common enemy."

"But they're not a real enemy anymore," Leia said, striving to keep her voice calm. "They're far too small and weak to be any kind of threat."

"Perhaps," Gavrisom said. "But as long as they're out there, we have someone to unite against." He hesitated. "Or even to fight against, if necessary."

"You aren't serious," Leia said, gazing hard at him. "Stirring up action against the Empire at this point would be nothing short of a slaughter."

"I know that." He shook his head. "I don't like this any better than you do, Leia. In fact, I will admit to being ashamed of using the people of the Empire this way. But whether my name and memory are denounced by history is of no importance. My job is to hold the New Republic together, and I will do whatever is necessary to achieve that."

"Perhaps I have more faith in our people than you do," Leia said quietly.

"Perhaps you do," Gavrisom said with a nod. "I sincerely hope you are right."

For a moment they sat together in silence. "I presume you won't be releasing news of Pellaeon's offer," Leia said at last. "With your permission, though, I'd like to begin putting together a list of delegates for a full peace conference.

If and when you decide to proceed with this."

Gavrisom hesitated, then nodded. "I admire your confidence, Councilor," he said.

"I only wish I could share it. Yes, please assemble your list."

"Thank you."

She got up from her chair and retrieved her datapad. "I'll have the list ready for you by tomorrow." She turned to the stateroom door?

"There is, of course, one other option open to you," Gavrisom called from behind her. "You are merely on leave of absence from the Presidency. Assuming the Senate confirmed the decision, you could resume that office right now."

"I know," Leia said. "But this isn't the time for that. Yours is the voice that has been speaking for Coruscant since the Caamas Document first came to light.

It wouldn't be good for that voice to suddenly change."

"Perhaps," Gavrisom said. "But there are many in the New Republic who believe that Calibops are skilled at words and nothing more. Perhaps the time for words has ended, and the time for action has arrived."

Leia stretched out briefly to the Force. "The time for action may indeed have come," she agreed. "But that doesn't mean the time for words is ended. Both will always be needed."

Gavrisom whinnied softly. "Then I will continue with the words," he said. "And will entrust to you the actions. May the Force be with us both."

"May the Force be with us all," Leia said quietly. "Good night, President Gavrisom."

CHAPTER

33

She waited until an hour after the background sounds of the household had quieted down. Then, getting up from her bed, Shada left her room in the vast underground complex that was Jorj Car'das's home and slipped down the darkened hallway.

The library door was closed, and the Aing-Tii hand-waving trick Car'das had used to get inside obviously wasn't going to work for her. However, before saying good night he had showed her and Karrde the more conventional method of opening their room doors, and she was banking on the library being set up the same way.

Searching around the stones lining the doorway with her fingers, she found the slightly cooler one and pressed her palm against it.

For perhaps twenty seconds nothing happened. Shada maintained her pressure on the stone, alert for signs of activity in the area and wondering again at this ridiculous procedure. Based on the life story he'd told them, she couldn't see the Jorj Car'das who had first arrived here on Exocron being an overly patient man, certainly not the type to install doors in his home that took half a minute to open. She could only assume his thinking at that time had been that intruders bent on theft or violence would be similarly impatient.

Now, of course, with his Aing-Tii tricks, none of it mattered. At least not to him.

Beneath her hand, the trigger stone gave a gentle bump. Shada held on; and a few seconds later the door finally slid ponderously open.

She'd expected the library to be as dark as the rest of the house, with only a handful of muted glow panels to show the way around. To her uneasy surprise, the room was lit much more brightly than that. Not as bright as it had been when Car'das showed it to them earlier, but brighter than an uninhabited room ought to be.

She slipped inside, ducking to the left out of the doorway; and as she did so, she caught a glimpse of a moving shadow in the central circle near the computer desk.

Car'das? She bit back a curse. Karrde had already scheduled an early-morning departure for the Wild Karrde's rendezvous with the Aing-Tii ship. This was her one and only chance to get to the datacard she needed to find.

And then, drifting up from the computer desk, she heard a muffled but very familiar voice: distinctive, somewhat prissy, and quite mechanical. Silently, she detached herself from the wall and made her way down one of the narrow aisles between the data cases and headed to the center.

To find that her ears had indeed not been playing tricks on her. "Hello, Mistress Shada," Threepio said brightly, straightening up from his stooping lean over the computer desk. "I thought you and the others had retired for the night."

"I thought you had done so, too," Shada said, glancing at the nearest data case as she stepped over to him. Each shelf completely packed with stacks of datacards; each stack of datacards standing eight to ten deep. An incredible collection of knowledge. "Or whatever it is droids do at night."

"Oh, I usually close down for a time," Threepio told her. "But during my talk earlier with Master Car'das he suggested I might wish to have a chat with his main computer. Not that the computer aboard the Wild Karrde isn't decent company, of course," he added hastily. "But I must admit I sometimes miss Artoo and others of my own kind."

"I understand," Shada assured him, a lump forming in her throat. "It can be very lonely to be somewhere where you're out of place."

"Really," Threepio said interestedly. "I suppose I've always assumed human beings were adaptable to most every place and circumstance."

"Being adaptable to something doesn't necessarily mean you like it," Shada pointed out. "In many ways I'm as much out of place aboard the Wild Karrde as you are."

The droid tilted his head. "I'm so sorry, Mistress Shada," he said, sounding pained. "I had no idea you felt that way. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Maybe help me return to where I belong." Shada gestured down at the computer desk. "Have you gotten to know the computer well enough to be able to do a search of Car'das's library?"

"Certainly," Threepio said, his voice suddenly wary. "But this is Master Car'das's equipment. I'm not sure I should?"

"It'll be all right," Shada soothed him. "I'm not going to steal anything. All I want is one small piece of information."

"I suppose that would be all right," Threepio said, still sounding uncertain. "We are his guests, after all, and guests often have the tacit run of the household?"

He stopped as Shada held up a hand. "Can you do the search?" she asked again.

"Yes, Mistress Shada," he replied in a somewhat subdued voice. "What is it you wish to search for?"

Shada took a deep breath?

"Emberlene," a quiet voice came from behind her. "The planet Emberlene."

"Oh, my!" Threepio gasped. Shada spun around, dropping into a slight crouch, her hand diving beneath her tunic to the grip of her blaster?

"Forgive me," Car'das said, coming into view around the inner circle of data cases. "I didn't mean to startle you that way."

"I certainly hope not," Shada said, her grip still on her blaster, muscles and reflexes preparing for combat. If Car'das took exception to her being here... "I didn't hear you come in."

"I didn't mean for you to hear me," he said, smiling. "You're not planning to use that blaster, are you?"

So much for Mistryl subtlety. "No, of course not," she said, withdrawing her hand empty. "I was just?"

She broke off, frowning, as the words he had spoken a moment earlier suddenly penetrated her conscious mind. "What did you say when you came in?"

"I told Threepio you wanted to do a search for the planet Emberlene," Car'das said, eyeing her steadily. "That is what you were going to look up, wasn't it, my young Mistryl shadow guard?"

Her first impulse was to deny it. But looking into that even gaze, she knew it would be a waste of effort. "How long have you known?" she asked instead.

"Oh, not long at all," he said, waving a hand in an oddly self-deprecating gesture. "I suspected, of course, but I didn't actually know until you defeated those four swoopers outside Bombaasa's place."

Shada grimaced. "So Karrde was right," she said. "He thought giving Bombaasa his name would eventually get it back to you."

Car'das shook his head. "You misunderstand. Bombaasa doesn't work for me, nor I for him. In fact, aside from Entoo Nee and the other few in my household, no one actually works for me at all."

"Right?you're retired," Shada growled. "I forgot."

"Or else you don't truly believe," Car'das countered. "Tell me, what is it you want for Emberlene?"

"What everyone else wants," she shot back. "At least what they want for big, important worlds like Caamas. I want justice for my people."

Car'das shook his head. "Your people don't want justice, Shada," he said, an infinite sadness in his voice. "They never did."

"What are you talking about?" Shada demanded, feeling her face warming. "How dare you judge us? How dare you judge anyone? Sitting out here all high and mighty, never deigning to get your own hands dirty, while everyone else fights and bleeds and dies?"

She broke off, her rising fury at his attitude battling against her deeply ingrained fear of losing control. "You don't know what it's like on Emberlene," she bit out. "You've never seen the suffering and squalor. You have no business saying we've given up."

Car'das's eyebrows lifted. "I never said you'd given up," he corrected her gently. "What I said was that you didn't want justice."

"Then what do we want?" Shada snarled. "Charity? Pity?"

"No." Car'das shook his head. "Vengeance."

Shada felt her eyes narrow. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you know why Emberlene died, Shada?" Car'das asked. "Not how it died? not the firestorming and massive air and space attack that finally crushed it? but why?"

She stared at him, a dark uneasiness beginning to swirl into the flame of her anger and frustration. There was something behind his eyes that she didn't like the look of at all. "Someone feared our growing power and prestige and decided to make an example of us," she said carefully. "Some think that person was Palpatine himself, which is why we've never worked for his Empire."

The eyebrows lifted again. "Never?"

Shada had to look away from that gaze. "We had millions of refugees to feed and clothe," she said, her voice sounding hollowly defensive in her ears. "Yes, sometimes we worked even for the Empire."

For a moment the room was filled with an awkward silence. "Principles are so often like that, aren't they?" Car'das said at last. "So very slippery. So hard to hold on to."

Shada looked back at him again, trying to come up with a properly scathing retort. But nothing came to mind. In Emberlene's case?in the Mistryl's case?his quiet cynicism was all too true.

"At any rate, that particular principle was of no real value," Car'das continued.

"As it happens, Palpatine had nothing to do with Emberlene's destruction. "

He stepped past her and around to the data case behind Threepio. "I have the true history of your world right here," he said, waving at the top row of datacards. "I pulled all the information together once I knew you'd be coming here with Karrde. Would you like to see it?"

Automatically, Shada stepped toward him... hesitated. "What do you mean by true?" she asked. "What does anyone mean by true? We both know history is written by the winners."

"History is also written by the bystanders," Car'das said, his hand still up beside the datacards. "By the Caamasi, and the Alderaanians, and the Jedi.

Peoples who had no part or stake in what happened. Would you accuse all of them of lying?"

Shada swallowed, fear and a horrible sense of inevitability twisting itself around her throat. "And what do all these disinterested parties say?" she asked.

Slowly, Car'das lowered his hand. "They say that three years before its destruction," he said gently, "the rulers of Emberlene set off on a rampage of conquest. That for the first two and a half of those years they destroyed and conquered and plundered every one of the dozen other worlds within their reach."

"No," Shada heard herself whisper. "No. That can't be true. We wouldn't..

. we couldn't have done something like that."

"The average citizens weren't told the true story, of course," Car'das said. "Though I imagine most could have read between the lines if they'd truly wanted to know what their leaders were doing. But they had triumph and spoils, pride and glory.

Why bother with mere truth?"

Again, Shada had to look away from those eyes. It wasn't my fault, she wanted to protest. I wasn't there. I didn't do it.

But the words were hollow, and she knew it. No, she hadn't been one of those who had toasted Emberlene's conquests and looked eagerly ahead for more. But in dedicating her life to the Mistryl, she had in her own way helped to perpetuate the lie.

All because she had wanted to make a difference.

"You shouldn't take any of this personally, Shada," Car'das offered softly into her thoughts. "You didn't know; and the desire to make a difference is something held deeply within all of us."

Shada looked sharply at him. "Stay out of my mind!" she snapped. "My thoughts are none of your business."

He bowed his head briefly. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to intrude. But when someone is shouting, it's usually difficult not to overhear. "

"Well, try harder." Shada took a deep breath. "So what happened? How were we finally stopped?"

"Your victims and potential victims were too weak to fight back on their own," Car'das said. "So they pooled their resources and hired a mercenary army. The army was... perhaps overly thorough."

Overly thorough. Again, Shada searched for a blistering retort. Again, there was nothing she could say. "And all in the sector rejoiced," she murmured.

"Yes," Car'das said quietly. "But for the stopping of a dangerous war machine.

Not for the suffering of the innocent."

"No, the innocent are never a very high priority, are they?" Shada said, hearing the bitterness in her voice. "Does your true history tell who the army was who destroyed us? Or who their sponsors were?"

His face seemed to settle subtly. "Why do you want to know?"

Shada shrugged, an uncomfortable hunching of suddenly tired shoulders. "My people have never known who did it."

"And if I give you that information, what will you do with it?" Car'das asked. "Turn the vengeance of the Mistryl against them after all these years? Create more suffering among still more innocents?"

The words were a sudden stab in her heart. "I don't know what they'll do with it," Shada said, a sudden misting in her eyes blurring her sight. "All I know is that it's the only thing I can take back that might let?" She broke off, swiping viciously at her eyes.

"You don't want to go back to them, Shada," Car'das said. "They're living a lie, whether they know it or not. That's not for you."

"I have to," Shada said miserably. "Don't you understand? I have to work for something larger than myself. I've always needed that. I have to have something to hold on to and serve that I can believe in."

"What about the New Republic?" Car'das asked. "Or Karrde himself?"

"The New Republic doesn't want me," she bit out. "And Karrde..." She shook her head, an acid burning in her throat. "Karrde's a smuggler, Car'das, just like you were. What kind of purpose is that to believe in?"

"Oh, I don't know," Car'das said thoughtfully. "Karrde has altered the organization considerably since my days with it."

"It's still the fringe," Shada said. "It's still illegal and underhanded. I want something honorable, something noble. Is that so much to ask for?"

"No, of course not," Car'das said. "Still, Karrde's much more an information broker now than he is a smuggler. Isn't that at least a little better?"

"No," Shada said. "In fact, it's worse. Information brokering is nothing more than selling people's private property to those who don't deserve to have it."

"Interesting point of view," Car'das murmured, his gaze shifting to Shada's right. "Have you ever considered it that way?"

"I haven't up till now," Karrde's voice said.

Shada spun around, shaking the last lingering tears from her eyes. Off to her right, dressed in a robe and ship slippers, Karrde was standing just outside the inner circle, regarding her with an odd expression on his face. "Perhaps I need to reassess my thinking," he added.

"What are you doing here?" Shada demanded.

"Car'das called me," Karrde said. He looked at Car'das, his forehead wrinkling.

"At least, I think he called me."

"Oh, yes, definitely," Car'das assured him. "I thought you should be in on this part of the conversation." He bowed his head to Shada. "Forgive me again, Shada, if I startled you."

Shada fought back a grimace. "He's just full of surprises, isn't he?" she commented.

"He's always been that way," Karrde agreed, stepping over to her side. "All right, Car'das. Your two puppets are assembled and awaiting your commands. What do you want from us?"

Car'das's eyes widened in a look of innocence. "Me?" he protested. "I want nothing from you, my friends. On the contrary, I wish to present you with a gift."

Shada glanced at Karrde, found him throwing her the same suspicious look. "Really," Karrde said dryly. "And what kind of gift might that be?"

Car'das smiled. "You were never one to appreciate surprises, were you, Karrde?" he said. "Not too bad at dealing them out, mind you, but extremely poor at accepting them. But I think you'll like this one."

He turned to the data case behind him and selected two datacards from the top shelf. "This is the gift I offer," he said, turning back to face them, holding one of the datacards in each hand. "This"?he held up his right hand? "is the history of Emberlene I was just speaking to Shada about. Something she very much wants, or at least has thought in the past that she wanted. This"?he held up his left hand?"is a datacard I made up especially for you. One which I personally think will be far more beneficial for everyone in the long run."

"What's on it?" Karrde asked.

"Useful information." Car'das laid them down side by side on the computer desk.

"You may have one of them. Please choose."

Beside her, Shada felt Karrde take a deep breath. "It's your choice, Shada," he said quietly. "Take whichever one you wish."

Shada stared down at the two datacards, waiting for the inevitable emotional turmoil to twist through her. Her only hope of rejoining the Mistryl?perhaps her only hope of even staying alive through the death mark they'd put on her?lay there to her left. To her right was an unknown quantity, put together by an old man who might easily be half insane, for the supposed benefit of another man whose whole purpose in life was the antithesis of what she herself had always yearned for.

But to her weary surprise, the turmoil never came. Had Car'das's earlier revelations merely burned all of it out of her, she wondered vaguely, leaving no strength left to drive such emotions as anger or uncertainty?

But no. There was no turmoil because there was no real decision to be made. Car'das was right: she could no longer work with the Mistryl, who served and killed and died so that Emberlene could someday rise again. Not now that she knew what Emberlene had once been.

And certainly not now that she could see what the Eleven might do with the knowledge on that datacard.

The justice she had once thought she was seeking had already been carried out.

All that datacard could create was vengeance.

Reaching across the desk, distantly aware that she was now finally crossing the final bridge from her past, she picked up the datacard on the right.

"I'm pleased with you, Shada D'ukal, child of the Mistryl," Car'das said with a warmth she had never heard in his voice before. "I promise you won't be disappointed."

Shada looked at Karrde, steeling herself for his reaction to Car'das's revelation. But he merely smiled. "It's all right," he said. "I've known who you are for a long time."

She looked back at Car'das. "Who I was," she corrected Karrde quietly. "What I am now... I don't know."

"You'll find your way," Car'das assured her. Abruptly he straightened and rubbed his hands together. "But now, it's time to go."

Shada blinked. "Already? I thought we had until morning."

"Why, it is morning out there," Car'das said, coming around the computer desk and taking Karrde and Shada each by an arm. "Close enough, at least. Come, come?there's a great deal yet for you to do. You, too, Threepio?come along."

"What about this?" Shada asked, waving the datacard as Car'das hustled them up the aisle toward the exit.

"You can read it on the way to the rendezvous point," Car'das told her. "Just the two of you together?no one else. After that, I think you'll know what to do."

They reached the door and Car'das waved it open. "What about you?" Karrde asked as the old man steered them back down the hallway, now properly lit again, toward their rooms.

"My door's always open to you," Car'das said. "Either of you, of course. Come back anytime you want to visit. But for now, you must hurry."

* * *

An hour later, the Wild Karrde lifted from Exocron and headed out into space. An hour after that, after assuring himself they were properly on their way to their rendezvous with the waiting Aing-Tii ship, Karrde took Shada back to his office.

And sitting together in front of his desk display, they read the datacard.

Shada was the first to break the silence. "He was right, wasn't he?" she murmured. "This is incredible. If it's true, that is."

"Oh, it's true," Karrde said, gazing at the display, his mind spinning furiously.

Shada had vastly understated the case: incredible didn't even begin to cover it.

"If he was nothing else in his entire life, Car'das was always reliable."

"I can believe that." Shada shook her head. "I take it we're going to have the Aing-Tii take us straight back to Coruscant with this?"

Karrde hesitated. Coruscant was of course the obvious choice.

But there was a complete range of possibilities here. Some very interesting possibilities indeed.

"Karrde?" Shada cut into his thoughts, her tone suddenly suspicious. "We are taking this back to Coruscant, aren't we?"

He smiled at her. "Actually, no," he said. "I think we can do better than that."

He looked back at the display, feeling his smile turn grim. "Much, much better."

* * *

Standing astride the command walkway of the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic, Captain Nalgol stared out into the blackness beyond the viewports.

There was still nothing to see out there, of course, unless one of their probe ships happened to dip into the edge of the cloaking shield or he wanted to contemplate the dirty edge of the comet at their side. But it was tradition for a ship's captain to gaze at the universe from his bridge, and Nalgol was feeling rather traditional today.

Four days. Four more days and the long, stultifying idleness would finally be over. Just four days, assuming the strike team was still on schedule.

Four days.

From the far end of the command walkway he could hear Intelligence Chief Oissan's slightly clunky footsteps approaching. Nearly ten minutes late, he noted with disapproval as he glanced at his chrono. "Captain," Oissan said, puffing slightly as he came up beside Nalgol. "I have the latest probe ship report for you."

Nalgol turned to him, noting the slight redness of Oissan's face. "You're late," he said.

"There was more analysis required than usual," Oissan said stiffly, holding out a datapad. "It seems the ships over Bothawui nearly started the war a few days early."

Nalgol felt his eyes narrow as he took the datapad. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, keying for the proper file.

"One of the Ishori warships decided to push at the Diamala," Oissan said. "He came within half a blink of pushing them into open combat."

Nalgol swore under his breath, glancing over the report. If those hotheaded alien fools started their hostilities before the strike team was ready? "What stopped them?" he asked. "Never mind; there it is," he added, skimming the section. "Interesting. Did anyone get an ID on that freighter?"

"None of the probe ships were close enough for a positive ID," Oissan said. "But the follow-up comm traffic through the fleet said it was High Councilor Organa Solo. That's unconfirmed, though."

"But highly likely," Nalgol grunted. "Here to help Gavrisom calm everyone down, no doubt."

"No doubt." Oissan lifted his eyebrows. "The rumors also say she brought a Caamasi Trustant with her."

"Do they, now," Nalgol said, feeling a slow smile starting to tug at the corners of his mouth. "Do they really."

"We should know for sure in a day or two," Oissan pointed out. "If Gavrisom has a real Caamasi there with his peace envoy, he's sure to parade him out in front of everybody as soon as he can."

"Indeed," Nalgol murmured. "And if he can keep him here talking peace for four more days, we'll be able to say there was a Caamasi present at the destruction of Bothawui. Present and, by implication, fully approving." He shook his head wonderingly. "Amazing. I wonder how Thrawn pulled that one off? "

"It's amazing, all right," Oissan agreed, not sounding nearly so enthusiastic. "I just hope he hasn't miscalculated somewhere along the line. A hundred ninety-one warships would be a little much for three Star Destroyers to take on all by ourselves."

"You worry too much," Nalgol chided, handing back the datapad. "I've seen Thrawn at work; and he never miscalculates anything. The strike team will do their job; and then those warships of yours will commence tearing each other apart. All we'll have to do is eliminate the survivors and demolish whatever's left of the planet."

"Or so goes the theory, anyway," Oissan said sourly. "May I recommend, Captain, that you at least put the Tyrannic and the others on standby alert for the remainder of our time out here? That way we'll be able to move quickly if things break sooner than expected."

"It'll also mean four extra days' worth of worn-off combat edges," Nalgol reminded him. "I hardly think that will be useful."

"But if things break too soon?"

"They won't," Nalgol cut him off brusquely. "If Thrawn says four days, it'll be four days. Period."

Oissan took a deep breath. "Yes, sir," he muttered.

Nalgol eyed the other, a mixture of contempt and pity flickering through him.

Oissan, after all, had never met Thrawn; had never heard the confidence and authority in the Grand Admiral's voice. How could he possibly understand? "All right, we'll compromise," he said. "I'll order preliminary battle prep to begin this afternoon; and one day before the projected flash point, we'll go to standby alert. Will that make you feel better?"

"Yes, sir." Oissan's mouth twitched. "Thank you, sir."

"And your preliminary battle prep will begin right now," Nalgol continued, gesturing at the datapad. "I want you to make up a priority/threat list for every one of those ships out there. Put in everything you have about their capabilities, defenses, and weaknesses, and include details of captain and crew species where possible."

He smiled tightly. "When we finally come from under this cursed cloaking shield, I want to be able to slice straight through whatever's left without losing so much as a single turbolaser or Preybird. Understood?"

"Understood, Captain," Oissan said. "I'll have it ready for you by tomorrow."

"Very good," Nalgol nodded. "Dismissed."

Turning smartly, Oissan headed aft at a quick walk along the command walkway.

Nalgol watched him for a moment, then turned back to the empty view through the viewport.

Four days. Four days, and they would finally have their chance to slaughter Rebel scum.

He smiled into the darkness. Yes, he was indeed feeling very traditional today.

CHAPTER

34

With a start, Luke woke up.

For a moment he stayed where he was, fighting against the usual floundering of trance-induced disorientation as he made a quick assessment of his situation. He was seated in a slightly uncomfortable seat, he recognized, with an unfamiliar control board in front of him and a curved canopy in front of that. From somewhere behind him, a handful of soft night-lights glowed; in front of him, outside the canopy, it was completely dark outside...

He blinked, coming suddenly fully awake. Completely dark outside? He fumbled with his restraints, throwing a glance at his chrono as he did so.

And paused, giving the chrono a second look. He'd been in the healing trance for nearly five hours.

Five hours?

"Mara, I said to wake me in two hours," he called back toward the rear of the ship, getting free of the restraints and stumbling to his feet. "What happened, you fall asleep back there yourself?"

But there was no answer, only the sudden frantic twittering from Artoo.

And there was also no Mara.

"Oh, no," Luke breathed, stretching his mind out to flick through every corner of the ship. Mara was nowhere to be found. "Artoo, where is she?" he snapped, dropping to one knee and lifting up the datapad translator still hooked up to the droid. The words scrolled across it?"What do you mean, she left?" he demanded. "When? Why?"

Artoo moaned mournfully. Luke gazed at the words flowing across the datapad, his heart sinking inside him. Mara had left five hours ago, right after he'd settled into his trance. Artoo didn't know where she'd gone, or why.

But both of those Luke could already guess.

"It's all right," he sighed, patting the droid reassuringly as he got back to his feet. "I know there was no way you could have stopped her."

He crossed to the hatch, the taste of terrible fear mixing with the bitter knowledge that whatever she had gone off to do, it was far too late now for him to stop her, either. "Keep an eye on the ship," he told the little droid, popping open the hatch. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

He stepped outside, not bothering with the ladder, but simply dropping to the ground. Directly overhead between the surrounding cliff peaks, patches of stars shone brightly down through the gaps between drifting clouds; everywhere else, all was darkness. Mara, he called out, shouting her name hopelessly into the silent night with his mind.

It was as if a cloaked and hooded figure had stirred. Somewhere not far away a dark, hiding presence seemed to shift. A crack opened between cloak and hood?Up here, her thought came back.

Luke peered up at the blackness of the cliff directly ahead, caught between the sudden relief that she was still alive and the sobering sense that something terrible was still about to happen. The glimpse faded as Mara seemed to pull her mental cloak back around her?

Where are you? Luke sent the thought outward, fighting back the temptation to break through this cocoon she had suddenly and inexplicably retreated into.

He sensed her hesitation, and her almost resigned sigh. Then, flashing into his mind like glimpses seen in a flickering light, he caught a series of images of the rock face in front of him, marking the route she'd taken up. Sending an acknowledgment and encouragement back toward her, he crossed to the cliff and started up.

The climb wasn't nearly as tricky as he had thought it would be, and with Jedi-strengthened muscles behind it the trip took less than ten minutes. He found Mara sitting on a rough ledge near the peak, braced sideways against the partial shelter of a rugged upthrust of rock. "Hello," she called quietly as he came up onto the final ridge. "How are you feeling?"

"Completely healed," he said, frowning at her as he maneuvered his way along the ridge and sat down beside her. Her voice had been quiet and controlled; but beneath the dark cloak of her mental barrier he could sense the edge of an incredible sadness. "What's going on?"

In the faint sheen of starlight, he saw her right hand lift and point ahead. "The Hand of Thrawn's over there," she said. "You can see the four back towers against the clouds when the light's right."

Luke gazed that direction, running through his sensory enhancement techniques.

The towers and back wall of the fortress were indeed visible, along with a hint of something between the leftmost towers that was probably the flat roof of the hangar they'd fought their way out of a few hours ago. "What have they been doing?" he asked.

"Nothing much," Mara said. "That ship that was out?remember the gap we saw in the parking array? It got in about three hours ago."

Luke grimaced. A functional ship, sitting right there in front of the ones he'd sabotaged. Ready to head off to Bastion at a moment's notice. "It hasn't left again?"

He sensed the shake of her head. "Not that I could tell. Anyway, Parck said they'd be debriefing the pilot before he made a final decision."

"I see," Luke murmured. A debriefing that, under the circumstances, Parck and Fel would undoubtedly be hurrying along as quickly as they could. A fast decision, a fast lift back into the sky, and the Empire would have the Hand of Thrawn and all its secrets.

And yet here he and Mara sat. Waiting.

But for what?

"It's funny, you know," Mara murmured from beside him. "Ironic, really. Here we are: the woman who's spent ten years trying to build a new life for herself, and the man who's spent those same ten years rushing madly around trying to save the galaxy from every new threat that reared its ugly face."

"That's us, all right," Luke said, eyeing her uneasily. The twisting darkness in her was growing stronger... "Not sure I see the irony, though."

"The irony is that with the New Republic ready to tear itself apart, you rushed off to save me," Mara said. "Ignoring your self-delegated responsibilities in order to save that one woman and her one life."

He felt her take a deep breath. "And that one woman," she added, almost too quietly to hear, "is now the one who has to sacrifice that new life she wanted.

To save the New Republic."

Abruptly, a distant flash of pale green light illuminated her face. A face carved from stone; a face gazing with terrible pain and loneliness into the night. "Looks like you got here just in time," she said as a faint thundercrack echoed in the distance.

There was a second green flash. With an effort, Luke tore his eyes from her tortured face and turned to look.

The towers were firing. Even as he focused on them, another pair of green turbolaser flashes lanced out from the top of one of them across the sky, followed by a pair from one of the other towers. Firing across the landscape in the opposite direction from where he and Mara sat. "Ranging shots, probably," Mara said, her voice the deceptive calm of an overly taut spring. "Trying to gauge the distance. It won't be long now."

Luke looked back at her. The pain within her was growing, pressing outward against her mental barrier like flood waters against a dam. "Mara, what's going on?"

"It was all your idea, you know," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You're the one who wanted so much for me to become a Jedi." She sniffed loudly, the sound of someone fighting back tears. "Remember?"

And then, from the fortress, a flurry of turbolaser shots abruptly burst out, the green fire accompanied this time by a counterpoint of blue from Chiss-style weaponry. All four towers were firing now, firing madly and persistently, all in the same direction. Luke craned his neck, trying to see, wondering what in the worlds they could be shooting at. Had Karrde sent in a backup force after all?

Had the New Republic found them, or the Empire? Or one of those hundred terrible dangers Parck had talked about? He looked back at Mara?

And in that single, awful heartbeat, he knew.

"Mara," he breathed. "No. Oh, no."

"It had to be done," she said, her voice trembling. In the backwash of light from the enemy fire Luke could see she was no longer even trying to hold back the tears. "It was the only way to keep them from taking all of this and handing it to Bastion. The only way."

Luke looked back at the fortress, the knife of Mara's grief digging in beneath his own heart, a sudden frenzy of thought and urgency swirling through his mind.

If he'd woken up earlier?if he'd forced his way through her mental barriers back in the fortress and learned her private plan?if he even now stretched out with the full power of the Force?

"Don't," Mara murmured, her voice infinitely tired. "Please, don't. It's my sacrifice, don't you see? The final sacrifice every Jedi has to go through. "

Her fumbling hand reached out to touch his. It felt very cold. "There's nothing you can do. Nothing at all."

Luke inhaled raggedly, the cool night air digging like the ice of Hoth into his lungs, his hands and mind and heart aching with the overwhelming desire to do something. To do anything.

But she was right. He could hate it, he could bitterly oppose it; but down deep, he knew she was right. The universe wasn't his responsibility. Decisions made by other people?their actions, their consequences, even their sacrifices?they weren't his responsibility, either.

Mara had made her choice, and had accepted the consequences for it. And he had neither the duty nor the right to try to take it away from her.

Which left only one thing he could do. Moving closer to her on the ledge, he put his arm around her.

For a moment she resisted, old fears and habits and loneliness mixing together with her roiling pain to stiffen her muscles away from him. But only for a moment. Then, as if that part too of her life had now been lost, she melted against his side, her so carefully constructed barriers bursting aside as she finally poured out the grief and loss she had held so deeply and privately inside her.

Luke wrapped his arm tighter around her, murmuring meaningless words as he fought with her through the storm of pain and misery, absorbing what he could of it and offering what comfort and warmth he could in return. In the distance, the firing from the towers increased?

And then, above the edge of the cliff, he saw it. Cutting low over a distant hill, its hull burnished by the surrealistic effect of full shields operating in atmosphere, it twisted and writhed like a living thing as it evaded or dodged or simply shrugged off the withering firestorm savaging the air around it, firing back steadily but uselessly in return at the impenetrable black stone rising before it. Drawn like a mynock to a power cable by the beckon call Mara had spliced into one of the alien ships' comm systems, it was driving its single-minded way toward the open hangar entrance, the one single weak point in the entire fortress. Mara's personal ship, the one thing in the universe she truly owned.

The Jade's Fire.

The tears had stopped now, Mara's shoulders tensing beneath Luke's arm as she leaned tautly forward to watch. The Fire was almost to the Hand of Thrawn now, and Luke could see that beneath the burnishing effect the hull had been torn open in a dozen different places, some with the yellow swirling of raging flames blazing behind them. The towers intensified their attack; but it was too late.

The Fire dipped one final time, vanishing from their view?

And with a brilliant yellow-orange fireball that blasted outward toward the far mountains, lighting up the landscape like daylight on Coruscant, it reached its goal.

The sound of the explosion a second later seemed curiously muffled, as if the containing wall of Hijarna stone was as unaffected by the sound as it presumably had been by the explosion itself. A few seconds later another even softer blast washed over them, echoed back from the mountains. The towers, almost reluctantly it seemed, ceased their firing.

And once again, the silence of the night settled in around them.

They sat there in the quiet a long time, clinging to each other as they gazed out at the twisting yellow glow that was the Fire's funeral pyre. Slowly, as the hangar bay fire burned itself out, Luke felt Mara's pain similarly fade away.

But to his surprise, it was not a hopeless bitterness or even simple weariness that rose within her to fill the space left by the pain. She had mourned her loss and spent her grief; and now, as it would always be with her, it was time to put feelings and emotions aside and focus again on the task that needed to be done.

And indeed, a minute later, she stirred in his arms. "We'd better go," she said, her voice slightly ragged with the aftereffects of her crying but otherwise calm and clear. "They're going to be fighting that fire for a while. This is probably our best chance to sneak back in."

* * *

"From the size of that blast, I figure we ought to have knocked out everything in the hangar," Mara commented as they made their way back down the cliff toward their ship. "At least as far as flyability is concerned. There may be something way in the back they'll be able to salvage, but it's going to be a job to even get it out."

She was babbling, she knew, her words tumbling out every which way in the aftermath of the exhausting emotional hammering she'd just gone through. She'd never much liked babblers herself, and the thought that she'd become one, even on a temporary basis, rather annoyed her.

But oddly enough, it didn't actually embarrass her. That part wasn't a mystery, either. If dumping everything on Luke the way she had up there hadn't totally ruined his opinion of her, a little babbling wasn't likely to do it, either.

And it hadn't destroyed that opinion. That was probably the most surprising part of it all. It truly and genuinely hadn't. Picking her way down the cliff, she could still feel the same warmth and acceptance flowing from him that he'd wrapped so tightly around her up there.

There was also, to be sure, a bit more concern and overprotectiveness in the mix than she really felt comfortable with. But that was okay. That was just Luke, and it certainly wasn't anything she couldn't handle.

"I still don't know how we're going to do this," Luke said, stumbling briefly on a patch of loose rock behind her before he caught himself. "It'll take way too long to go in through the cave again."

"I know," Mara agreed. "Parck mentioned there were gaps in the wall. I guess we'll have to go cross-country and then somehow climb up the side to one of them."

"That's going to be tricky," Luke warned. "They're not going to be nearly as kindly disposed toward us as they were before."

Mara snorted. "That's okay," she said grimly. "I'm not exactly all that kindly disposed toward them, either."

Ahead and below now, barely visible in the faint starlight, she could see their borrowed ship, just beyond one last narrow fissure in the rock. Gathering herself, she leaped across the gap to a flat-topped boulder?

And abruptly halted, flailing for balance on the rock as shock froze her muscles.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, a strange thought or sound had flashed into her mind.

Jedi Sky Walker? Are you there?

She lost the fight for balance and dropped rather awkwardly off onto the ground, barely able to keep her feet under her as she landed. But she hardly noticed.

There at the ship, perched atop the TIE fighter-style panels, were a dozen nervously fluttering shadows. Even as Luke landed on the ground beside her, one of the shadows detached itself from the ship and flew to a landing on the rock they'd just vacated. It is you, indeed, the thought echoed through her mind, the words framed by excitement and relief. I saw the great fire, and feared you and Mara Jade had perished.

It was Child Of Winds.

And she could hear him.

She looked at Luke, saw her own surprise reflected in his face and mind. "You do go in for the dramatic changes, don't you?" she managed, nodding toward the young Qom Qae. "Nice touch. Really."

Luke lifted his hands, palms outward. "Hey, don't look at me," he protested. "I had nothing to do with this."

Listen to me, please, Child Of Winds cut in impatiently. You must go to the aid of the Qom Jha. The Threateners have invaded their home.

"You mean the cave?" Luke asked, frowning.

"All the way in?" Mara added. "Or are they just at the front?"

There was a flurry of conversation back and forth between the alien and the others still hanging from the ship. We do not know, Child Of Winds said. My friends from this nesting of the Qom Qae saw them enter the cave with large branches and machines.

Mara looked at Luke. "Large branches?"

"Heavy weaponry, I'd guess," he said. "How long were these branches?"

Some were twice as long as a Qom Qae, Child Of Winds said, stretching out his wings for comparison.

"A little big for cleaning out a cave," Mara said. "Sounds like they've figured out that was how we got in."

"And are setting up in case we come back," Luke said grimly. "Well, we knew we couldn't get in that way, anyway. I just hope the Qom Jha were able to clear out of their way."

"Nothing we can do about it now," Mara said. "And sitting here dithering will only give them more time to get ready for us."

"You're right," Luke said reluctantly. "Let me go get Artoo and we'll get moving."

Do you not go to help the Qom Jha? Child Of Winds asked anxiously as Luke started past him.

"There's nothing we can do," Mara told him. "We have to get back into the High Tower right away."

He stared up at her. But you promised.

"We promised only to do what we could," Mara reminded him. "In this case, it turns out we weren't able to do all that much." She sighed. "Look, for what it's worth, the Threateners don't consider either of you to be anything more than large annoying vermin. If you stay away from their ships and the High Tower from now on, they most likely won't bother you anymore."

I understand, Child Of Winds said, his disappointment still heavy in his tone. I will pass along that message.

"I'm sorry we couldn't help you more," Mara said. "But it's an imperfect universe, and no one ever gets everything he wants or thinks he wants. Part of growing up is to face that, accept it, and move on."

The Qom Qae straightened up. And what is it you want, Mara Jade?

Mara looked over at the ship, at the open hatch into which Luke had vanished. It was, as it happened, a question she'd been turning over in her mind a lot lately.

A question swirling with conflicting emotions and contradictory thoughts, with cautious hopes and wary fears.

And a question she was definitely not interested in discussing with some strange junior alien. "All I want right now is a way back into the High Tower, " she said, choosing a more immediate goal. "Let's get through that one first, shall we?"

Child Of Winds seemed to shiver. Back into the High Tower? But why?

Luke had reappeared in the hatchway now and was using the Force to lower the droid to the ground. "It'd take too long to explain," she said. "But it's vitally important. Trust me."

I do, he said with an unexpected fervor. I trust you and Jedi Sky Walker both.

He hesitated. And I can show you a way.

Mara frowned. "You can? Where?"

That direction, he said, jabbing his head toward a point just to the right of where the Hand of Thrawn would be. My friends say there is a hole in the rock beside the Lake of Small Fish that will lead to the cavern near where we first entered the High Fortress.

Mara looked over at Luke, an odd thought beginning to whisper its way into her mind. Maybe tackling the High Tower itself wouldn't actually be necessary. "Is it big enough for us to get through?"

I do not know. Child Of Winds hesitated. But I am told it is the same passage the fire creepers use when they move under the ground.

Mara felt her fingers twinge at the memory. The thought of sliding down a hole behind a horde of fire creepers frankly made her skin crawl. But if it was the only way, then it was the only way. "Let me check with Luke."

She crossed over to where he was standing beside the droid and ran him a quick summary. "Sounds worth checking out, anyway," he agreed. "How far away is this lake?"

It will not take long, Child Of Winds assured him. By flight it is very near.

"We can't take the ship," Luke told him. "The Threateners would spot us quickly."

I do not refer to the flying machine. Abruptly the Qom Qae seemed to straighten himself up. I and my friends will carry you there. And we will not be seen.

Mara and Luke exchanged glances. "Are you sure?" Luke asked, glancing around the group. "There aren't very many of you, and we're not as light as we look. And we'll need to take Artoo, too."

I and my friends will carry you there, Child Of Winds repeated. Not for hope of gain, he added hastily, but because you have risked much already for the Qom Qae, and we have given nothing in return. It is only right for us to do this.

Luke looked at Mara. "Going underground again will mean another long climb up the hidden stairway, you know," he warned. "You sure you're up to that?"

Mara felt her lip twitch. "Actually, I don't think we'll need to go into the High Tower at all."

Luke's forehead creased. "Oh?"

"I was just thinking a minute ago about that big power source Artoo spotted when we first got into the underground room," she told him. "The one off in the direction Keeper Of Promises said was always fatal to Qom Jha who wandered off that way."

She looked toward the High Tower. "And then," she added quietly, "I started wondering about what Parck said Thrawn had told them. That if he was ever reported dead they should watch for his return ten years later."

She felt Luke's moment of puzzlement, then the tightening of his emotions as he suddenly understood. "You're right," he said, his voice low and dark. "It would be just like him, wouldn't it? Just exactly like him."

"I think it's worth checking out, anyway," Mara said.

"Definitely," Luke agreed, his voice and mind suddenly filled with new urgency.

"All right, Child Of Winds, you're on. Get your friends organized and let's get moving."

* * *

The major sitting glowering on the Chimaera's aft bridge comm display was middle-aged, overweight, and almost painfully uncultured. And, if his answers were any indication, unimaginative and not particularly intelligent along with it.

But he was also completely and unwaveringly loyal to his superior. The exact type of man, Pellaeon thought sourly, that Moff Disra would naturally choose to run interference for him.

"I'm sorry, Admiral Pellaeon," the major said again, "but His Excellency left no instructions on how he could be reached. If you'd care to talk with his chief of staff, I can see if he's available?"

"My business is with Moff Disra personally," Pellaeon cut him off, already well tired of this game. "And I strongly suggest you remember who it is you're speaking to. The Supreme Commander of Imperial forces is, by law, to have reasonable access at all times to all high-ranking civilian leaders."

The major gathered himself into a sort of halfhearted attention. "Yes, sir, I know that," he said, his tone on the edge of insubordination. "It's my understanding, though, that His Excellency is in fact with the Supreme Commander."

Pellaeon felt his face darken. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. "I'm the Supreme Commander."

"Maybe you need to ask Moff Disra about that," the major said, clearly unfazed by the threat in Pellaeon's voice and face. "Or Gran?"

He broke off, the stolid features twitching as if he'd belatedly realized he'd started to say something he shouldn't. "But I personally have no official information on that," he finished, a bit lamely. "I expect His Excellency back within a few days. You can call back then."

"Of course," Pellaeon said softly. "Thank you, Major, for your time."

He keyed off the comm and straightened up; and only then did he allow the infinite tiredness within him to flow visibly out onto his face.

To his left, standing in the archway leading to the Chimaera's main bridge, Colonel Vermel stirred. "It's bad, sir, isn't it?" he asked.

"Bad enough," Pellaeon admitted, waving at the empty display. "Blatant insubordination from Disra himself I would have expected. But to get the same thing from a relatively minor lackey implies an exuberant confidence in Disra's palace far beyond anything he should have."

He stepped into the archway beside Vermel. "And I can think of only one possible reason for that degree of confidence."

Vermel made a sound in his throat. "Grand Admiral Thrawn."

Pellaeon nodded. "The major nearly said as much?I'm sure you caught that. And if Thrawn is back, and is siding with Disra..."

He trailed off, the long years seeming to weigh even more heavily on his shoulders. After all this time, after all his tireless work and sacrifice for the Empire, to be waved so casually aside. Especially for someone like Disra. "If he's siding with Disra," he continued quietly, "then that is what is best for the Empire. And we will accept it."

For a minute they stood together in silence, the muted background of the Chimaera's bridge activity the only sound. Pellaeon let his gaze sweep slowly across the bridge of his ship, wishing he knew what he should do next. If Thrawn was back, of course, he need do nothing?the Grand Admiral would make his wishes and orders known in his own good time.

But if Thrawn wasn't back...

He stepped forward and gestured to the Intelligence duty officer at his portside crew pit station. "We've intercepted several rumors of Grand Admiral Thrawn's return in the past two weeks," he said. "Have any of the reports mentioned him being associated with any Star Destroyer other than the Relentless?"

"Let me check, Admiral," the officer reported, keying his board. "No, sir, they haven't. All the rumors specify either the Relentless or Captain Dorja or both."

"Good," Pellaeon said. "I want an immediate priority records search through Bastion Military Control. Find out where the Relentless has gone."

"Yes, sir."

The officer busied himself at his board. "You don't really think Dorja would file a destination plan against Thrawn's orders, do you?" Vermel murmured.

"No," Pellaeon said. "But I'm not convinced any of this heavy secrecy came from Thrawn in the first place. And if it was Disra's idea, he may not have thought to even mention to Dorja that he was hiding from me."

"Yes, but?"

"Here it is, sir," the Intelligence officer spoke up. "The Relentless, Captain Dorja commanding, left Bastion twenty hours ago en route for Yaga Minor. Transit time estimated at twelve hours. Passengers listed as Moff Disra?" He looked up, and Pellaeon could see him swallow. "And Grand Admiral Thrawn."

Pellaeon nodded. "Thank you," he said. "Captain Ardiff?"

"Sir?" Ardiff said, looking up from his conversation with the systems monitor officer.

"Set course for Yaga Minor," Pellaeon ordered. "We'll leave as soon as the ship is ready."

"Yes, sir," Ardiff said, turning around and lifting his hand toward the nav station. "Navigator?"

"I hope you know what you're doing, sir," Vermel said uneasily. "If Thrawn and Disra are working together, forcing a confrontation with Disra in his presence may not exactly be a wise career move."

Pellaeon smiled mirthlessly. "Any considerations of career moves are far in my distant past," he said. "More to the point, there's always the slim chance that Thrawn is somehow unaware of the worst of Disra's offenses against the Empire.

If so, it's my sworn duty as an Imperial officer to bring them to his attention?"

"Admiral!" a voice snapped from the sensor station. "Ship incoming?fifty-five degrees by forty. Unknown configuration, sir."

"Stand by defenses," Pellaeon replied calmly, eyes searching along the specified vector as he strode down the command walkway toward the viewport. Unknown ships, in his experience, were nearly always false alarms: an unfamiliar angle or modification, or else some obscure design that that particular sensor officer had never run into before. He caught a glimpse of the craft out the side viewport?

And stopped in midstride, staring out at it in disbelief. What in the name of the Empire??

"Admiral?" the comm officer called tentatively, his voice unnaturally high-pitched.

"Sir, they're hailing us. Rather, they're hailing you."

Pellaeon frowned. "Me personally?"

"Yes, sir. He asked specifically for Admiral Pellaeon?"

"Then you'd better put it on for the Admiral, hadn't you?" Ardiff interrupted brusquely.

"Yes, sir," the boy gulped. "Transmission on, sir."

"Hello, Admiral Pellaeon," a voice boomed from the bridge speakers. A male voice, speaking Basic, with none of the more obvious accents or inflections usually associated with nonhuman vocal equipment.

And a voice that seemed oddly familiar, Pellaeon realized with a sudden shiver.

In fact, disturbingly familiar. Like an echo out of the distant past...

"You won't remember me, I'm sure," the voice continued, "but I believe we did meet once or twice."

"I'll take your word for it," Pellaeon replied, keeping his voice steady. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"I'm here to make you an offer," the voice said. "To give you something you very much want."

"Really." Pellaeon looked at Ardiff, now standing in taut readiness behind the starboard turbolaser command station. "I was unaware I was weighed down by any such unfulfilled desires."

"Oh, you don't know yet that you want this," the voice assured him. "But you do.

Trust me."

"I'll admit to being intrigued," Pellaeon said. "How do you suggest we proceed?"

"I'd like to come aboard and meet with you. Once you see what I have to offer, I think you'll understand the need for a certain degree of secrecy."

"I don't like it," Vermel murmured from beside him. "It could be some kind of trick."

Pellaeon shook his head. "With an unknown alien ship as bait?" he countered, gesturing at the vessel hanging motionlessly against the starry background off their starboard bow. "If it's a trick, Colonel, it's an extremely good one."

He cleared his throat. "Captain Ardiff?" he called. "Make preparations to bring our guest aboard."

CHAPTER

35

There had been no attacks against the Lady Luck along the last leg of their trip, as Han had half expected there to be. Nor did any of the nearly two hundred warships eyeing each other warily over Bothawui seem all that interested in the yacht as it picked its way carefully across to where the three New Republic Corvettes orbited, huddled together as if terrified of the awesome firepower stretched out across the sky around them.

Which, Han decided sourly, they probably were. Gavrisom, and Calibops in general, were a lot bigger on words than they were on action.

The duty officer on Gavrisom's ship had initially been disinclined to honor their docking request, but a few minutes of arguing?and probably a back-scene discussion or two?had finally changed his attitude.

And as he and Lando ducked aboard through the Lady Luck's docking hatch, and the waiting Leia melted into his arms, the whole annoying hassle suddenly seemed worth it.

"I'm so glad you're back," Leia murmured, her voice muffled by his chest as she clung to him. "I was so worried about you."

"Hey, hon, you know me," Han said, trying for a casual tone but hanging on to her as tightly as she was to him. Suddenly, now that it was all over, it was as if he was finally able to admit to himself what their reckless jaunt to Bastion might have cost. What he might have lost...

"Yes, I know you," Leia said, looking up at him and trying a smile that didn't fool him for a second. Maybe she was seeing what they'd almost lost, too. "And I know you've never been able to stay out of trouble in your life. I'm just so glad you got through this one."

"Me, too," Han said honestly, giving her a closer look. "You look tired."

"I'm just up a little early," she explained. "Gavrisom has us on Drev'starn time, and it's just after dawn down there."

"Oh," Han said. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask the duty officer what ship's time was. "Sorry."

"No problem," she said. "Believe me, this was well worth getting up early for." She hesitated, just noticeably. "Did you bring it with you?"

Han glanced over her head at Lando. "Sort of," he said. "Is there somewhere we can go and talk?"

He felt her muscles tighten beneath his hands. "Of course," she said, her voice not betraying any of her sudden concern. "There's a meeting room just down the corridor."

A few minutes later they were seated in deeply comfortable chairs behind a sealed door. "The room's not monitored," Leia said. "I've already checked. What's wrong?"

Han braced himself. "We got the Caamas Document, like I told you," he said. "What I didn't know at the time was that?well, look, let me give you the whole story."

With occasional side comments from Lando, he ran a summary of their trip to Bastion, ending with Moegid's discovery that the document had been altered. "I guess I should have figured he had some con going," he growled, glaring at the datacard on the low central table. Going through the events again had rekindled his embarrassed anger at himself for falling for the whole stupid trick in the first place. "I should have waited until Lando and Moegid had completely cleared the thing before I even said anything to you."

Leia squeezed his hand reassuringly. "It's all right," she said, the set of her mouth making it clear that it wasn't all right at all. "It's as much my fault as yours. I knew Thrawn was back on the scene, too. I should have realized this had been too easy."

"Yeah, but you didn't know he was the one who'd given us the datacard," Han argued, obscurely determined not to let her take any of the blame for this. "All you knew was?"

Across the table, Lando cleared his throat. "Whenever you two have finished figuring out whose fault it is," he said, just a bit dryly, "maybe we can move on to what we're going to do about it."

Han looked at Leia, saw her mouth relax slightly into a wry smile. "Point taken," she said, matching his tone. "And it may not be as bad as it looks. There's still a chance we'll be able to get hold of a copy of the document from somewhere else."

"You mean Karrde?" Han asked.

"No, there's another possibility." Leia hesitated. "I really shouldn't say anything more about it right now, except that if it works it'll probably take a few more days."

"The point is still that we've got to stall everyone off for a while," Lando said briskly. "Now, Han and I had a couple of days to deal all this around the table, and we think we may have a way to at least buy us a little time."

"Right." Han nodded, glad to change subjects. "First off, I'm going to tell Gavrisom he can't have the Caamas Document yet."

Leia's eyes widened. "How in the worlds are you going to justify that?"

"On the grounds that the situation over Bothawui is too tense for my taste," Han said loftily. "I'm going to demand that everyone break it up and go home before I turn the document over to anyone."

Leia's face was a study in stunned astonishment. "Han, you can't possibly get away with that."

"Why not?" Han countered, shrugging. "This is me, remember? Everyone expects me to do crazy things."

"Yes, but?" With clear effort, Leia strangled down her objections. "All right, let's assume Gavrisom lets you get away with that one. What then?"

Han glanced at Lando. "Actually, we hadn't gotten much past that part," he conceded. "Moegid says there's an outside chance he can reconstruct the data?depends on how expert the guy was who changed it. And now that we've actually got the document, we might be able to bluff the Bothans into telling us what they know."

"Assuming they actually do know something," Leia pointed out. "If they don't, we're no better off than we were. Worse, really, because someone's bound to accuse the New Republic of making a deal with them to withhold the names."

"I know," Han said, trying to hide his sudden surge of frustration. "But if we just go out and tell them we haven't got anything, they're going to say the same thing, aren't they?"

Leia squeezed his hand again. "Probably," she said, her eyes taking on that faraway look that meant she was thinking furiously. "All right," she said. "The two biggest instigators out there are the Diamala and Ishori. If we can get them to back down, even temporarily, a lot of the others should follow along. That's why Gavrisom came out here, in fact, to try talking to them."

Han grimaced, remembering his own less than successful try at getting the two species to agree. And that had just been shipping details. "Just keep them out of the same room," he warned.

"Exactly," Leia said, looking over at Lando. "Lando, are you and Senator Miatamia still on good terms?"

Lando eyed her suspiciously. "I don't know if we were ever on good terms, exactly," he said cautiously. "Especially not after that ride I gave him ended with an invitation for High Day drinks with Thrawn aboard his personal Star Destroyer. What exactly did you have in mind?"

"Miatamia arrived here yesterday evening to look the situation over," Leia said.

"He's staying over on one of the big Diamalan warships, the Industrious Thoughts.

I'd like you to go over there and talk to him."

Lando's jaw sagged. "Me? Leia?"

"You have to do it," Leia said firmly. "Diamala have a strong sense of personal pride, and Miatamia still owes you for that ride. You can use that."

"Look, I don't know what you think my hospitality is worth on the open market," Lando protested. "But?" He took another look at her face and sighed. "All right.

I'll try."

"Thank you," Leia said. "Gavrisom and I are already scheduled to go meet with the Ishori leaders over on the Predominance later this morning. Maybe together we can come up with something."

There was a beep from the table comm. "Councilor Organa Solo?" the duty officer's voice called.

Leia reached over and touched the switch. "Yes?"

"There's a diplomatic envoy here to see you, Councilor. Are you available?"

Han felt a flash of irritation. Couldn't they ever leave her alone? "This is Solo," he called toward the comm. "The Councilor is otherwise engaged?"

He cut off at Leia's sudden squeeze on his arm. There was something in her face...

"Yes, I'll see him," she said. "Send him here."

She switched off the comm. "Leia?" Han began.

"No, it's all right," she said, that odd look still on her face. "I have a strange feeling?"

She broke off as the room door slid open. Han stood up, automatically dropping his hand to his blaster.

"Councilor Organa Solo," Carib Devist said gravely, stepping into the room. His eyes shifted to Han?"And Solo, too," he added, stepping toward him and extending his hand. "I'm glad to see you made it through Bastion safely."

"We didn't," Han said shortly, making no move to take the other's hand. "We got caught."

Carib froze, his hand still outstretched. His eyes flicked to the still seated Lando, as if noticing him for the first time; then, slowly, he lowered his hand.

"What happened?" he asked, his face taut.

"Like I said, we got caught," Han told him. "They chased us around the city for a while, then were sitting there waiting when we hit the ship." He lifted his eyebrows. "Apparently, we rate pretty high over there. Thrawn himself came out to meet us."

He'd thought Carib's face was as tight as it got. He'd been wrong. "Thrawn was there?" the other repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. "It was really him?"

"It sure wasn't a quarter-size holo," Han bit out. "Of course it was him. We had a nice little chat, and then he gave us the Caamas Document." He jabbed a finger at the datacard on the table. "There it is."

Carib looked down at the datacard. "And?" he asked warily.

"It's been altered," Leia said, her voice almost gentle.

Han threw an irritated look at her. What was she doing being nice to this man? "I don't suppose you'd know how they caught on to us or anything?" he growled, turning his glare back on Carib.

The other took it without flinching. "No, I don't," he said. "But given that you weren't picked up the second you stepped off your ship, I'd guess you simply got spotted. And may I also point out," he added with a new edge to his voice, "that tumbling to you means they've also tumbled to me, which means our families on Pakrik Minor are now in danger of Imperial reprisal. For whatever little that means to you."

Han grimaced. "Yeah," he muttered. "I'm... well, I'm sorry."

"Forget it," Carib said, the anger still lingering. "We knew what we were getting into."

Deliberately, he turned back to Leia. "Which is why we're here, in fact. We've decided?"

"Just a minute," Lando put in. "The duty officer said you were a diplomatic envoy. How'd you con your way through that one?"

"No con involved," Carib said. "The Directorate wanted someone to come offer our support to President Gavrisom and the New Republic over the Caamas situation. We volunteered. Simple as that."

"And you got all the way up to Gavrisom on your first try?"

Carib shrugged. "We pulled a few strings. But not too many were needed." He smiled sadly. "I get the impression that there aren't a lot of people around these days flocking to offer Gavrisom their unconditional support. We'll probably make for a welcome change."

He looked back at Leia. "The point is, we've discussed it among ourselves, and we've decided that we can't just sit back and watch this play itself out." He straightened into a probably unconscious attention. "So we've come to offer you our help."

Han glanced across at Lando. A bunch of Imperial clones, volunteering to get involved in the Caamas dispute. Just exactly what they needed. "And how do you propose to do that?" he asked.

"Any way we can," Carib said. "And maybe in ways you wouldn't even think of. For instance, are you aware that your mass of ships out there includes at least three Imperials?"

Han felt his eyes narrow. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about three Imperial ships," Carib repeated. "Small ones, barely starfighter class, probably with no more than three or four men aboard each. But they're Imperials, all right."

"You're sure of that?" Leia asked.

Han frowned down at her. There was a strange look behind her eyes, an unexpected tension in her throat.

"Absolutely," Carib said. "We picked up the edge of a transmission on our way in that was using the latest in encrypts from Bastion."

Leia's lip twitched. "I see."

"I presume you got IDs on them," Lando said.

"On the ones we spotted, yes," Carib said, digging out a datacard and offering it to Han. "Of course, there might be more of them out there keeping quiet."

"Of course," Lando said.

Carib shot him a look, then turned back to Han. For a moment he held Han's gaze, studying his face... "Look, Solo," he said quietly. "I know you don't exactly trust me. I suppose in your boots, under the circumstances, I wouldn't particularly trust us, either. But whether you believe it or not, we're on your side."

"It's not a matter of mistrust, Carib," Leia spoke up. "It's the whole question of what's real about this and what isn't. With Thrawn pulling the strings, we're not sure even whether we can trust our own eyes anymore, let alone our judgment."

"Which may well be his most powerful weapon," Carib countered impatiently. "The fact that no one's willing to trust their allies or their circumstances or even themselves. You can't live that way, Councilor. You certainly can't fight that way."

Leia shook her head. "You misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting we capitulate to uncertainty, but only explaining our hesitation. On the contrary, we have a plan and will be attempting to carry it out."

"Good," Carib said, and Han thought he could detect a faint note of relief in his voice. "What do you want us to do?"

"I'd like you to go back to your ship and start wandering leisurely around the area," Leia told him, slipping a datacard into her datapad and doing some keying.

"Try to find and identify every Imperial ship that's out there."

"What if they don't transmit anymore?" Lando asked.

"Won't matter," Carib assured him. "There are certain ways Imperial pilots tend to do things that makes them stand out of a crowd. If there are any more out there, we'll find them."

"Good," Leia said, sliding the datacard out of her datapad and handing it to Carib. "Be sure to stay in touch with Han or Lando or me?here are our personal comlink and ship's comm frequencies. Other than that, just stand ready."

"We will," Carib promised, fingering the datacard. "Thank you, Councilor. We won't let you down."

"I know," Leia said gravely. "We'll speak more later."

With a short nod, Carib turned and strode from the room. "I hope you know what you're doing, Leia," Han muttered, gazing darkly at the closed door. "I'm still not sure I trust him."

"Only history will be able to judge his actions today," Leia said tiredly. "Or those of any of the rest of us." She took a deep breath and seemed to shake off her weariness. "But we can only do what we can. I need to go talk with Gavrisom about our meeting with the Ishori; and you, Lando, need to call Senator Miatamia and try to get in to see him."

"Right," Lando said, hauling himself with clear reluctance out of the comfort of his chair. "See you later."

He left. "What about me?" Han asked. "What do I do?"

"You give me another hug," Leia said, standing up and moving close to him. "No, seriously, you'd better stay completely out of it," she added soberly. "You're the one holding the Caamas Document, the one standing on the high moral ground.

You can't be seen dealing directly with either side."

"Yeah," Han said, grimacing. "I always like standing on the high ground? you make such a good target up there. Come on, Leia?I can't just sit around and do nothing."

Pressed against him, he felt her body stiffen a little. "Well, actually..

. the Falcon does need a little work," she said carefully. "We lost the starboard power converters and ion flux stabilizer on the way into the system. "

"That's okay, I've got spares for both," Han said. "Any idea what happened to them?"

He could almost feel her wince. "They ran into a lightsaber."

He twisted his neck to look down at the top of her head. "Oh," he said. "Really."

"It was for a good cause," she hastened to add. "Really it was."

Han smiled, stroking her hair. "I believe you, sweetheart," he assured her. "Okay, I'll get right on it. You're docked over on the other side, right? "

"Yes." Leia drew partway away from him. "One other thing. There's a passenger aboard, who we're also sort of keeping out of local politics for the moment.

Elegos A'kla, a Trustant of the Caamasi Remnant."

Han lifted his eyebrows, then shook his head. "I can't leave you for a minute, can I?" he said. "I take off from Pakrik Minor on a simple little trip; and the next thing you know you're consorting with high-level Caamasi."

Leia smiled up at him. But the smile had a disturbing brittleness to it. "You don't know the half of it," she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek.

"So tell me."

Reluctantly, Leia shook her head. "We don't have time right now. Maybe after Gavrisom and I get back from the Predominance, I can tell you the whole story."

"Okay," Han said. "Sure. I'll just get to work on the Falcon, then, okay? "

"Okay." Leia hugged him again and gave him a quick kiss. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah," Han said, frowning. Something had just occurred to him? "Leia?"

She paused at the door. "Yes?"

"You said a minute ago that history would judge Carib's activities today, " he reminded her. "Why today?"

"I did say that, didn't I?" Leia murmured, her eyes focused on nothing. "I don't know."

Han felt something cold creeping up his back. "One of those Jedi things?"

Leia took a careful breath. "It could be," she said quietly. "It could very well be."

For a few heartbeats they gazed at each other in silence. "Okay," Han said, forcing a casual nonchalance into his voice. "Whatever. I'll see you later, right?"

"Yes," Leia murmured, still looking troubled. "Later."

She turned and left the room. For a moment Han stayed where he was, running the implications of what had just happened through his mind. There were a whole bunch of them, all of them as muddy as swamp water, none of them anything he really much liked.

But there was one thing clear here, as clear as the fact that his wife was a Jedi. One way or another, this looked like it was going to be one very busy day.

Scooping up the Caamas Document datacard, he stuffed it securely into a pocket.

And if this was going to be a busy day, he added sternly to himself, there was no way he was going to be left out of it. No way at all.

Heading out into the corridor, he turned toward the docking bay where the Falcon was moored. Whatever the speed record was for replacing an ion flux stabilizer, he was going to break it.

* * *

The Errant Venture's briefing room was comfortably crowded by the time Wedge and Corran arrived. Bel Iblis was standing behind the holo table, his eyes flicking to each ship captain or squadron commander as they arrived, measuring him or her with that single glance. To everyone else, Wedge supposed, he probably looked perfectly calm.

With his and Rogue Squadron's longer history with the man, though, Wedge knew better.

Predictably, Booster Terrik was the last to arrive. Ignoring the few remaining seats, he took up a standing position alongside the first row directly in front of Bel Iblis and crossed his arms expectantly.

"This will be the final briefing before we arrive at our destination," Bel Iblis began without preamble. "Our target, for any of you who haven't already guessed, is the Imperial Ubiqtorate base at Yaga Minor."

From the ripple of surprise that ran around the room, Wedge decided, a whole lot of them had not, in fact, guessed correctly. "Before you start counting our ships and matching them against Yaga's defenses," Bel Iblis went on, "let me reassure you just a bit. We're not trying to take out the base, or even soften it up particularly. In fact, aside from the Errant Venture itself, the rest of you will be mostly staying on the outside as a diversion."

He pressed a key, and an image of the Ubiqtorate base appeared over the holo table. "The Errant Venture will drop out of hyperspace, alone, at this point." A flashing blue light appeared just beyond the ring of outer defenses. "We'll be transmitting a distress signal indicating that we're running from a large New Republic attack force?that's you?and need shelter. With luck?and assuming the false ID fools them?we'll be allowed to penetrate the outer defenses at this point."

Booster snorted loudly enough for the whole room to hear. "You must be joking," he rumbled. "An Imperial Star Destroyer, running from a motley collection of scrap like this? They'll never believe that."

"Why not?" Bel Iblis asked mildly.

"Why not?" Booster waved an all-encompassing hand around the room. "Just look at us. You've got us running full weapons and defenses, a practically full crew complement, spit and polish that hasn't been seen since Palpatine was a prip.

Who's going to believe we're in serious trouble?"

Bel Iblis cleared his throat. "I gather you haven't taken a look at the outer hull recently."

Booster's arm froze in the middle of another wave. "What?" he demanded, his voice low and deadly.

"You're absolutely right about our needing to look the part of a ship in distress." Bel Iblis nodded. "I believe you'll find we do."

For a painfully long moment the two men stared at each other, the expression on Booster's face reminding Wedge of an approaching thunderstorm. "You're going to pay for this, Bel Iblis," Booster said at last in a low voice. "You, personally, are going to pay for this."

"We'll add it to the ledger," Bel Iblis promised. "Don't worry, we'll put everything back together afterward."

"You'd better," Booster threatened. "Everything fixed. And a new coat of paint, too." He considered. "Something besides Star Destroyer White."

Bel Iblis smiled faintly. "I'll see what I can do."

He looked around the room again, then keyed his control. On the holo display, the blue light passed the outer ring; and as it did so, a group of yellow lights appeared farther out. "At that same time, the rest of you will drop in and form up into an attack line," he continued. "You will not seriously engage the defense perimeter, but merely prod at it enough to keep their attention turned outward. You'll also be firing a full barrage of proton torpedoes, with an eye toward getting some of them through the ring into the base itself."

The blue light came to a halt beside a slender spar sticking out from the main base. "The Errant Venture will meanwhile come to a halt here, where we'll launch an assault boat against the computer access extension and attempt to get a slicer team inside. If the Force is with us, we may be able to locate and download a copy of the Caamas Document."

"And then how do you get out again?" one of the other ship's captains asked. "I presume you're not assuming they won't notice you at some point."

Bel Iblis shrugged slightly. "We are an Imperial Star Destroyer," he reminded him. "I think we'll be able to rancor-roll our way out without too much trouble."

Wedge looked at Corran, saw the set to the other's mouth. No, Bel Iblis was dead wrong on that one. Casual confidence or not, Star Destroyer or not, once the Imperials tumbled to what was going on the old general was going to be in for the fight of his life.

Or else...

Wedge looked back at Bel Iblis, a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach.

Or else he knew perfectly well there was no way he would ever get out. Knew that all he could hope for was to find a copy of the Caamas Document in time and transmit it out to the rest of the fleet.

Knew that Yaga Minor was, in fact, where he was going to die.

And if he knew it...

Wedge focused on Booster, standing with his arms crossed again. Booster's ship, going to its destruction.

With Booster still aboard? Probably. Almost certainly.

Beside him, he heard Corran's sigh. "He's not going all noble and self-sacrificing on us, Wedge," the other murmured. "He's thinking about Mirax and Valin."

"Sure," Wedge murmured back. Booster's daughter?Corran's wife?and Booster's six-year-old grandson. Yes, of course it made sense. The big, noisy, self-centered old pirate Booster Terrik cared deeply about his family, whether he would admit it or not.

And if it cost him his life to try to prevent his grandson from growing up in the middle of a civil war...

"I guess we'll just have to make it Rogue Squadron's business to make sure they get out again," Corran went on.

Wedge nodded. "You got it," he promised.

"What about fighters?" A-wing Commander C'taunmar asked from the other side of the room. "You'll want my squadron for screening, I presume?"

Bel Iblis shook his head. "No. If we had some Imperial fighters?TIEs or Preybirds?I'd definitely bring them along. But this whole operation depends on dragging out the bluff as long as possible; and a screen of A-wings or X-wings would wreck that bluff rather quickly. No, all fighters will be staying with the outer attack group."

His eyes found Wedge. "Including Rogue Squadron."

He held Wedge's eyes just long enough to make it clear there would be no argument, then looked around the room again. "Your individual assignments and positions in the battle array will be given you on the way out of the briefing.

Are there any further general questions?"

"Yes, sir," someone said. "You said you had a false ID set up for the Errant Venture. Is it a real name, or something fictitious?"

"Oh, it has to be real," Bel Iblis said. "Twenty years ago there were enough Star Destroyers that an individual Imperial could never keep track of all of them, and might assume that his database just happened to be missing something.

But not anymore.

"Fortunately, Intelligence has picked up on three ships that haven't been heard from for several weeks. Presumably they're off on some special assignment; regardless, the chances are slim that any of them will turn up at Yaga Minor. We'll therefore be running under the name and ID of the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic"?he gestured to Booster?"under the command of Captain Nalgol."

Five minutes later, Wedge and Corran were heading back toward the hangar bay where the rest of Rogue Squadron waited. "It's going to be some trick to protect them from outside the perimeter," Wedge commented grimly.

"I know," Corran said, his voice sounding oddly distant. "We'll just have to be creative."

Wedge frowned at him. "Trouble?"

Corran shook his head slowly. "The Tyrannic," he said. "There's something that bothers me about Bel Iblis using that name. But I don't know what."

A Jedi hunch? "Well, you better figure it out fast," Wedge warned. "Launch point is only an hour away."

"I know." Corran took a deep breath. "I'll try."

CHAPTER

36

"Navett, wake up!"

Navett came awake in an instant, his hand closing automatically on the blaster hidden beneath his pillow. His eyes snapped open, taking in the scene with a single glance: Klif standing in the bedroom doorway, a blaster in his hand and a furious expression on his face, barely visible in the dim light of Drev'starn dawn streaming through the window. "What?" he snapped.

"Someone's been in the shop," Klif snarled. "Throw on some clothes and come on."

Someone had been in the shop, all right. Navett walked through the store in a stunned daze, crunching datacards and bits of random equipment underfoot, staring in disbelief at the carnage that had been visited on their neat little pet emporium.

"I don't believe this," Klif muttered, for about the fifth time. "I do not believe this. How in space did she get in without tripping the alarms?"

"I don't know," Navett said, glancing over one of the rows of cages. "At least she didn't take the mawkrens."

"Near as I can tell, she didn't actually take anything," Klif growled, looking around. "Just quietly took everything apart and rearranged it."

Navett nodded. Yet for all her energy and enthusiasm, it looked as if she'd missed the real prize. The section of back wall beside the power coupling box, where he and Klif had installed their hidden storage compartment, seemed to be untouched. "Well, aside from making a mess, she hasn't really done anything," he said, circling around the sales counter. The computer was on; she must have gone in and poked through their files. A waste of her time there, too.

"Navett."

He looked up. Klif was standing at the prompous cage, gazing down on the shelf beside it. "What?" Navett asked, rounding the counter again and joining him.

Lying on the shelf, laid out in neat rows, were the tiny cylinders that had been hidden in the false bottom of the mawkren cage.

And sitting next to them was another binary-linked comlink.

"You going to talk to her?" Klif prompted.

"And do what?" Navett retorted. "Listen to her gloat some more?"

"Maybe you can get her to tell you what she's going to do next." Klif gestured at the cylinders. "One of them is missing."

Navett swallowed a curse. Picking up the comlink, he thumbed it on. "You've been a busy little girl, haven't you?" he ground out.

"Why, good morning," the old woman's voice came back. Didn't she ever sleep? "You're up early."

"You're up late," Navett countered. "And you ought to take better care of yourself. Unaccustomed exercise could be fatal in someone your age."

"Oh, pish," she scoffed. "A little exercise keeps the old heart running smoothly."

"Until you run it up against a sharp object," Navett reminded her darkly. "There are laws on Bothawui against vandalism, you know."

"Only if you know who to deliver the warrant against," she said airily. "And you don't, do you?"

Navett ground his teeth together. She was right; all their efforts to backcheck her ship ID had come up completely dry. "Then I guess we'll just have to deal with you ourselves," he said.

There was a clucking sound. "I suggested that last night. I do wish you'd make up your minds. Did you fetch your Xerrol Nightstinger, by the way?"

Navett smiled tightly. He'd fetched it, all right. It was sitting right there across the room in their hidden storage compartment, ready to go. "What exactly did you think you would find in here, anyway?"

"Oh, you never know," she said. "I've always liked animals, you know. What are all those little cylinders for?"

"You're the expert on everything. You figure it out."

"My, but you're crabby first thing in the morning," she chided. "Not even a hint?"

"I'll trade you," Navett offered. "Why don't you tell me what you're planning next."

"Me?" she asked, all wide-eyed innocence. "Why, nothing. From this point on it's up to the Bothans."

Navett shot a look at Klif. "Of course it is," he said. "Come on, now?you can't call Security in on this, and we both know it. It's just you and us."

"You go ahead and believe that," she said encouragingly. "Well, I'm a little tired, and you've got company coming. Talk to you later."

The transmission shut off with a click. "Good-bye to you, too," Navett muttered, turning off the comlink and setting it down on the shelf. Pulling his knife, he deliberately drove it through the device.

"What did she mean about company?" Klif asked suspiciously as Navett brushed the pieces of the comlink into the waste collector. "You don't suppose she has called Security, do you?"

"Not a chance," Navett said. "Come on, we've got to get this place straightened up before opening time?"

He broke off as, across the shop, there was a knock at the door. Frowning, he crossed the room, returning knife and blaster to their hiding places in his tunic. Unlocking the door, he pulled it open.

To find himself face-to-face with a group of four Bothans wearing the wide green-and-yellow shoulder sashes of local police. "Proprietor Navett of the Exoticalia Pet Emporium?" the one in front asked.

"Yes," Navett confirmed. "Shop hours are?"

"I'm Investigator Proy'skyn of the Drev'starn Department of Criminal Discouragement," the Bothan interrupted briskly, holding up a shimmering ID. "We received word that you had had a break-in."

His eyes flicked over Navett's shoulder. "Obviously, the report was accurate.

May we come in?"

"Of course," Navett said, stepping back to let them enter, trying to keep his suddenly murderous thoughts out of his voice. No, the old woman hadn't done anything so obvious as calling Security. Not her. "I was just about to call you, actually," he added as the Bothans fanned out across the shop. "We only just discovered it ourselves."

"You have a list of inventory and stock?" Proy'skyn called back over his shoulder.

"I'll get it for you," Klif volunteered, heading off toward the computer.

One of the Bothans had paused beside the prompous cage. "Proprietor?" he called.

"What are these cylinders?" He reached down.

"Please, be careful with those," Navett said quickly, hurrying to his side, mind furiously casting about for something that would sound reasonable. "They're hormonal-drip capsules for our baby mawkrens."

"What sort of hormones are required?" the Bothan asked.

"Newborn mawkrens need a particular combination of solar spectrum, atmospheric conditions, and diet," Klif put in, picking up on Navett's cue and running with it as only Klif could do. "You can almost never get the right mixture off their own world, so you use a hormonal-drip."

"That's them over there," Navett added, pointing to the cage with the tiny lizards. "We fasten the cylinders onto their backs with custom-designed harnesses."

"I see," the Bothan said, peering at them. "When will this need to be done?"

"This morning, actually," Klif said. "Sorry, but you'll have to look around on your own for a while, Investigator Proy'skyn, if you don't mind."

"Of course, of course," Proy'skyn said. "Please, carry on."

Navett stepped over to one of the overturned tables, hiding a grimly satisfied smile as he set it upright again. So much for the old woman's attempt at subtlety?clearly, he and Klif could out-subtle her any day of the week. Not only did they now have reason to postpone long official questions, not only had they soothed any possible suspicion by offering the investigators the run of the place, but they would even be setting up the final phase of their plan right under the collective nose-fur of Bothan officialdom.

Of course, they hadn't planned to institute that particular phase for a couple of days yet. But you couldn't have everything.

Setting up the restraint grid, ignoring the quietly bustling Bothans wandering around looking for clues, they set to work.

* * *

They had finished fitting ninety-seven of the mawkrens with harnesses and cylinders, with about twenty more to go, when Navett first became aware of the new odor wafting through the shop.

He looked up at Klif, engrossed in attaching one of the cylinders onto the back of the tiny lizard standing in rigid immobility on the restraint grid, then let his gaze shift around the shop. The four original Bothan investigators had long since left, replaced by a group of three techs busily pulling handprints and chemical samples from the various counters and cages. None of them seemed to have noticed the smell.

Klif looked up, caught the expression on Navett's face. "Trouble?" he murmured.

Navett wrinkled his nose. Klif frowned, sniffing the air...

And suddenly his eyes widened. "Smoke."

Navett nodded fractionally, his eyes darting again around the shop. Nothing was visible, no flames and no smoke, but the smell was definitely getting stronger.

"She wouldn't," Klif hissed. "Would she?"

"We'd better assume she would," Navett said. "Take the mawkrens we've finished and get them over to the tapcafe."

"Now?" Klif glanced at the bright sunshine outside the window. "Navett, there's a full staff at work there right now."

"Then you'd better come up with a really dandy diversion to get them out of the way," Navett shot back. If they lost the mawkrens, this whole thing would have been for nothing. "Wake up Pensin and Horvic; we're in full emergency mode here."

Klif nodded grimly. "Got it," he said. Setting his tools aside, he started putting the last few mawkrens back into the cage?

And suddenly one of the Bothans let out a squawk. "Fire!" he bleated. "The building is on fire! Morv'vyal?call the Extinguishers. Hurry!"

"Fire?" Navett asked, looking around in feigned bewilderment. "Where? I don't see any fire."

"Foolish human," the Bothan snapped. "Can't you smell the smoke? Hurry? leave everything and go."

Navett shot a glare at Klif. So that was the old woman's plan. She couldn't figure out what in the shop their scheme needed, so she was going to force them to leave without any of it. "But my stock is very valuable," he protested.

"As valuable as your life?" The Bothan, ignoring his own advice, was moving rapidly around the outer edge of the shop, hands brushing along the walls. "Go?get out."

"What are you doing?" Klif asked.

"You are right, there is no flame yet," the Bothan explained. "The fire must therefore be inside the walls."

"The Extinguishers are coming," one of the other Bothans reported anxiously, waving his comlink. "But they will not be here for a few more minutes."

"Understood," the first said, pausing at the power coupling box. Abruptly, his fur flattened, and he pulled a knife from his belt. "Perhaps we can help prepare their way."

"Wait a minute," Navett barked, jumping forward. The Bothan had dug the knife between wall panels directly over their hidden compartment. "What the fracas are you doing?"

"The fire smells of wiring," the Bothan explained breathlessly. "Here at the power coupling is the likely place for it to be. If we can expose it and bring fire preventers to bear?"

He broke off, staggering as the prying knife unexpectedly shattered through the relatively thin false front of the storage compartment. He caught his balance, gaping at the Nightstinger sniper blaster now visible inside. "Proprietor Navett!" he exclaimed. "What is this weapon??"

He fell to the floor, question unfinished, as Navett shot him in the back.

The second Bothan got out just a squeak before Navett's second shot dropped him.

The third was fumbling frantically for both comlink and blaster when Klif's shot took him out. "Well, that's torn it," Klif snarled, glaring at Navett. "What in the Empire??"

"She's expecting us to be properly professional about this," Navett ground out.

"And professionals never start shooting unless they have to. So fine: we've just gone unprofessional. That ought to take her by surprise."

"Oh, terrific," Klif said. "A brilliantly unorthodox strategy. Now what do we do?"

"We take it down, that's what," Navett snarled back, thrusting his blaster back into his tunic and stepping over the body to pull the Nightstinger from its hiding place. "Rouse Pensin and Horvic and get your tails out to the ship and into space. You've got two hours, maybe less, to get aboard the Predominance and into position."

Nightstinger in hand, he turned back to find a stunned look on Klif's face. "Navett, we can't do it now," he protested. "The attack force won't be ready for another three days."

"You want to try to dodge our lady friend that long?" Navett snapped, dropping the Nightstinger onto the table and starting to scoop the rest of the mawkrens into their cage. "You can see her plan?she's trying to maneuver the police or Extinguishers or Vader knows who else in a uniform into running interference against us for her. We have to move now, when she's not expecting it."

"But the attack force?"

"Stop worrying about the attack force," Navett cut him off. "They'll be ready, all right. Or will get that way blasted quick. You have your orders."

"All right," Klif said, sliding his own weapon away. "I'll leave you the landspeeder?I can lift another one for the three of us. Anything else you need?"

"Nothing I can't get myself," Navett told him shortly. "Go on?the chrono's counting."

"Right. Good luck."

He left. Navett finished getting the mawkrens into their cage, then gathered up the rest of the cylinders and slid them back into the cage's false bottom. Yes, the old woman had forced his hand, and that sudden drastic change in plans was going to cost them dearly.

But if she thought she'd won, she was mistaken. He only wished he could be around to see her when she realized that.

* * *

"I'm sure you understand, Admiral," Paloma D'asima said, obviously picking her words very carefully, "how unprecedented this step would be for our people. We have never before had what might be considered close relations with the Empire."

Seated a quarter of the way around the table, Disra suppressed a cynical smile.

Paloma D'asima, one of the proud and exalted Eleven of the Mistryl, might well think herself subtle, even clever, in the ways of politics and political sparring. But to him, she was as patently transparent as only a rank amateur could be. If this was the best the Mistryl could do, he would have them eating out of his hand before the day was over.

Or rather, eating out of Grand Admiral Thrawn's hand. "I understand the conflicts we've had in the past," Thrawn said gravely. "However, as I've pointed out to you?and to Karoly D'ulin before you," he added, nodding politely to the younger woman at D'asima's side, "the Empire under my leadership will bear little resemblance to that of the late Emperor Palpatine. "

"I understand that," the older woman said. Her face wasn't giving anything away; her hands, though, more than made up for it. "I only bring it up to remind you that we would need more than just your word as guarantee."

"Are you questioning the word of Grand Admiral Thrawn?" Disra asked, letting just a hint of an edge into his voice.

The gambit worked; D'asima was instantly on the defensive. "Not at all," she assured him, too quickly. "It's merely that?"

She was saved by a signal from the conference room intercom. "Admiral Thrawn, this is Captain Dorja," the familiar voice said.

Seated at Thrawn's side, Tierce touched the switch. "This is Major Tierce, Captain," he said. "The Admiral is listening."

"Forgive the interruption, sir," Dorja said. "But you asked to be informed immediately if any unscheduled ships approached the base. They've just received a transmission from the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic, requesting emergency assistance."

Disra threw a startled look at Tierce. The Tyrannic was one of the three ships lurking behind their cloaking shields off Bothawui. Or at least it was supposed to be there. "Did they specify the nature of their emergency?" Thrawn asked.

"Coming through now, sir... they say they've come under attack by a sizable New Republic assault force and have been severely damaged. They say the force is right behind them and that they need shelter. General Hestiv is requesting instructions."

Disra felt a tight smile crease his lips. No?of course it wasn't the real Tyrannic out there. Tierce's hunch had been right: Coruscant had indeed launched a mad attempt to steal a copy of the Caamas Document.

And not only was the trap ready and waiting, they even had one of the Mistryl's Eleven here to watch that pitiful attempt turned into a humiliating defeat. The real Thrawn couldn't have arranged things better.

"Instruct General Hestiv to let the incoming Star Destroyer pass the outer perimeter," Thrawn told Dorja. "He's then to put all defenses on full battle readiness and prepare for enemy attack."

"Yes, sir."

"And then, Captain," Thrawn added, "you will similarly prepare the Relentless for combat. Track the incoming Star Destroyer as it approaches and plot its course, then bring us to stand directly between it and the base. At that point, you will order General Hestiv to bring full inner defenses to bear on it."

"Yes, sir," Dorja said, sounding slightly puzzled but nevertheless unquestioning.

"Will you be coming to the bridge?"

"Of course, Captain." Thrawn stood up, favoring D'asima with a slight smile as he gestured her toward the conference room door. "In fact, I believe we all will."

* * *

The sudden noise snapped Ghent out of his doze and sent him jerking upright in his chair. He looked around the work area wildly, saw he was still alone. Only then did his sleep-fogged mind realize the sound was some kind of alarm.

He looked around the room again, searching for the source of the trouble. There was nothing he could see. Obviously, it must be elsewhere in the station. A moment's search in the climate-control section of the board, and he found the cutoff switch.

The sound faded away into an unpleasant ringing in his ears. For another moment he looked at the board, wondering if it would be worth trying to tap into the main comm system and find out what was going on. Probably not; whatever it was, it probably didn't have anything to do with him.

He frowned suddenly. The board in front of him seemed to be flickering.

Flickering?

The frown vanished into relieved understanding. Of course?he was getting reflections of light coming in through the viewport in the living area behind him. Getting to his feet, wincing as his knees informed him he'd been sitting in one place too long again, he hobbled in through the open door and peered out the viewport.

The source of the flickering light was instantly apparent: an awesome display of multiple turbolaser and proton torpedo blasts coming from the distance near the base's outer defense perimeter.

And framed in the center of all that flashing firepower, bearing inexorably straight down on him, was the huge bulk of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Ghent caught his breath, staring at the incoming ship. Suddenly all of Pellaeon's and Hestiv's talk about danger and threats, tucked snugly away in the back of his mind for the past few days, came rushing to the forefront again. That Star Destroyer was coming for him?he was sure of it.

Run! the thought flashed into his mind. Run out of here, down the long tunnel into the main base. Find General Hestiv, or that TIE pilot who'd brought him here from the Chimaera, or just find somewhere to hide.

But no. Hestiv had warned him about spies inside the main base. If he went there, one of them would surely get him.

And besides, he remembered suddenly, he couldn't go anywhere. He'd triple-sealed the single access door, passwording it with a layer of computer locks that would take any enemy hours to slice through. Even he, who'd set the blocks up in the first place, would probably need half an hour to undo them.

And half an hour would be too late. Far too late.

For another minute he watched the incoming ship, wondering distantly what they would do to him. Then, with a sigh, he turned away. He was trapped here, they were coming for him, and there was nothing he could do.

Returning to the work area, this time closing the door behind him, he went back to his seat. The Wickstrom K220s had finally finished the complex analysis he'd set for them to do before all this happened. Keying the results over to the Masterline-70, pushing the events outside once again into the back of his mind, he got back to work.

* * *

It took Navett half an hour to locate and purchase the pressurized tank of flammable fluid he needed and another fifteen minutes to fit it with a sprayer hose. Forty-five minutes gone, during which time the alarm over the dead Bothans in the pet shop had probably spread to every corner of the city.

But that was all right. The ugly furry aliens couldn't stop him now; and the more time it took him to get ready here on the planetary surface, the more time Klif and Pensin and Horvic would have to wheedle their way aboard that Ishori ship overhead.

They would die there, of course. They knew that. But then, he would soon be dying down here, too. What was important was that, before they died, they would complete their task.

The streets around the Ho'Din tapcafe, so quiet and deserted in the late night, were buzzing with activity here in the early afternoon. With the fluid tank pressed into the seat beside him, wedged at an awkward angle against the low roof, Navett drove slowly down the deserted alleys along the sides and back of the tapcafe, systematically spraying a thick layer of the liquid along the lower walls and the ground around them. The front wall, facing as it did onto a busy street, was too public for him to do the same there without arousing instant suspicion. But he had other plans for that area anyway. Returning to the back alley, again making sure he was unobserved, he fired a blaster bolt into the fluid as he drove past the tapcafe.

He took his time circling through the alleyways until he came around again onto the main street, with the result that by the time he let the landspeeder coast to a stop across from the tapcafe the fire he'd started was blazing furiously away along the outer walls. Pedestrians were running frantically to and fro, waving and yelling as they either fled from the flames or formed themselves into ghoulish knots at a safe distance to watch; and as Navett retrieved the Nightstinger from the back seat the tapcafe's front doors swung open and a crowd of equally hysterical customers and waitstaff began streaming out through the smoke. Checking the Nightstinger's indicator, confirming that he still had three shots left, Navett settled down to wait.

He didn't have to wait very long. The stream of refugees from the tapcafe had barely begun to dwindle when a white Extinguisher speeder truck came roaring around the corner and braked to a hard stop at one corner of the building.

Through the side window Navett could see the driver gesticulating as his partner scrambled out and started climbing the outside ladder toward the pressure turret on top.

He never made it. Resting the muzzle of the Nightstinger on the seat back for stability, Navett shot him down. His second invisible blast took out the driver; his third and last blew off the speeder truck's filler tube cap, sending the fire suppressant gushing onto the street to flow uselessly away from the flames.

He lowered the now empty blaster onto the floor, giving the crowd around him a quick look. But no one was paying the slightest attention to the human sitting alone in his landspeeder. Every eye was locked solidly on the blazing building, with probably only an occasional brief thought turned to the puzzle of the two Bothan Extinguishers who had suddenly and inexplicably collapsed.

The flow of customers from the tapcafe had stopped now. Navett gave it thirty more seconds, just to make sure everyone was out. Then, drawing his blaster and laying it ready on the seat beside him, he started the landspeeder and eased his way through the crowd toward the tapcafe's front doors.

He was through the main part of the crowd before anyone even seemed to notice what he was doing. Someone shouted, and a Bothan wearing the green/yellow police sash jumped out in front of him, waving his arms violently. Snatching up his blaster, Navett shot him, veered around the body, and leaned hard on the accelerator. Someone behind him was screaming now; bracing himself, Navett increased his speed?

He hit the tapcafe doors with bone-jarring force, smashing them into shards as the landspeeder ground to a halt right in the middle of the destruction. He was out before the debris finished bouncing off the vehicle's roof, snatching the cage of mawkrens from the back and sprinting through the smoke and heat toward the door to the basement and the subbasement beyond it.

He was halfway down the first flight of stairs when, behind him, he heard the explosion as the heat set off the remaining fluid in the pressurized tank he'd left in the landspeeder.

And with the front of the tapcafe now as engulfed in flames as the rest of the building, he was truly and irrevocably cut off from the outside world.

No one in the universe could stop him now.

There was just a hint of smoke in the subbasement?nothing serious, just a foreshadowing of what would inevitably come. Their equipment was just where they'd left it, but he took a minute first to run a quick check on the fusion disintegrator.

It was a good thing he had. The old woman had been here again, gimmicking the device to overload and burn out the main control coil when it was first started.

Grinning humorlessly to himself, Navett ungimmicked it, then spent a few more precious minutes reconfiguring the focus to extend the disintegration beam a few centimeters out from the canister mouth.

Finally, he was ready. Strapping the mawkren cage awkwardly to his back, he dropped into the hole he and Klif had dug and turned on the disintegrator.

The beam cut through the soil beneath his feet like a blaster bolt through snow, sending a gale of microscopic dust flowing up past his face. Fleetingly, he wished he'd thought to bring a filter mask with him. Too late now. Squinting against the eye-burning wind, he kept going, wondering what the Bothans were doing about the myriad of alarms he was undoubtedly setting off. Running around uselessly, no doubt, particularly once they saw that the source of the intrusion was totally inaccessible to them.

And some of them would probably sit back and relax, smugly secure in the knowledge that losing the power conduit he was digging toward wouldn't affect their precious shield in the slightest. Possibly they were even having a hearty laugh at the foolish Imperial agent who thought he could shut them down so easily, or who perhaps thought he could crawl through a ten-centimeter-diameter conduit.

They wouldn't be laughing that way for long.

It took only a few minutes to dig the rest of the way down to the power conduit.

The conduit shell was heavily armored, and it took nearly ten minutes more for the disintegrator beam to eat its way through. The power cables themselves flash-burned almost instantly once that happened, of course?they were, after all, only normal power cables, not designed to withstand anything more strenuous than high-power electrical current. He kept at it until he had carved himself a decently sized hole in the outer shell, then shut off the disintegrator and switched on the coolant pack built into the bottom. A few minutes of systematic spraying, and the area was once again cool enough to touch.

He shut off the coolant and sat down by the opening... and in the sudden silence, he heard a quiet new sound.

The beep of a comlink. Coming from the disintegrator.

He frowned, checking the device. There it was, wedged into the refill intake for the coolant pack. Smiling tightly, he pulled it out and turned it on. "Hello, there," he said. "Everything running to your satisfaction?"

"What in the name of Alderaan dust are you doing?" the old woman's voice demanded.

He smiled more broadly, wedging the comlink into his collar and opening the mawkren cage's false bottom. "What's the matter?" he asked, pulling out a small tube of food paste. "I didn't actually take you by surprise or anything, did I?

That was a cute trick with the smoke at the pet shop, by the way. I take it you planted that before you left this morning?"

"Yes," she said. "I figured you had all your good stuff upstairs with you, or else had it hidden behind walls or ceilings."

"So you planted a delayed-action smoke bomb so the Extinguishers would come in and open up the walls for you," Navett said, opening the cage and extracting one of the tiny lizards. "Very clever."

"Look, you haven't got time for this chitchat," she growled. "In case you haven't noticed, that building is burning like a torch over your head."

"Oh, I know," Navett said. Holding the lizard with one hand, he dabbed a drop of the food paste onto the end of its nose and set it down into the hole he'd cut, pointing it in the direction of the generator building. A touch on one end of the cylindrical bomb activated it, setting it to explode when the lizard reached the blockage where the conduit passed through the reinforced wall and sent its individual power cables splitting off into a dozen different directions. He released his grip, and the mawkren scrambled away through the narrow space between the power cables and the conduit shell, following the scent it was too stupid to realize was attached to its own nose.

"What do you mean, you know?" the woman asked. "Unless you do something real clever real fast, you're going to die in there. You know that, too?"

"We all have to die sometime," Navett reminded her, dabbing the nose of another mawkren and sending it to follow the first. It had barely vanished down the conduit when the faint sound of a small explosion echoed down the tube.

There was nothing wrong with the old woman's ears. "What was that?" she asked.

"The death of Bothawui," Navett told her, dabbing another mawkren and releasing it as a second explosion sounded. Now that the fumes of disintegrated dirt were dissipating, he could tell that the odor of smoke was getting stronger. "You know, we never did figure out what your name was," he added, pulling out another mawkren and wondering uneasily just how fast the fire above him was spreading.

If either the flame or smoke got to him before the mawkrens and their tiny bombs were able to blow a hole through the group of unarmored power cables just inside the generator building, he could still lose. "So what is it?"

"What, my name?" she asked. "You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."

"Sorry," he said, releasing the mawkren. "My name might still be of use to someone down the line, even after I myself no longer am." There was another explosion?

And then, to his relief and immense satisfaction, a breath of cool air drifted up into his face. The power cables had been blown apart inside the wall, and the generator building had been laid open to him.

"Look, Imperial?"

"Conversation's over," Navett cut her off. "Enjoy the fire."

He clicked off the comlink and tossed it aside. Then he tipped the cage over, allowing the rest of the mawkrens to swarm free. For a moment they swirled around his lap and feet, getting their balance and sniffing the air. Then, in a sudden concerted rush, they clawed their way past each other to disappear down the conduit. Drawn now not by food paste on their noses, but by the tiny spots of liquid nutrient he and Klif had so carefully positioned three days ago as they'd sprayed for metalmites.

And there remained just one final task for him to perform. Reaching into the bottom of the cage, he pulled out the last item there: the remote arming signaler to activate the rest of the cylinders now being carried toward their rendezvous with destiny. A few more seconds and his self-guided bombs would be spilling out into the generator building around the startled Bothans' feet, skittering across the polished floor straight to the key points of the whole installation.

Along the conduit, he could hear the faint sounds of explosions now as the mawkrens reached their targets and the cylinders' proximity fuses began to ignite. A few more seconds?a minute at the most?and the section of the planetary shield protecting Drev'starn would collapse.

The death of Bothawui had begun. And with it, the death of the New Republic.

His only regret was that he wouldn't be around to see it all happen.

Overhead, the sounds of flames could be heard now, the crackling noise mixing with the fainter staccato of the bombs still going off in the distance. Smiling up at the ceiling, Navett leaned his back against the dirt wall. And waited for the end.

* * *

The discussions aboard the Predominance had just entered their fourth round when the deck below them gave a sudden rumbling vibration. A sound and sensation that Leia had become all too familiar with over the years.

Somewhere in the depths of the Ishori ship, a turbolaser cluster had just fired.

The captain was on the intercom even before the rumble had died away. "What is the firing?" he snarled.

The answer tumbled out in Ishori, too fast and too faint for Leia to follow. "What is happening?" Gavrisom demanded. "You agreed there would be no hostilities while?"

"It is not us," the captain snarled, diving for the door. "Aliens have taken over one of our weapons clusters and are firing at the ground."

"What?" Gavrisom asked, blinking. "But how??"

But the captain was already gone, taking the door guards with him. "Councilor Organa Solo??" Gavrisom began, breaking off as another rumble rolled through the ship. "Councilor, what is happening here?"

Leia shook her head. "I don't?"

And suddenly she jerked in her seat, inhaling sharply, as a surge of fear and pain and death shot through her. On the planet below, voices were crying out in terror...

And in that single, horrifying instant, she knew what had happened.

"The planetary shield's down," she snapped, getting out of her chair and rushing to the viewport. She reached it just in time to see a third massive turbolaser blast burn its way from the underside of the ship toward the surface. There was a flash of white as it sizzled through the atmosphere; and then the distortion cleared, leaving an angry, black-tinged red glow behind.

Drev'starn, the Bothan capital, was on fire.

She turned back, heading for the door. "It's down, all right," she shouted to Gavrisom as she ran past him. "At least over Drev'starn."

"Where are you going?" Gavrisom called after her.

"To try to stop the shooting," Leia called back.

Outside, a dozen armor-clad Ishori were charging down the corridor, blaster carbines at the ready. Pressed against the bulkheads, trying to stay out of the way, her two Noghri guards looked up at her. "Councilor??"

"Come on," Leia told them. Unhooking her lightsaber from her belt, stretching out to the Force for strength and wisdom, she joined in with the flow.

* * *

Han hit the Falcon's cockpit at a full run, skidding to a halt just barely in front of the control board. "Where?" he barked, dropping into the pilot's seat.

"There," Elegos said tightly, pointing through the viewport at the dark ship lying in space not two kilometers away. "I don't know whose ship it is, but?"

He broke off as another flash of red fire cut through the black of space on its way toward the planet below. "There?did you see it?"

"Oh, yeah, I saw it," Han snarled, a hard jab of fear punching up under his heart as he slapped at the emergency start-up switches. Elegos might have lost track of which ship was which out there, but he hadn't. That shot had come from the flagship of the Ishori task force, the war cruiser Predominance.

The ship Leia was currently aboard.

There was another flash, again heading down toward the Bothawui surface. "You know how to release a docking collar?" Han snapped at Elegos, his hands darting over the control boards.

"Yes, I think so?"

"Do it," Han cut him off. "Now."

"Yes, sir." Lunging out of his seat, the Caamasi headed aft.

The engines were starting to come up to power now. Han keyed the comm, setting for full-frequency scan. There was going to be hell to pay for this one, all right, no matter what the Ishori thought they were doing. The sync numbers for the stabilizer he'd just installed were coming in now; it seemed to be firming up?

"All ships, this is New Republic President Gavrisom," Gavrisom's taut voice boomed from the cockpit speaker. "Stand your positions and hold your fire; repeat, please stand down and hold your fire. The incident currently under way is not?"

He never got to finish his plea. Abruptly there was a squawk of blanketing jamming static on that frequency, drowning him out?

"Attack!" a new voice bit out. "All Corellian forces, attack at will!"

Han gaped at the speaker. What in blazes was the Corellian doing?

And then the scan locked on to another frequency. "Attack!" a guttural Mon Calamari voice rumbled. "All Mon Cal ships, attack."

[Attack,] a Diamalan voice called calmly in their own language on another frequency.

{Attack,} came the snarling Ishori reply on yet another.

Han looked out at the mass of ships, heart thudding in his throat. No. No?this was insane. Surely they wouldn't.

But they were. All around the area, the various warships were coming sluggishly to life, heading for the better maneuverability of open sky or else simply turning their weapons to target their opponents.

And even as he watched, the first flashes of turbolaser fire began.

Behind him, Elegos charged back into the cockpit. "The collar's released, " he announced, breathing heavily as he resumed his seat. "We can leave?"

He broke off, staring in disbelief at the scene outside. "What's happened?" he gasped. "Han?what's going on?"

"It's just what it looks like," Han said grimly.

"The New Republic is at war."

CHAPTER

37

It was a trip of only perhaps fifteen minutes, as the Qom Qae flew, to the far side of the Hand of Thrawn and the lake Child Of Winds had mentioned. At first Luke had been skeptical of the whole idea, concerned about the young aliens' ability to handle the weight of their passengers, not to mention whether or not they would be able to keep out of sight and targeting range of what were surely by now a seriously hostile group of enemies in the fortress.

But the Qom Qae had surprised him on both counts; and as they weaved expertly in and out of the cover of trees and rocks and mountain gullies, he almost began to relax about this phase of the operation. Mara, too, he could sense, had already turned her thoughts ahead to what they would find at the end of the short flight.

The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Artoo. Suspended in the center of the framework they'd rigged out of their last lengths of syntherope, he moaned and gurgled the whole way.

The cut in the rock was no more than ten meters from the edge of the lake, descending at a fairly steep angle from under a partial overhang of grass-clumped soil. "At least the rock isn't too rough," Mara commented, running a hand experimentally along the lower surface. "Probably worn down by years of little fire creeper feet running over it."

Artoo seemed to shudder, warbling uncomfortably. "I doubt we'll run into any more of them this time around," Luke soothed him as he untangled the syntherope and tucked it back into the droid's storage compartment. "Swarms that size can't travel too close together?there won't be enough food for them all."

"Let's just hope they're smart enough to know that," Mara added.

You are fortunate you have come when you did, Child Of Winds said. There has been much rain in the past few seasons, and the Lake of Small Fish has been growing ever larger.

"And have the small fish been getting bigger, too?" Mara asked.

Child Of Winds fluttered his wings. I do not know. Is it important?

Mara shook her head. "It was a joke. Skip it."

Oh. Child Of Winds looked back at Luke. I simply meant that soon this entrance may be covered over with water.

"I understand," Luke said. "But for the moment it's not, and you got us here safely."

It was to our great honor, Child Of Winds said. What do you wish us to do now?

"You've done more than enough already," Luke assured him. "Thank you. Thank you all."

Shall we wait for you? the Qom Qae persisted. We would be honored to wait and take you again to your flying machine.

Luke hesitated. A ride back to the ship could be very useful indeed.

Unfortunately?"The problem is that I have no idea where we'll be coming out," he said.

Then we will watch, Child Of Winds said firmly. And others will watch also.

"Yes, all right," Luke agreed, anxious to cut off the discussion and get on their way. "Thank you."

"So what's our marching order?" Mara asked.

"I'll go first," Luke said, sitting down on the edge of the slope and putting his legs into the opening. "Artoo next, you last. I'll watch for bottlenecks and try to widen them as I pass. If I miss one, you'll have to deal with it."

"Right," Mara said, pulling her lightsaber from her belt. "Happy landings, and try not to cut off your own feet along the way."

"Thanks." Igniting his lightsaber, holding the blade ready over his outstretched legs, Luke eased onto the slope and started down.

It wasn't nearly as bad as he'd feared. Years of little fire creeper feet might indeed have smoothed down the rock; more importantly, they'd also worn away most of whatever obstructions might once have existed there. Only twice did he have to slice out pieces of rock as he slid his bouncy way down, and in one of those cases it probably hadn't really been necessary. Behind him, he could hear the much louder metallic clattering as Artoo slid down the slope, almost but not quite covering up his continual unhappy twittering.

The slope emptied into one of the same sort of tunnels they'd spent far too much time in over the past couple of weeks. Luke caught Artoo as he fell out, getting him out of the way in time to give Mara a clear landing spot. "Well, here we are again," she said, playing her glow rod around. "Doesn't look particularly familiar. Any guesses as to which way?"

"From the position of the fortress, I'd say that way," Luke said, pointing to the left.

"Okay," Mara said. "Let's go."

The Qom Qae, whether by design or simple luck, had chosen their entrance well.

They had gone no more than a hundred meters along the tunnel when Luke rounded a curve to see an all-too-familiar natural stone archway in the near distance. "We're here," he murmured back toward Mara. "Be ready; if they know about the stairway, they'll probably have guards waiting for us inside."

There were no guards. Fifteen minutes later, having struggled through the narrow gap in the cortosis-laden rock, they were once again standing in the underground room.

"I guess they don't know about the stairway, after all," Mara commented, playing her glow rod across the cut they'd made earlier in the yellow inner wall.

"Or else don't have any way of getting into it," Luke reminded her. "Even the locking mechanism on those doors seemed to be made of Hijarna stone."

"Don't misunderstand?I'm just as happy to give them a miss this time through," Mara hastened to say. "I wonder how many of those power conduits are running at the moment?"

"Probably more than the last time we went through," Luke said, turning his glow rod to point the other way. As before, the far end of the room was lost in the shadows beyond the light. "I wonder how long this room is?"

"It can't be too long," Mara pointed out. "There's a lake somewhere that direction, remember?"

"Right," Luke agreed. "Got any sage advice before we start?"

"Just that we be careful," Mara said, joining him. "Side by side as long as we can with the droid behind us, lightsabers and senses ready."

"Succinct and practical," Luke said, stretching out ahead of them with the Force.

There was no danger yet that he could sense. "Come on, Artoo."

Mara's point about the room's size turned out to be correct. They had gone only a few steps when the back wall came within range of their glow rods. In the center was an open archway leading farther back into the rock.

Not the rough natural rock of the caverns, though. The walls and floor of this passageway were smooth and finished.

"Interesting," Mara said, playing her glow rod around as they stood just outside the archway. "Notice anything peculiar about the ceiling?"

"It hasn't been smoothed down like the walls have," Luke said, eyeing the jutting rock hanging down from the arched ceiling.

"I wonder," Mara murmured. "Artoo, your sensors getting anything?"

Artoo warbled a rather distressed-sounding negative, and Luke leaned over to check the datapad translation. "He says the output from the power generator is masking pretty much everything else," he told Mara. "That's probably where that hum is coming from, too. You think there's something else up there?"

"Keeper Of Promises said this area was lethal to Qom Jha," Mara reminded him. "And we all know how much Qom Jha like to hang from ceilings."

"And we had that cave of predators who eat flying things like Qom Jha." Luke nodded, seeing where she was going with this. "And a bunch of Chiss up in the fortress who think of them as vermin."

"Not to mention that layer of cortosis ore back there," Mara said. "Which I still don't believe got there naturally. This place has defense rings six ways from Coruscant."

"As one would expect with Thrawn in charge of it," Luke said. "Question is, do we try to do something about that ceiling, or assume it isn't something that will bother us?"

"It's never a good idea to leave a danger at your back," Mara declared, taking a step just inside the archway. "Here goes." Igniting her lightsaber, she hurled it expertly up to slice into the rocky ceiling.

There was a brilliant flash, the crackle and stench of high-energy current?

And suddenly the whole ceiling seemed to collapse.

Mara was back out of the room in an instant, even as Luke ignited his lightsaber and jabbed it protectively over where her head had been. The ceiling fell onto it, draping itself over the green-white blade for a second before it was cut through and fell the rest of the way onto the floor.

"How cute," Mara said, peering in over his shoulder. "It's like a sculpted Conner net. A Qom Jha settles to a landing, there's a high-energy discharge that fries him, and the whole thing drops to take out any of his friends who happen to be with him."

"That's cute, all right," Luke murmured, poking at the netting with the tip of his lightsaber. "Question is, is it safe now for us to walk over?"

"Probably," Mara said. "Conner nets are usually single-charge gadgets, and it doesn't do much good to leave it active once it's on the floor."

"Makes sense," Luke said, stretching out to the Force as he eased his foot out over the net. No tingling of danger... and sure enough, his foot came down onto the net without even a spark of residual charge. "It's clear," he said.

"Hold it!" Mara hissed, taking a long step forward and putting her lightsaber handle across his chest to stop him, her sleeve blaster now gripped in her free hand. "Something's coming."

Luke stopped, listening to the soft clicking of feet on rock. More than one something, too, by the sound of it. He played his glow rod down the tunnel trying to see what was coming...

And abruptly, from a group of narrow side openings he hadn't noticed came a swarm of fist-sized insectlike creatures scuttling rapidly across the walls toward them.

"Watch it!" Mara snapped, her blaster tracking.

"No, wait," Luke said, pushing her arm to the side off target. He'd caught a glint of metal... "Just keep moving. Artoo, come on, hurry."

He could sense Mara's strong disapproval, but she did as instructed without argument. The skittering creatures passed them by without slowing, apparently without even so much as a second glance. Luke reached the end of the collapsed Conner net and stepped off onto the stone floor; and as Mara and Artoo did likewise, he turned around to look.

The creatures had grouped themselves around the front edge of the collapsed net.

Even as Luke watched, they began to ease their careful way up the walls, carrying the edge of the net with them.

Beside him, Mara snorted gently. "Of course," she said, sounding mildly disgusted with herself. "Maintenance droids, there to get the trap reset. Sorry?I guess I overreacted a bit."

"Considering it's Thrawn we're dealing with, overreaction isn't likely to be a problem very often," Luke said.

"Thanks, but you don't have to try to soothe my feelings," Mara told him, sliding the sleeve gun away and shifting her lightsaber to her right hand again.

"Lesson learned. Shall we go?"

* * *

"What in the Empire are you talking about?" Captain Nalgol demanded, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he grabbed for his uniform and started pulling it on.

"How can they be shooting at each other? The flash point is still three days away."

"I don't know, sir," the Tyrannic's duty officer said tautly. "All I know is that the probe ships report the battle has begun, and that the section of planetary shield over the Bothan capital has collapsed. It's hard to tell from this distance, but they say the capital appears to be on fire in several places."

Nalgol swore viciously under his breath. Someone had blundered, and blundered badly. Either the Intelligence strike team?

Or Thrawn himself.

It was a shocking thought. A shattering thought, even. If Thrawn's timing could be that far in error?

He shook away his misgivings. What was done was done; and whatever mistakes or miscalculations had been made, he was determined that he and the Tyrannic wouldn't add to them. "Have the Obliterator and Ironhand been informed?" he asked, grunting out the last word as he leaned over to pull on his boots.

"Yes, sir. Probe ships report they're coming to full battle stations now. "

"Make sure we get there ahead of them," Nalgol told him tartly.

"Yes, sir," the officer said again. "Estimate we'll be at battle readiness in five minutes. Probe ships are continuing to feed us reports."

"Good," Nalgol muttered. Now that the shock of the news was fading, he realized it wasn't quite as bad as it had first seemed. All right, so the battle had started early. The three Star Destroyers were ready, or would be before their presence was needed to eliminate the survivors of the battle raging out there.

And blinded by the cloaking shield as they were, they definitely needed up-to-the-minute reports from the probe ships. The danger was that, with the ships dipping in and out of the shield with that kind of regularity, someone might notice something odd happening around the comet head and come over to investigate.

But there was a way to minimize that risk. "Put all tractor beam operators on full alert," he ordered. "If any ship besides our own probe ships?and I mean any ship?pokes its nose inside the cloaking shield, I want it grabbed and held inside out of communication. Make sure that message gets to the other ships, too.

No one is going to stumble in on us and live to talk about it. Understood?"

"Understood, sir," the officer said.

"I'll be on the bridge in two minutes," Nalgol said, grabbing his tunic and belt.

"I want the ship at full battle readiness by the time I get there."

"We will be, sir."

Nalgol slapped off the intercom and headed out the door of his quarters. Fine; so the aliens and alien-lovers couldn't contain their self-destructive hatreds as long as Thrawn had expected. Fine. It just meant that the pent-up boredom and frustration of his crew would get released a little earlier.

Smiling grimly, he headed down the corridor toward the turbolift at a carefully measured walk. This was going to be a pleasure.

* * *

A turbolaser flashed, its lethal red beam sizzling perilously close to the Falcon's starboard side on its way toward an Escort Frigate with Prosslee markings. Han spun the ship away from a second shot, dodged the other direction barely in time to avoid a pair of Bagmim customs ships driving with laser cannon blazing toward the Prosslee.

The whole universe had gone mad. With him square in the middle of it.

"What happened over there?" he called toward the comm, weaving between a pair of Opquis gunships.

"According to the Ishori, three humans came aboard about half an hour ago," Leia's voice came back, the sound of an alert tone droning in the background. "They had New Republic tech IDs and a letter from the Ishori High Conflux authorizing them to examine the Predominance's power couplings for oxidation damage."

"All phony, of course," Han growled, maneuvering the Falcon into a relatively clear space and looking around. It was like Endor all over again out there.

Except that this time the Empire was nowhere to be seen. It was Rebels fighting other Rebels.

"We know that now," Leia agreed. "Once aboard, they killed their escort and took over one of the turbolaser clusters. When the Drev'starn shield went down... Han, they got eight shots off onto the surface before we were able to cut off power to their cluster. The Ishori still haven't been able to storm the room and get to them, even with Barkhimkh and Sakhisakh helping them."

Beside Han, Elegos murmured something in the Caamasi language. "How bad did Drev'starn get hit?" Han asked. "Never mind?that's not important right now. What's happening with you and the ship?"

"We're under attack," Leia said, her voice tense. "Three Diamalan ships have joined up against us, one of them sitting between us and the planet in case we try to fire on Drev'starn again. No serious damage yet, I don't think, to either side. But that can't last."

"Didn't you tell them what happened?" Han asked.

"I told them, the Predominance's captain told them, Gavrisom told them," Leia said. "They're not listening."

"Or else don't care," Han said, clenching his teeth hard enough to hurt. Leia, trapped aboard a ship under massive attack... "Look, I'm going to try to get over there," he told her. "Maybe I can at least get you and Gavrisom off."

"No?stay away," Leia said sharply. "Please. You'd never make it."

Han gazed bitterly out at the swirling battle. She was right, of course; from his new vantage point he could see the Predominance now and the storm of turbolaser fire raking across it, and he knew full well the Falcon's shields wouldn't stand a chance in there. But he couldn't just sit out here and do nothing. "Look, I've outfought Star Destroyers before," he said.

"You've outmaneuvered them," Leia corrected him. "There's a big difference.

Please, Han, don't try to?"

There was a squawk, and suddenly she was cut off. "Leia!" Han shouted, his chest tightening as he looked back at the Ishori war cruiser. It still seemed intact; but all it would take would be a single lucky shot into the bridge area?

"She's all right," Elegos said, pointing at the comm display. "They're just being jammed again."

Han let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "We've got to do something," he said, searching the sky for inspiration. "We've got to get her off that ship?"

The comm crackled back to life. "Leia?" Han called, leaning hopefully toward the speaker.

"Solo?" a male voice called. "It's Carib Devist."

Han grimaced. "What do you want? We're kind of busy out here."

"No kidding," Carib snapped. "And whose fault do you think that is?"

"We already know," Han growled. "Some troublemakers got aboard the Predominance and started shooting. Probably Imperials."

"Definitely Imperials," Carib retorted. "And it was other Imperials who stirred the rest of the crowd into doing likewise. Or didn't you hear them broadcasting recorded attack orders in a half-dozen different languages?"

Han threw a glower at Elegos, feeling a stab of chagrin at having totally missed reality on that one. So that was what those small Imperial ships Carib had identified had been hanging around Bothawui for. Obvious.

Or at least it would have been obvious if anyone out there had bothered to take a minute to think it through. But nobody had.

"But that can wait," Carib went on. "I called to warn you that I think there's something happening out by the head of that comet."

"Yeah? What sort of something?" Han asked, his attention already back on the Predominance and how in space he was going to get Leia off it.

"I don't know," Carib said. "But there are a dozen mining ships fluttering around the area. All of them flying under Imperial pilots."

Han frowned at the comm speaker. "What are you talking about? What would Imperials want with ore buckets?"

"I tell you they're Imperial pilots," Carib insisted. "Their whole flying style just screams it out."

"Okay, fine," Han said, not really interested in arguing the point. "So what do you want me to do about it?"

There was a hiss of exhaled breath from the speaker. "We're going to go check it out," he said, sounding disgusted. "Under the circumstances, I thought you might be interested in taking a look yourself. Sorry to have bothered you."

The comm clicked off. "I'm sorry, too," Han muttered. He glanced at Elegos?

Paused for another look. "What?" he snarled.

The Caamasi lifted his hands, palms up. "I said nothing."

"What, you think I should just take off and head out there with him?" Han demanded. "Just leave Leia and go running off on a wild-tresher hunt?"

"Can you help her at the moment?" Elegos countered mildly. "Can you free her, or defeat the attacking ships, or halt the battle itself?"

"That's not the point," Han bit out. "Ten to one they're just some miners who used to fly for the Empire. There are thousands of them around the New Republic?it doesn't mean a thing."

"Perhaps," Elegos said. "You must balance that against all the rest."

"All the rest of what?"

"The rest of all things," Elegos said. "Your knowledge of Carib Devist and his observational abilities. Your belief?or lack of it?that he did not, in fact, betray you to the Empire while you were on Bastion. Your own experience with Imperial procedure and style, and whether you believe someone of Carib's skills could recognize them. Your trust in your wife and her reading of this man."

He lifted his eyebrows slightly. "And most of all, your innate sense of what is right and good. If there is indeed danger of some sort out there, whether you should leave him to face it alone."

"He isn't exactly alone," Han grumbled. "He's got a whole bunch of his other clones with him."

Elegos didn't reply. Han sighed and did a quick search of the sky. There was Carib's beat-up Action II freighter, all right, driving out past the boundaries of the battle toward the blazing comet in the distance. All alone. "You know, you Caamasi could be a real pain if you worked on it a little," Han told Elegos, turning the Falcon to follow and keying the comm to Lando's comlink frequency. "Lando?

Hey, Lando, look alive."

"Yes, Han, what is it?" Lando's tight voice came back.

"You back on the Lady Luck yet?"

"I wish I were," the other said fervently. "I'm stuck on the Industrious Thoughts with Senator Miatamia."

Han grimaced. "That's one of the ships attacking Leia?"

"If Leia's on the Predominance, yes," Lando said, his voice both disgusted and more than a little bit nervous. "Han, we've got to get this thing stopped, and fast."

"No argument from me, buddy," Han said, steering clear of a pair of Froffli patrol ships slugging it out with a D'farian starbarque. "Gavrisom's with Leia.

If you can get Miatamia to call off their jamming, maybe he can talk this thing down."

"I've already tried," Lando sighed. "I'm the last person aboard anyone's interested in listening to."

"I know the feeling," Han said. "Look, I need a quick favor. I'm heading over to that comet out there with Carib Devist. Put some macrobinoculars on me, will you, just in case we run into trouble?"

There was a brief pause. "Sure, no problem. Exactly what sort of trouble are you expecting?"

"It's probably nothing," Han said. "Carib seems to think there are Imperials out there flying ore buckets around. Just keep an eye on us, huh?"

"I will," Lando promised. "Good luck."

Han keyed off the comm and swerved around the last handful of ships between him and the comet. "Hang on," he told Elegos as he threw full power to the sublight drive. "Here we go."

* * *

"Easy, now," Bel Iblis warned from Booster's side. "Take it nice and calm and easy. We're all friends here, with the protection of the outer defense perimeter between us and the nasty Rebel attack force. We're safe now, and there's no need to look like we're hurrying."

"No, we wouldn't want to look like that," Booster growled, staring uneasily at the huge mass of the Ubiqtorate base looming directly ahead of them. Suddenly, his beloved Errant Venture didn't seem nearly so big and powerful and safe anymore as it used to.

"Steady, Terrik," Bel Iblis said. His voice, to Booster's thorough annoyance, was controlled and glacially calm. "The big show's going on behind us, remember?

The last thing we want to do is draw their eyes our direction."

Booster nodded, glancing over at the aft display. There was a show going on back there, all right, with the New Republic ships taking a real beating from the Yaga Minor defense perimeter.

Or at least, that was how it was supposed to look. If they were following orders, they were actually hanging just far enough back to keep from taking any really serious damage from the massed turbolaser fire. Hopefully, in all the confusion, the Imperials wouldn't notice that. "I don't know," he said. "I don't like this, Bel Iblis. We got in much too easy."

"General, we've got movement," the officer at the sensor station called. "Imperial Star Destroyer, moving up from starboard."

Booster took a few steps forward along the command walkway, peering out the viewport, a bad feeling twisting into his gut. The Star Destroyer had appeared from around the starboard side of the base and had moved across the Errant Venture's vector.

And even as he watched, it stopped there, between them and the base. Floating in space in front of them, as if daring them to pass...

"The ship ID's as the Relentless," someone else called. "Captain Dorja listed as commander."

Booster's bad feeling turned suddenly even worse. The Relentless?wasn't that the ship that always showed up in the rumors about Grand Admiral Thrawn?

Bel Iblis had come up on Booster's side again. "General...?" Booster murmured.

"I know," Bel Iblis said, the calmness bending just a bit. "But running now would only make us look guilty. All we can do is play it through."

"Transmission from the Relentless, General," the comm officer called. "They're asking to speak to Captain Nalgol."

Booster looked at Bel Iblis. "All we can do is play it through," Bel Iblis repeated. "Go on, give it a try."

"Sure." Taking a deep breath, Booster caught the comm officer's eye and nodded.

The man threw a switch and nodded back?"This is Commander Raymeuz, temporarily in command of the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic," he called in his best imitation of a typical Imperial's overly stiff speech pattern. "Captain Nalgol was seriously injured in the last attack and is undergoing emergency treatment."

There was a low chuckle from the bridge speakers. "Really," a calm voice said. A steady voice; a cultured voice; a voice that scared Booster clear down to his boots. "This is Grand Admiral Thrawn. You disappoint me, General Bel Iblis."

Booster looked at Bel Iblis. The general was still staring out the viewport, his face not betraying any emotion at all.

"There's really no point in trying to maintain this charade," Thrawn said. "But perhaps you need a more convincing demonstration."

It was as if someone behind Booster had suddenly yanked a carpet out from under his feet. Suddenly he was toppling forward, arms flailing madly as he fought to regain his balance. Around him came the sounds of consternation from the rest of the bridge crew; from somewhere beyond that came the ominous sound of creaking metal.

"A small demonstration, as I said," Thrawn continued, his tone almost bantering.

"Your Star Destroyer is now totally helpless, pinned in place by approximately fifty of our heavy-lift tractor beams."

Booster swallowed a curse that wanted desperately to come out. What was it with this ship and tractor beams, anyway?

He started as Bel Iblis tapped him on the arm. The general was glaring at him, gesturing him impatiently toward the comm station. Booster glared back, took a deep breath. "Admiral Thrawn, sir, what are you doing?" he called, trying to mix respect and bewildered fear into his tone. The latter part took no acting whatsoever. "Sir, we have injured officers and crewers aboard?"

"That's enough," Thrawn cut him off coldly. The attempt at casualness had apparently been too much for the red-eyed mongrel?it was back to being overbearing again. "I respect your courage in making this attempt, but the game is over. Must I order the turbolaser batteries to commence taking the ship apart?"

Bel Iblis exhaled softly. "No need for that, Admiral," he called. "This is General Bel Iblis."

"Ah?General," Thrawn said. Once again he'd changed tone, Booster noted, this time switching from cold threat to the almost cordial unspoken camaraderie between fellow professionals. The man was nothing if not versatile. "I congratulate you, sir, on your attempt, futile though it may have been."

"Thank you, Admiral," Bel Iblis said. "However, I suggest the success or failure of the operation has yet to be determined."

"Do you, now," Thrawn said. "Well, then, let us make it official. I hearby call on you to suspend your diversion and surrender your ship."

Bel Iblis glanced at Booster. "And if I refuse?"

"As I suggested earlier, General, you're lying helpless before me," Thrawn said, his voice heavy with menace. "At my order, your ship will be systematically destroyed."

For a long moment the bridge was silent. Booster watched Bel Iblis; Bel Iblis, in turn, was gazing out at the Star Destroyer standing in their path. "I need to discuss this with my officers," he said at last.

"Of course," Thrawn said easily. "Take your time. Only I suggest you don't take too much time. Your diversionary force is fighting valiantly, if ineffectually, but my patience toward them will not last forever. Interdictor Cruisers are already moving into position to trap them there, and the various fighter commanders are pleading to be allowed to launch their TIEs and Preybirds."

"Understood," Bel Iblis said. "I'll deliver my answer as quickly as possible."

He gestured to the comm officer to cut the transmission. "What are you going to do now?" Booster demanded. The thought of the Errant Venture ending up again in Imperial hands...

"As I promised, I'm going to deliver my answer," Bel Iblis said coolly. "Tanneris, Bodwae, where are those tractor beams originating? From the base or the defense perimeter?"

"I'm getting thirty-eight from emplacements in the perimeter," Bel Iblis's sensor officer reported.

"Fjifteen more comjing from the base jitself," Bodwae added. "JI have thejir locatjions marked."

"Thank you," Bel Iblis said. "Simons, do we have any freedom of movement at all?"

"Not really, sir," the helmsman said. "We're pinned pretty solidly in place."

"What about rotational? Can we swivel around a vertical axis?"

"Ah... yes, sir, actually I think we can," the other said, frowning at his displays. "Probably no more than a quarter turn, though."

"Not nearly enough to turn us around and get the blazes out of here," Booster muttered.

"Getting out isn't the goal," Bel Iblis reminded him. "Simons, bring us around ninety degrees to portside, or as near to that as you can manage. Portside turbolasers and proton torpedo tubes, prepare to fire at the defense perimeter at my command, targeting the tractor beam emplacements holding us here.

Starboard weapons, same thing, only targeting the emplacements on the base."

There was a chorus of acknowledgments. Booster gazed out at the base and the Star Destroyer standing ready in front of it; and as he watched, they started moving to the right. Slowly and ponderously, but moving.

He took a step closer to Bel Iblis. "You realize, of course, that you're not going to fool anybody with this," he warned. "Least of all someone like Thrawn.

He's going to see us targeting the tractor beams and start slicing the ship up beneath us."

Bel Iblis shook his head. "I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. All the evidence indicates that he's trying to rebuild the Empire, and a mass of wreckage won't help him do that. What he really wants from us is a few high-ranking New Republic prisoners he can parade in front of potential converts to his cause."

"Not to mention picking up an extra Star Destroyer to use against anyone who isn't so easily converted?"

"That, too," Bel Iblis conceded. "Bottom line: he's not going to start shooting until we're nearly free. Maybe not even then."

Booster grimaced. No, Thrawn would be in no hurry. Not with the Errant Venture on the wrong side of all that firepower waiting at the perimeter. "So how are you planning to get us out?"

Bel Iblis shook his head. "I'm not trying to get us out. I already told you that.

We have a job to do; and that job is waiting for us in there." He nodded out the viewport at the Ubiqtorate base.

"With Thrawn and a Star Destroyer sitting between us and it?" Booster snorted. "Don't take this personally, General, and I'm sure you're a fine military mind and all that. But you try to slug it out with Thrawn and we're all roast dewback."

"I know," Bel Iblis said, his voice suddenly very deadly. "That's why we're not going to engage him. At least, not the way he expects us to."

Booster eyed him cautiously. There was something about the other's face and voice that was starting to send shivers through him. "What are you talking about?"

"We have to get past the Relentless, Terrik," Bel Iblis said quietly, gazing out the viewport. "And we have to disable it enough in the process that it won't be able to blast our slicers out of the sky before they can get to the computer extension and cut their way in."

"What about the base's own weapons?"

"And we have to do it fast enough that the base's own weaponry won't have time to turn on us," Bel Iblis agreed. "Add it all up, and there's only one way we can possibly pull it off."

Still gazing out the viewport, he seemed to brace himself. "As soon as we can break clear of the tractor beams, we're going to turn and drive as hard as we can straight for the Relentless.

"And we're going to ram it."

Booster felt the air go out of him in a silent rush. "You're not serious, " he breathed.

Bel Iblis turned, looking him straight in the eye. "I'm sorry, Booster. Sorry about your ship; sorry about letting you and your crew come aboard in the first place."

"General?" the helmsman called. "We've got a seventy-nine-degree displacement now. That's the best we're going to get."

For another second, Bel Iblis held Booster's gaze. Then, turning his eyes away, he stepped past him. "It will do," he said. "All weapons: commence firing at tractor beam emplacements."

Abruptly, out the viewport, a firestorm of turbolaser fire erupted, lancing outward from the angled hull in both directions. "And helm and sublight engines," the general added calmly, "stand by for full emergency power."

* * *

"There he is," Elegos said, pointing. "Over there, just to starboard."

"I see him," Han said. For a minute there he'd lost Carib's freighter in the swirling glare of the comet's tail. "You see any of the miners he was talking about?"

"Not yet," Elegos said. "Perhaps he was mistaken."

"Not likely," Han growled, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to tingle.

He might not agree that Carib could pick out Imperials just by their flying style; but he sure didn't doubt the guy could tell the difference between ore buckets and empty space. "I wonder where they could have gotten to?"

"Perhaps they're being masked by the tail," Elegos suggested. "They may be working on the back quarter of the comet's surface."

"Miners never work back there," Han said, shaking his head. "The dust and ice foul up alluvial dampers something fierce."

"Then where are they?"

"I don't know," Han said grimly. "But I'm starting to get a very bad feeling about it. Key me a transmission to Carib's freighter, will you?"

Elegos keyed the comm. "Ready."

"Carib?" Han called. "You see anything?"

"Nothing," the other's voice came back. "But they were here, Solo."

"I believe you," Han said, throwing a quick look at the Falcon's weapons board.

The quads were ready, keyed remotely down here to him. "I think maybe it's time for a real close look at the surface. See what might be tucked away in there out of sight."

"Agreed," Carib said. "You want us to lead the way down?"

"That freighter of yours armed?"

There was just the briefest of hesitations. "No, not really."

"Then I'd better take point," Han said, throwing more power to the sublight engines. "Hang back and let me pass you."

"Whatever you say."

"Do you wish me to go to one of the weapons bays?" Elegos asked quietly.

Han threw him a quick glance. "I thought Caamasi hated killing."

"We do," Elegos said soberly. "But we also accept that there are times when killing a few is necessary for a greater good. This may well be one of those times."

"Maybe," Han grunted, easing way back on his speed as the Falcon shot past the Action II. They were starting to get close in to the comet now, and he didn't want to run into some loose piece of rock that might suddenly decide to break off into their path. "Don't worry?whatever they're hiding down there, I should be able to handle it okay by myself. It's not like you can cram a lot of firepower into one of those ore buckets?"

And right in the middle of his sentence, right before his eyes, the comet and the stars beyond it abruptly vanished.

And in their place, its lights glowing evilly in the total blackness around it, was the dark shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

"Han!" Elegos gasped. "What?"

"Cloaked Star Destroyer!" Han snapped back, twisting the helm yoke viciously, the whole plan suddenly coming clear. That battle back there over Bothawui?all those ships beating each other into rubble?with a Star Destroyer waiting hidden here, ready to finish them all off and maybe burn Bothawui in the bargain. No survivors, no witnesses, only a battle everyone in the New Republic would blame everyone else for.

And the civil war that single battle would spark might never end.

"Get ready on the comm," he told Elegos as the Falcon veered hard around back toward the invisible edge of the cloaking shield. "The second we're clear?"

The order choked off as he was abruptly thrown hard against his restraints.

Beneath him, the Falcon jerked to the side like a wounded animal, the roar of the sublight engines mixing with the creaking of stressed joints and supports. "What is it?" Elegos gasped.

Han swallowed hard, his hands tightening uselessly on the yoke. "It's a tractor beam," he told the Caamasi, throwing a desperate glance at the sensor display.

If it was an edgewise grab, something marginal or tenuous, he might be able to wiggle his way out.

But no. They had him. They had him solid.

He looked up again as a motion caught his eye: Carib's freighter, now inside the cloaking shield with him, twisting helplessly in the same invisible grip. "They've got us, Elegos," he sighed, the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth.

"They've got us both."

CHAPTER

38

They ran into two more of the disguised Conner nets along the way, both of which Mara insisted on tripping and disposing of. Luke wasn't convinced himself that that was necessary; but on the other hand he couldn't see how it could hurt, either. If the first net hadn't triggered any alarms?and there was no indication it had?then taking down the other two probably wouldn't do anything, either. And at least it gave the insectoid service droids something to do that was back out of their way.

The background hum had also increased as they traveled down the tunnel, reaching a volume where Luke could definitely tell it was coming from above them. The fortress's huge power generator, undoubtedly, sealed safely away inside solid rock beyond their reach.

And eventually, after perhaps a hundred meters, the tunnel ended in a large, well-lit room.

"I was right," Mara murmured from Luke's side as they stood together at the archway entrance. "I knew he'd have a place like this stashed away. Even in his own fortress, hidden away from his own people. I just knew it."

Luke nodded silently, gazing into the chamber. It was roughly circular, dome-shaped at the top, sixty meters across at the base, and a good ten high at the center, all carved out of solid rock. A three-meter-wide ring of tiled floor ran around the outer edge at the level of the tunnel, dropping then a meter down to the main floor, which was also tiled. Five meters up the sides, behind a protective railing, a balcony deeply indented into the rock ran two-thirds of the way around the room, its inner walls lined with electronic equipment.

On the main floor to their far right was a more modest version of the command center they'd found in the upper floor of the Hand of Thrawn. This one was only a single ring of consoles, centered not on a galactic holo but on the wide, squat cylinder of a superstorage library/computer information base. Again, as in the fortress above, a handful of glowing lights indicated the equipment was waiting patiently on standby. The rest of the main floor was empty except for a row of furniture lined up against one edge of the raised walkway beneath a plastic sheet.

But all of that was just background, things to be peripherally noted and filed away into his mind for later evaluation. From the first moment he and Mara had entered the room, Luke's full attention had been focused on the deep alcove coming off the main room over to their left. Sealed there behind a solid transparisteel wall was a complete cloning apparatus: a Spaarti cylinder wrapped in nutrient tubes and flash-learning cables, surrounded by support equipment, all of it tied into a humming fusion generator.

And floating gently in the center of the cylinder, asleep or perhaps not even yet truly alive, was a blue-skinned adult humanoid. A humanoid with an exceptionally familiar face.

Grand Admiral Thrawn.

"Ten years," Luke said quietly. "Just like you said. Just like you figured. He told them he'd return in ten years."

"The old fraud," Mara muttered, the words in sharp contrast to the reluctant awe Luke could sense in her. He could sympathize; the alcove and its occupant were intimidating in their subtle grandeur, and in their equally quiet threat. "Probably had the cycle set on a ten-year timer and just reset it back to zero every time he dropped by for a visit."

"Probably," Luke agreed, tearing his eyes away from the almost hypnotic sight of the floating clone and looking over at the ring of consoles at the other end of the room. "Artoo, get over there and find a computer jack you can link into.

Start downloading everything you can find about the Unknown Regions area Thrawn opened up."

The little droid warbled acknowledgment and rolled past him to one of the half-dozen ramps leading from the outer ring down to the main floor. He made it down the ramp without tipping over and headed for the console ring, his wheels clattering rhythmically across the small gaps between the tiles as he went. He stopped beside one of the consoles, whistled a confirmation, then extended his computer jack and plugged in.

"He's in," Luke said, turning back to the cloning tank. "Come on, I want a closer look at this."

Together, he and Mara circled the room to the transparisteel wall. "Don't touch it," Mara warned as he leaned in close. "It's probably wired with alarms."

"I wasn't going to," Luke assured her, peering inside. From this angle he could see something that hadn't been visible from the archway. "You see what else he's got in there with him?"

"A couple of ysalamiri." Mara nodded. "Just in case a wandering Jedi happened by."

"Thrawn was the type to think of everything."

"He sure was," Mara agreed. "Except maybe that lake out there."

Luke frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Over there," Mara said, half turning and pointing across the room.

Luke turned to look. There was the rock wall, and the furniture beneath the plastic sheet, and the upper equipment balcony running around the dome above it.

"What exactly am I looking at?" he asked.

"The water damage," she said, pointing again. "On the wall across from the tunnel mouth. See?"

"I do now," Luke said, nodding. The wall over there was subtly but definitely discolored, the stain marked with multiple vertical lines where water had seeped through the rock and dripped down. In fact, now that he was paying attention, he could see water oozing slowly through the rock in a dozen places. "Child Of Winds said the lake had been expanding," he said. "Looks like it found a way in through the caverns."

He turned back. "I'd say our clone reached his ten-year mark just in time."

"What do you think he'll be like?" Mara asked, her voice sounding odd. "I mean, how close to the original Thrawn will he be?"

Luke shook his head. "That's an argument that's been going on for decades," he said. "With the same genetic structure plus a flash-learning pattern taken directly from the templet, a clone should theoretically be completely identical to the original person. But despite that, they're never exactly the same. Maybe some of the mental subtleties get blurred over in transition, or maybe there's something else unique inside us that a flash-learning reader isn't able to pick up."

He nodded toward the clone. "He'll presumably have all of Thrawn's memories. But will he have his genius, or his leadership, or his single-minded drive? I don't know."

He looked at Mara. "Which I suppose leads us to the question of what we do with him."

"Funny you should ask that," Mara said pensively. "Ten years ago, I'd have said flat out we blast our way in and get rid of him. Maybe even five years ago. But now... it's not so simple anymore."

Luke studied her profile, trying to sort through the mixture of emotions swirling through her. "You really were spooked by all that talk about distant threats, weren't you?"

To his mild surprise, she didn't take offense. "Fel and Parck are worried about it," she reminded him. "You willing to bet they're both wrong?"

"Not really," Luke conceded, looking back at the clone. "I'm just trying to imagine what having Thrawn suddenly show up would do to the New Republic.

Widespread panic would be my guess, with Coruscant scrambling to find enough ships for a preemptive strike at what's left of the Empire."

"You don't think they'd listen to what he had to say?"

"The way Thrawn carved his way through the New Republic the last time?" Luke shook his head. "They wouldn't trust him for a minute."

"You're probably right," Mara said. "Parck said there were rumors he'd returned, though how a rumor like that could get started I don't know. But he didn't mention what the reaction had been."

"And rumors are a lot different than if he actually walked in the door," Luke pointed out.

For a minute they stood there in silence. Then Luke took a deep breath. "I suppose it's an academic argument, really, when you come down to it," he said. "Whatever the original Thrawn might have done, this particular being hasn't done anything wrong. Certainly nothing that deserves a summary execution."

"True," Mara agreed. "Though I imagine you'd have trouble convincing some people of that. Next question, then: do we leave him here to wake up normally and join our friends upstairs? Bearing in mind that they're not too happy with either us or the New Republic at the moment? Or do we see if we can speed up the growth process and take him back to Coruscant?"

Luke whistled softly under his breath. "You sure know how to find the hard questions, don't you?"

"I've never had to find a hard question in my life," she countered tartly. "They've always found me first."

Luke smiled. "I know the feeling."

"I'd rather you knew the answer," she said. "Bottom line: could Coruscant handle it?"

From across the room came a sudden flurry of warbling. Luke turned, to see Artoo bouncing back and forth excitedly on his stubby legs. "What is it?" he called. "You find the Unknown Regions data?"

The droid twittered impatiently. "Okay, okay, I'll be right there," Luke soothed him, heading for the nearest ramp down to the main floor. He started to pass the sheet-covered furniture?

And paused, looking at the collection. There were half a dozen chairs of various types under there, plus a bed, a table, and a couple of things that looked like storage end tables. "What do you suppose this is all about?" he called back to Mara.

"Looks like the stuff he'll need to make this place into a cozy little apartment once he's out," Mara suggested, dropping down to the main floor and coming up beside him. "He'll want some time to recover, maybe get caught up with what's been happening out there over the past ten years. In fact, I'd run you ten to one that console ring's got a direct feed from whatever news/data links they've got upstairs."

"Yes, but why is it all piled here instead of laid out waiting for him?"

Luke asked. "It's not like Thrawn wouldn't have known what kind of arrangement his clone would like."

"Interesting point," Mara agreed, her voice suddenly uneasy.

Luke threw her a look. "What is it?"

"I don't know," she said slowly, looking around. "Something just suddenly felt wrong."

Luke looked around the room, too. Nothing seemed threatening... but suddenly he was feeling it, too. "Maybe we ought to get Artoo and clear out of here," he suggested quietly. "Take whatever he's got and just go."

"Let's first see how much he's got," Mara said. She turned back toward the droid and took a step?

"Who dares disturb the sleep of the Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo?" a deep voice thundered from above them.

Luke dropped into a half crouch, lightsaber reflexively raised above him. He looked up?

To an extraordinary sight. Above the railing and second-level equipment balcony, a large ovate section of the stone ceiling was undulating like some sort of rocky fluid. Even as he watched, it slowly formed itself into a giant face looking down at them. "Who dares disturb the sleep of the Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo?" the voice repeated.

"Now that's a nice trick," Mara murmured. "Well, go ahead?answer it."

Luke took a careful breath. "We're friends," Luke called. "We mean the Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo no harm."

The fluid eyes seemed to focus on him. "Who dares disturb the sleep of the Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo?"

Luke looked at Mara. "A recording?"

"Sounds like it," she agreed tightly. "But what good does a recording? watch it!"

But Luke was already spinning around, lightsaber flashing out into defensive position in front of him, as his own senses flared a warning.

There were two of them, standing there on the upper section of floor: a pair of large, thickset sentinel droids on treaded bases, each with a heavy blaster gripped in its right hand.

"Get behind me!" Luke snapped to Mara, taking a short step in front of her.

Just in time. Even as he stretched out to the Force, both sentinels opened fire.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he heard Mara snarl from behind him. "A big fat diversion?the oldest trick on the list. And I fell for it like some dumb farm kid."

"Watch your language," Luke warned. The sentinels were good, laying out a systematic targeting pattern that would have quickly taken out most opponents.

So far, though, he was easily staying ahead of them. "Can you do anything about them?"

Her reply was a spitting of blaster fire over his shoulder raking across the sentinels' joints and glowing eyes. But there was no effect. "No good?the armor's too thick for my blaster," she said. "Let me try?"

"Watch it?he's moving," Luke cut her off. The sentinel on the left had suddenly started rolling on its treads along the raised floor ring toward the far end of the room, blaster still firing. Luke clenched his teeth, stretching out harder to the Force, feeling sweat breaking out on his forehead. With the source of the blaster bolts now coming from two different directions?and with the separation between them growing ever wider?it was becoming harder and harder for him to physically get the lightsaber blade back and forth fast enough to block the shots. Behind him, he heard the snap-hiss as Mara ignited her own lightsaber?

Followed by a sudden yelp and a muffled thud.

"What happened?" Luke snapped, not daring to take his attention off the sentinels.

"Don't try to walk," Mara warned, her voice inexplicably coming from the floor beneath him. "Thrawn left another surprise for unwanted guests."

Luke frowned. "What do you mean?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blue-white blade of her lightsaber cut across one of the shots from the more distant sentinel, now at the far end of the room. "Okay, I've got this one," she said. "If you can spare a second, take a look at the floor."

Letting the Force guide his hands, Luke risked a quick look down at his feet.

One glance was all he needed. The floor had sprouted loops of green-black cord that had formed themselves into a tangled mass around their feet. "Looks like they extruded themselves out of the cracks between the tiles," Mara went on. "First step I took my foot tried to catch in one of the loops."

"Clever," Luke agreed tightly. "I guess that rules out any chance of running for it."

"At least we know now why all the furniture's stacked off to the side," Mara added. "You don't want to clutter your killing field with a lot of stuff the victims might be able to hide behind. Luke, this other sentinel's still coming."

Luke risked a glance. The second sentinel had rounded the far end of the room and was now rolling steadily around the other side.

And in maybe ten seconds it would reach a point directly across from Mara.

"Quick?before it gets any closer," he told her, easing a little to his left so he could again defend against both sentinels. "Use your lightsaber on it."

"Right," Mara said, and through his haze of concentration he felt her emotional twinge at the memory of her less than perfect handling of the weapon back in the chamber where they'd taken out all of the stalactites and stalagmites together.

But the moment passed; and as he leaned hard into the effort of blocking the barrage of shots he saw the flash as her lightsaber windmilled across the room toward the sentinel. It sliced cleanly into the intersection of head and body?

And then, abruptly, the blue-white blade vanished.

"What happened?" Luke demanded.

"Blast it!" Mara snarled. Out of the corner of Luke's eye he saw the blade reappear, swing into the sentinel, and again vanish. "He put a layer of cortosis ore under the armor."

"Then go for the blaster," Luke said.

"Right."

The blue-white blade sizzled out again?there was a crackle of broken metal and plastic?and suddenly that point of danger faded from Luke's mind. "Good job," he called to Mara, shifting his full attention to the sentinel in front of him. "Now get around here and do the same thing to this one?"

He swiveled back again, getting his lightsaber blade around just in time.

Suddenly the sentinel on Mara's side had started shooting again?

"Watch it," Mara snapped a belated warning. "It had another blaster holstered for its left hand?oh, shavit."

"What?? Never mind," Luke growled. In response to Mara's attack, the sentinel facing him had now drawn a second blaster from concealment with its left hand.

"He's got a second blaster for the right, too?"

"I got it, I got it," Luke cut her off, leaning still harder into his defense.

With twice as many shots coming in now from each of the sentinels, they were in worse shape than they had been before. A missed blaster bolt sizzled painfully across the top of his left shoulder?

"Sorry," Mara said, her back pressing against his now, the hum of her lightsaber like an angry insect behind him. "What do we do now?"

Luke grimaced. The row of ysalamiri-equipped Chiss he'd faced up in the fortress had been bad enough; but at least there they'd had the option of shooting their opponents if defense became too difficult. Here, trapped in the middle of an open room, caught in a crossfire from two tireless droids who couldn't be killed, with tangling cords around their feet precluding any chance of fast escape...

"Luke?" Mara called again over the sound and fury. "You hear me?"

"I heard you, I heard you," he snapped back.

"So what do we do?"

Luke swallowed hard. "I have no idea."

* * *

Beneath Leia, the Predominance's great bulk shuddered as another proton torpedo got through the Ishori defenses, its violent explosion ripping another piece out of the hull. Ahead out the main bridge canopy, the sky was a tangle of turbolaser blasts splashing across their shields or occasionally burning through to vaporize layers of metal or transparisteel.

But in that sudden, heart-stopping moment, none of that mattered; not the battle, not her own life, not even the terrible threat of civil war. With that flicker of distant emotion, that sudden tremor in the Force, one thing alone had surged to overriding importance for her.

Somewhere out there, Han was in deadly danger.

"Captain Av'muru!" she shouted over the din of the bridge, crossing quickly toward the command console. Two guards raised their blasters warningly; without thinking, Leia stretched out with the Force to turn the weapons aside as she passed. "Captain, I must speak with you right away."

"I am busy, Councilor," the Ishori captain snarled, not even bothering to look at her.

"You'll be busier than you care to be if you don't listen to me," Leia bit out, straining with all her strength toward the wispy, unclear sensation that was Han.

His emotions were still seething with danger and threat and helpless fury; but try as she might, she couldn't penetrate through the emotion and the distance to his underlying thoughts.

But there was one thing that was very clear. "There's some new threat waiting out there," she told Av'muru. "One you're completely unaware of."

"Other threats are meaningless!" Av'muru all but screamed. "There can be no other concern but the Diamalan attackers around us."

"Captain?"

She broke off at a feathery touch on her arm. "It's no use, Councilor," Gavrisom said, his long face tight and almost bitter. "He can't and won't think that far ahead. Not with his ship under immediate attack. Can you tell me what this threat is?"

Leia looked out the canopy, trying to pierce the dazzlingly lethal light show outside. "Han's in danger," she said.

"Where? How?"

"I don't know," she said, her stomach twisting with her own sense of helplessness. "I can't pick up his thoughts clearly enough."

"Who else might know?" Gavrisom asked.

Leia took a deep breath, forcing calmness into her mind. Gavrisom was right: what Han needed was for her to put aside her emotions and think clearly. "Elegos was with him on the Falcon," she said, stretching out again with the Force. But there was nothing. "I can't even sense him."

"Who else might know?" Gavrisom persisted. "Someone closer at hand?"

Leia looked out at the battle again, a sudden tentative flicker of hope stirring in her. "Lando. Han might have said something to Lando."

"Then we must talk to him," Gavrisom said firmly. "I will go speak to the captain about piercing the Diamalan jamming. In the meantime, is there anything your Jedi skills can do about it?"

Leia took a deep breath. "I don't know," she said. "Let me try."

* * *

"I tell you, this can't wait," Lando insisted, throwing every bit of urgency and intimidation he could muster into his voice. "I have to speak to High Councilor Organa Solo right away. The whole fate of the New Republic might well hang on the edge. Not to mention your own lives."

"Really," Senator Miatamia said, his voice icy calm. Diamala, Lando knew, were notoriously hard to read, but it was abundantly clear the Senator wasn't impressed. "And what is the nature of this threat?"

"My friend Han went out to take a look at that comet out there," Lando said. "I was watching him on macrobinoculars... and he just vanished."

Miatamia's cheeks creased. "You mean he crashed?"

"I mean he vanished," Lando insisted. "Right out in the open."

"Yet how truly open is the region around a comet?" the Diamal pointed out, an ear twitching. "He may have veered into the gases of the tail, or you may have lost sight of him briefly in the glare of sunlight from the surface."

Lando grimaced. Not only was Miatamia not convinced, he wasn't even going to give it a fair hearing.

But Lando knew what he had seen. "All right, then," he said between clenched teeth. "In that case, I'm calling in the favor you owe me."

Both ears twitched this time. "What favor is this?"

"I gave you a ride to Coruscant from Cilpar, remember?" Lando reminded him. "You've never paid me back for that."

"You stated at the time that you would not require any payment other than our conversation."

"I lied," Lando said evenly. "And I want my favor now."

Miatamia eyed him darkly. "We are in a combat situation."

"This won't jeopardize that." Lando gestured at the bridge, lying beyond the transparisteel wall of the observation deck he and Miatamia were standing on. "All I want is for the jamming of the Predominance lifted, just on Councilor Organa Solo's personal comlink frequency. Just that one frequency? that's all."

The Diamal shook his head. "I cannot gamble that such an action would not create additional danger for Diamalan lives and goods."

He turned away, facing the battle again. Lando swallowed a curse, looking past him and the besieged Ishori ship at the comet glowing with such deceptive serenity out beyond the fighting. Han had asked for his help. Had trusted him.

And he did know what he'd seen.

"All right," he said, stepping squarely in front of Miatamia again. It was time to put his money where it counted. "A gamble, you say? Fine?let's gamble."

He pointed out the viewport at the Ishori ship. "Here's the bet. You let me talk to Leia right now; and if the threat turns out not to be as serious as I claim it is, you and the Diamala will get my mining and casino operation on Varn."

The Senator's ears twitched. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly serious," Lando said. "My friend's in danger, and I'm the only one who can help him."

For a long moment the Diamal stared at him. "Very well," he said at last. "High Councilor Organa Solo's private comlink frequency only. And for no more than two minutes."

"Done." Lando nodded. "How fast can you arrange it?"

Miatamia turned toward the observation deck's intercom and spoke rapidly in the Diamalan language. He was answered in kind. There was one more quick exchange?"It is done," he said, turning back to Lando. "Your two minutes are running."

Lando already had his comlink out and keyed. "Leia?"

"Lando!" her relieved voice came back instantly. "I was hoping to get through to you. Han's in trouble."

"I know," Lando said. "He went with Carib to check out the comet and asked me to watch with macrobinoculars. They cut in close to the surface, and then just disappeared."

"What do you mean, disappeared?" Leia asked anxiously. "As if they'd crashed?"

"No," Lando said grimly. "As if they'd dipped inside a cloaking shield."

He heard her sharp intake of air. "Lando, we've got to get over there right away.

If there's an Imperial ship hiding out there?"

"Hey, no argument here," Lando said. "But I've already used up all my favors getting this call through."

"All right," Leia said, her voice suddenly dark. "It's up to me, then."

"What are you going to do?" Lando asked.

"I'm going to help Han," she said, her voice as cold as he'd ever heard it. "Stay clear?you don't want to get involved in this."

The transmission clicked off. "Too late for that, Leia," he muttered at the dead comlink. "Years and years too late."

* * *

Another barrage of turbolaser fire lanced out from the nearest of the two Golan weapons platforms, the spread targeting the group of starfighters harrying its flank.

Wedge twisted his X-wing safely between the shots and did a quick check of the rest of his squadron. As with the last such salvo, and the four or five before it, none of them had taken any damage.

Neither, as far as he could tell, had anyone else in the attack fleet. Bel Iblis's strategy of staying just at the edge of the Golans' kill zone had so far paid off.

But that strategy was about to change.

"All fighter wings, this is Perris," the voice of the Peregrine's fighter commander came tautly through his headset. "Captain Tre-na has confirmed that General Bel Iblis is definitely in trouble in there."

Wedge grimaced, wondering what about the situation had needed any confirmation in the first place. Nose to nose with another Imperial Star Destroyer, pinned in place by probably every heavy tractor beam the Ubiqtorate base could bring to bear?

"Look?they're firing," Rogue Five snapped. "Everything they've got, looks like."

"I see it," Wedge said, gazing through the separating distance at the blaze of turbolaser fire flashing out from the Errant Venture, his last faint hope that Bel Iblis might still be able to talk his way out of this evaporating like morning mist at sunrise. If he'd opened fire on the base, it meant the bluff had failed.

It also meant he was running low on time. That second Star Destroyer, not to mention the Ubiqtorate base commander, wasn't just going to sit there while Bel Iblis vaped their tractor emplacements and got away.

Tre-na and the rest of the fleet command staff aboard the Peregrine had clearly come to the same conclusion. "Okay, fighters," Perris said. "The fleet's going in, and we're going in hard. Your job is to draw fire away from the main ships, help wherever you can to punch a hole in the defense perimeter, and be ready to run screen when the Imperials finally launch their own fighters. All wings, acknowledge and prepare."

"Rogue Leader, copy," Wedge said, then keyed for the squadron's private frequency. "Well, Rogues, you've all had a look at the perimeter. Any thoughts on where the weak spots are?"

"Maybe," Rogue Twelve said. "Seems to me the turbolasers on the starboard side of that second Golan have a slight flutter."

"You sure?" Rogue Three asked. "I didn't notice anything."

"It's small, but it's there," Rogue Twelve said. "It may be just enough to leave a small gap between?"

"General Antilles?" a new voice cut in.

Wedge frowned. It was a familiar voice, but not one of his squadron. "This is Antilles," he confirmed cautiously.

"This is Talon Karrde. How are things?"

It took Wedge a second to find his voice. "Karrde, what in blazes are you doing here?" he demanded.

"To be perfectly honest, trying to get past your forces," Karrde said. "Is Commander Horn there with you?"

"I'm here," Rogue Nine said. "What do you want?"

"I want to collect on a favor you owe me," Karrde said. "The one we discussed the last time we were together on the Errant Venture, remember?"

There was an exasperated-sounding noise in Wedge's headset. "Karrde, are you crazy? We're in the middle of a battle here."

"Which is precisely why I need the favor now," Karrde said. "I need you to escort me through the New Republic lines."

"To where?" Rogue Nine countered. "In case you hadn't noticed, on the other side of our lines is an Imperial Ubiqtorate base."

"Which, conveniently, happens to be my destination," Karrde told him.

Wedge snorted gently. "The Wild Karrde must be a lot better armored than I thought."

"The Imperials won't be a problem," Karrde said. "I have a high-level code for getting through their lines. My problem is your lines."

"Look, Karrde, I don't know what you're up to," Rogue Nine said. "And frankly, right now I don't really care. But we have a job to do here."

"Perhaps I can make that job unnecessary," Karrde said, a sudden edge in his voice. "You get me inside, and I may be able to stop this battle completely."

"Really," Rogue Two said, his voice suddenly suspicious. "May I ask how exactly you plan to do that?"

There was a slight pause, and Wedge could picture Karrde smiling that mysterious smile he was so fond of. "Let's just say I'm holding the ultimate bargaining chip," he said softly.

"And that would be...?"

"All wings, this is Perris," the fighter commander's voice came on. "Run to formation; we're heading in."

Wedge took a deep breath. They were under official orders now, with no room for maneuvering or stalling or anything else.

But General Bel Iblis's life was on the line here...

"Karrde, this is Antilles," he said. "Where are you?"

"Coming up behind and above the Peregrine," Karrde told him. "Are you starting an attack?"

"Something like that," Wedge said, checking his rear scanner. The Wild Karrde was there, all right, hanging a respectful distance back from the New Republic sentry line. "Stay put?we'll be right there. Rogues; let's go."

He turned the X-wing hard over and headed toward their rear. There was a click in his headset as someone keyed to his personal frequency? "Wedge, what are we doing?" Rogue Nine demanded. "We're under orders. Look, if this is about this so-called favor I owe him?"

"I'm not worried about favors right now, Corran," Wedge assured him. "But you heard what Karrde said. He's got an Imperial code for getting through the perimeter."

"Yes, I remember. But his having an access code won't do us any good."

"Ordinarily, no," Wedge agreed, smiling tightly. "But also remember what Rogue Twelve said about that turbolaser flutter. If we guide Karrde in under that particular bank?and if we then stay clustered real close behind him??"

Rogue Nine hissed thoughtfully. "That might just do it."

"It's worth a try, anyway," Wedge said. Because if they could get in behind the perimeter, they'd have a far better shot at knocking out the tractor emplacements that held the Errant Venture trapped.

And the faster they knocked out those emplacements, the sooner Bel Iblis would be able to turn his ship around and make a run for safety.

"Wedge?" Rogue Nine said, his voice sounding odd. "You don't suppose Karrde really can stop the battle, do you?"

Wedge started to shake his head; paused. This was Corran Horn, Jedi, asking the question. "Not really," he said cautiously. "The Imperials want Bel Iblis?that much is for sure. The only reason I can think of why they'd let him go is if they got something they wanted even more."

"That's what I was thinking, too," Rogue Nine said, his voice still odd. "So why am I also thinking Karrde really does have a shot at this?"

Wedge felt a shiver tingle the back of his neck. "I don't know," he said grimly.

"All I know is that he's our best chance of getting Bel Iblis and Booster out of there alive. Right now that's all I care about."

They had reached the Wild Karrde now, and Wedge pulled his fighter around in a sharp turn into forward escort position. "Okay, Karrde, here we go," he said, double-checking that the rest of the squadron was in position. "Stay close, and follow me."

CHAPTER

39

The sentinel droid continued its attack, systematically sending its fiery bolts of death in Mara's direction. Her lightsaber leaped to meet each one, hands twisting and turning and jabbing the weapon at the guidance of the Force.

She knew her hands were moving, just as she knew that her teeth were clenched tightly together and that there were drops of sweat rolling down her face. But she couldn't feel them. Couldn't feel any of it. So focused was her mind, so locked into the terrible struggle for survival, that there was nothing else in the universe that seemed able to penetrate into her consciousness. Not the rest of the chamber, not the shape of the sentinel dimly visible behind the dazzling glare of the blaster bolts, not even her own body. Nothing but the blasters and her lightsaber.

And Luke.

It was a strange sensation, the small part of her mind that was still free to wonder about such things realized. Standing back to back, stretched out so deeply together to the Force, it was as if their minds had literally melded together to become a single entity. She could feel his mental and physical strain as he maintained his own defense; could sense his reliance on the Force, and his desperate search for a plan to get them out of this, and his deep concern for the woman standing there with him.

In one way it was almost like a logical extension of the brief emotional contacts they'd had throughout this trip. But in another way it was something completely new, like nothing she'd ever before experienced.

Because within the depth of that mental rapport, she suddenly and totally knew Luke Skywalker. Knew everything about him: his hopes and fears; his successes and failures; his strengths and weaknesses; his highest joys and his deepest and most private sorrows. She saw into his innermost spirit, to the depths of his heart, to the very core of his being.

And she knew that even as he lay open before her eyes, so also her heart and spirit were open before his.

Yet it wasn't frightening or humiliating as she might have expected. As she would have expected. It was instead something completely exhilarating. Never before had she experienced such a depth and closeness to another person, a person who understood her as intimately as she understood him. Never had she known such a relationship could even exist.

And never before had she realized how badly she wanted such a relationship.

And that was in its way the most surprising part of all: to suddenly realize after so many years how much her determination to lock herself away from others had ended up hurting her. Had stunted her own growth and life just as her stubborn refusal to accept the responsibility of her Jedi abilities had limited their growth.

It was an amazing insight, particularly coming as it did in the midst of the fire and heat of a battle. She could only regret that the understanding hadn't come to her sooner, instead of now.

Now that she was about to die.

Because her death was indeed close at hand, one way or another. Already she could feel her muscles tiring before the sentinel's onslaught, and knew that she couldn't maintain her defense more than a few minutes more at the most. She had to act now, while she still had the strength to do so, or Luke would die, too.

Because while the plan she'd come up with might?might?eliminate the threat from the sentinel in front of her, there was no way she could take out both of its blasters fast enough to keep a killing shot from reaching her. Fleetingly, she thought of Corran Horn and his ability to absorb and dissipate energy; but that had never been one of her talents, and there was certainly no time for her to learn the technique now. No, she would throw her lightsaber at her chosen target, and the sentinel would shoot her, and she would die. All she could hope for was to cling to life long enough to finish what had to be done.

No, Mara. No! Was that her thought? she wondered. Or was it Luke's?

I have to, Luke. That one was hers. Through her own fears and regrets she could feel his sudden surge of desperate emotion as he tried to come up with a way she would not have to die.

But there wasn't one. Mara had already considered every possibility, and there simply wasn't any way Luke could hold off four blasters by himself when two of them were firing at his back this way. But if she could just live long enough to carry this through, using her body to shield him until the sentinel facing her could be eliminated...

While I still have the strength, she reminded herself. And the time was now. She took a deep breath?

No! the emotion broke through her black determination. Wait. Look.

She had no attention to spare to look anywhere but at the sentinel and its blasters. But she didn't have to. Luke had already seen the critical new factor, and now the image flowed through the Force into her mind.

Off to her right, his little electric arc welder extended ahead of him like a weapon, Artoo was rolling determinedly along the upper floor ring toward her attacker.

Her first thought was to wonder what in blazes had taken the little droid so long to get his metal rear over to help, only then realizing how little time had actually elapsed since the battle began. Her second, somewhat irreverent thought was to note that Artoo had chosen her sentinel to attack instead of Luke's, and to wonder if the Skywalker tendency toward overprotectiveness had rubbed off on him.

Her third thought was that Luke was right. This might be the break she needed, the opening for her plan to succeed without her having to die in the process.

Maybe.

Artoo was almost to the sentinel now, a bluish spark arcing across the welder contacts. The sentinel was perfectly aware of him, of course; the only question was what it would do about it...

And then an image flashed into Mara's mind. A picture of her and Luke lying on the floor amid the tangle of trip cords down there.

She felt herself gasp. Was that a vision of the future, of them lying dead together? Was her plan doomed to failure?

You see? Luke's emotion broke through the sudden fear. You understand?

And then the image cleared, and she indeed saw what he meant. Not a vision of death, but a hope of life: Luke's own last-second contribution to her plan. Got it, she sent back her understanding.

Get ready...

She felt her teeth clenching even harder, lightsaber still flashing against the sentinel's attacks, and prepared herself. Artoo was almost to the sentinel, his arc welder still sparking?

And with a casual and contemptuous ease, the sentinel swung its left arm over, placed the side of the blaster in that hand against Artoo's dome, and shoved the little droid over to land flat on his back.

And for that half second, only one of his blasters was firing.

Now!

Mara reacted instantly, letting her right leg collapse beneath her to send her toppling over onto her right side. Luke fell right along with her, his back pressed against hers the whole way down. They hit the floor?there was probably a jolt of pain in her shoulder from the impact, but Mara wasn't aware of it?and Luke flipped over onto his back to face upward toward the ceiling.

And with that single move suddenly there were no longer two attacks coming from totally opposite directions. Now, it was merely two attacks coming from a pair of widely spaced opponents, both of whom were effectively in front of him.

And that was something he could handle.

Go! his command came as the green-white of his lightsaber flashed past over her head, deflecting a shot away from her face. Mara didn't need the prompting; already her lightsaber was spinning its way toward the sentinel. A quick slash, and the blaster in its right hand had shattered to uselessness. Its other hand was already swinging back toward her; the lightsaber changed direction and slashed again, and the sentinel's second blaster was similarly gone.

There was a short, rumbling roar from the big droid?apparently it had enough sentience to be annoyed at having been outmaneuvered this way. But it was also smart enough to know the disadvantage was only temporary, that her lightsaber couldn't harm it directly, at least not fast enough to do any good.

And its designers had also clearly prepared for such an eventuality. Two more compartments along its lower sides had popped open, and the sentinel's hands were already digging into them for another set of replacement weapons.

But with luck, it would never have a chance to use them. Mara had already brought her lightsaber around in front of the sentinel, turning it to point blade-first toward the big droid. Now, grunting with the effort, she drove it forward.

Not uselessly into the sentinel and its cortosis-ore shell, but straight past it, burying the blue-white blade in the water-stained wall behind it.

The jet of water that burst out around the handle was instant and violent, some of the spray reaching all the way to where she and Luke lay on the floor thirty meters away. Mara felt a sudden twinge of uneasiness at the force of the flow; but it was too late to stop now. Holding the weapon in against the pressure, she spun it around in a ten-centimeter-diameter circle, the hilt more than once nearly vanishing from her view behind the widening spray of water coming out through the crack she was cutting. The sentinel turned its head to see what was happening; lifted its blasters toward the lightsaber?

And with a last burst of effort, Mara finished the cut.

The stone plug came blasting out of the wall with the speed of a proton torpedo, slamming directly into the sentinel's thick torso with armor-crushing force and knocking the big droid helplessly off the upper ring down onto the main floor.

Mara caught a glimpse of crumpled metal; saw that the stream of water that had driven the plug was now shooting across the room over her head?

And suddenly a foam-crested wave slammed into and over her from the opposite direction.

With her mind still in the tunnel vision of Jedi defense mode, the wave caught her completely off-guard. She felt herself being lifted and thrown by the wild surf as her feet were somehow pushed clear of the tangling trip cords, and scrabbled madly for something to hang on to. Her left hand caught another bunch of the cords, and she hung on grimly, trying to orient herself. Another wave washed over her, tearing her grip away, and once again she found herself being spun around in the turbulence. She clawed her way to the surface, caught a breath that seemed to be half air and half foam, shook the water out of her eyes to see another wave surging toward her?

And then a pair of hands caught her under the arms, and with a tug that felt like it was going to tear her in half she was suddenly arcing upward through the air. There was a jolt as her back slammed into something hard?one of the two hands holding her fell away as the other tightened its grip?

"Here?hold on," Luke shouted in her ear.

She half turned in his single-handed grip, saw the railing to the upper equipment balcony there beside her, and grabbed on to it. "Got it."

"Hang on?I'm going back for Artoo." Letting go of the railing, he dropped back into the water.

With an effort, Mara pulled herself up the railing and over onto the balcony floor. Below her, she could see, the room had become a surging mass of frothing water.

And it was filling up fast. Much faster than it should have, she realized uneasily.

And suddenly she saw why. The small, neat hole she'd cut in the wall was no longer either small or neat. Four or five square meters of the water-stained section had given way around it, and the Lake of Small Fish was pouring in through the opening. Already it was halfway up the wall to the ledge where she sat...

A movement across the room caught her eye: Luke, hanging on to some protrusion in the wall, waving toward her. "I'm here," she shouted over the roar of the water. "What do you need?"

In answer, the top of Artoo's dome rose a few centimeters over the waves.

Bracing herself, Mara stretched out with the Force and lifted the droid toward her.

It was harder than she'd expected it to be. Far harder than it ought to have been. The droid rose over the water with agonizing slowness, and twice during the procedure she nearly lost her grip entirely. Clearly, the battle with the sentinel droids had taken more out of her than she'd realized.

But finally she made it, and the droid settled down with a pensive gurgle beside her. He'd been battered around by the water and had lost the datapad they'd rigged to him for translation, but otherwise he seemed all right. She looked back down, searching for Luke?

A hand slapped up to a grip on the bottom rail. "You get Artoo up?" Luke gasped, pulling himself laboriously up the railing.

"He's right here," Mara confirmed, reaching over the railing to give him a hand.

"You okay?"

"Just fine," he panted as he made it over the railing and collapsed onto the balcony beside her. "Lesson number one," he added between breaths. "A Jedi needs air to function properly."

"I'll make a note," Mara said, peering down through the railing again. "What about that second sentinel?"

"I took care of him," Luke said. Already he was breathing easier. "Here's your lightsaber," he added, pulling both weapons from inside his tunic and handing hers over. "Good job with the wall, by the way."

"Oh, sure?great job," Mara retorted. "There's nothing so brilliant as a plan that ends up almost drowning you. Speaking of which, shouldn't we be getting out of here before it gets any deeper?"

There was a brief pause. "Well, actually..."

She looked at him, a sudden flicker of fear touching her heart. "What's the matter?"

He reached over and took her hand. "I'm sorry, Mara," he said. "The water's already above the level of the tunnel. It's already filling that underground room back there."

Mara stared at him?she'd had no idea the water was coming in that fast. "All right," she said, forcing her voice to stay calm. Forcing her mind to stay calm.

"All right. So the room's filling up. If we can make it across to the stairway, we can at least climb up into the fortress, right?"

A muscle in his cheek twitched. "You don't understand," he said. "It's already above the level of the tunnel. That means traveling that whole hundred meters without air, plus probably having to get the whole way across the underground room, too."

"What about a hibernation trance?" Mara suggested. "Like the one you used to cold-shirt it across to the Starry Ice from the pirate base?"

Luke shook his head. "With the underground room filling up, or maybe already mostly full, the water won't be flowing fast enough through the tunnel to push us through in time."

And it was for sure they couldn't swim while in a trance. Mara pushed a lock of wet hair off her face, trying to think.

Beside Luke, Artoo gave a sudden nervous squawk. "I see it," Luke told him.

"See what?" Mara asked.

"The water level's starting to rise again," he said reluctantly. "That means the underground room must be full. The only drainage we're getting is through the two holes we cut, the one into the stairway area and the one back down into the caverns."

Mara swallowed. "Small holes."

"Far too small to handle the amount coming in," Luke agreed soberly. "I'm afraid..."

He trailed off. Mara gazed down at the surging water, now high enough to hide the inflow through the hole she'd cut. But it was still coming in; the steady rippling in the surface was enough to show that. "Back when you first came here," she said, "I told you you could go back to Coruscant if you wanted to and let the Qom Jha and me tackle the fortress by ourselves. You said no, that you had to be here, and you said not to ask you why."

He took a deep breath. "I had a vision of you on Tierfon," he said quietly. "Back before I knew you'd disappeared. I saw you lying in a pool of water, surrounded by craggy rock." He hesitated. "And you looked..."

"Dead?"

He sighed. "Yes."

For a long moment they sat there together, the rushing of water the only sound.

"Well, I guess that's that, then," Mara said at last. "At least I have the minor satisfaction of knowing I did it to myself."

"Don't give up yet," Luke said. But there was no particular hope in his voice that she could detect. "There has to be a way out of this."

"Too bad, too," Mara said. She looked at him, tracing the contours of his face with her eyes. "You didn't know, but after that pirate base thing, Faughn told me you and I made a good team. She was right. We really did."

"We really do," Luke corrected, looking almost nervously into her eyes. "You know, when we were fighting those sentinels down there, something happened to me.

To us. We were so close in the Force that it was like we'd become a single person. It was... it was something very special."

She lifted an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement worming its way through even the deadly seriousness of the situation. There was such an oddly awkward earnestness to his expression. "Really?" she said. "How special?"

He grimaced. "You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?" he growled.

"Oh, come now," she said, mock accusingly. "When have I ever made anything easy for you?"

"Not very often," he conceded. Visibly bracing himself, he reached over and took her hands again. "Mara... will you marry me?"

"You mean if we get out of here alive?"

Luke shook his head. "I mean regardless."

Under other circumstances, she knew, she would probably have considered herself honor-bound to make him sweat, just a little. But with the water still rising below them, such games seemed rather pointless. Besides, there was no reason for old defensive patterns to come into play. Not now. Not with him. "Yes," she said.

"I will."

CHAPTER

40

A blast of turbolaser fire shot past, burning a scorch line in the Predominance's bridge canopy. It was like an omen, Leia thought darkly as she stepped past the outer monitor ring and into the central control cluster: an omen of her own impending downfall. What she was about to do, she knew, would most likely be the end of her political career. It could possibly send her to a penal colony. It could even cost her her life.

But Han's own life was hanging in the balance. Against that, nothing else mattered.

She stopped behind the Ishori at the helm station and looked over his shoulder at his control board. The indicators and controls were labeled in Ishori, of course, but the board itself was a straight Kuat Drive Yards design and she knew the layout. Taking a deep breath, she stretched out to the Force and keyed the sublight drive lever.

The helmsman himself was the first to notice something was wrong. Rumbling something under his breath, he pulled the lever back to its original position.

Leia pushed it forward again, this time also laying in a new ship's vector toward the comet blazing in the distance. The helmsman rumbled again, louder this time, and again grabbed the lever.

Except that this time it didn't move. Leia held it firm against his struggles; and as he paused, confused, she took the opportunity to push it still farther forward. The helmsman swiveled in his seat to look at Captain Av'muru?

And out of the corner of his eye he spotted Leia standing behind him.

"What do you do here?" he shouted, swiveling farther around to glare up at her.

"Guards!"

Leia turned. Two guards were striding toward her, blasters in hand. Stretching out again to the Force, she plucked the blasters away from them and slammed the weapons straight down to the deck with shattering force.

"Councilor!" Av'muru shouted, jumping up from his seat. "What are you doing?"

Leia didn't answer, but reached again for the speed control. "No!" the helmsman screamed, leaping out of his chair with his hands reaching for her throat.

The clutching fingers never got there. Leia caught him in midair in a Force grip, redirecting the direction of his leap to send him soaring instead over the monitor ring to land in a confused heap at the back of the bridge.

"Guards!" Av'muru shouted. "All guards!"

Leia turned back to the helm, again increasing the ship's speed. Her senses flared with warning, and she snatched up her lightsaber just as two other guards on the far side of the room brought their blasters up. They fired, their stun bolts scattering uselessly from her glowing blade. Again she snatched the weapons away, this time bringing them flying across the bridge toward her and slicing them neatly in half with her lightsaber.

"You will stop this at once," Av'muru snarled, stalking with an even, deliberate pace toward her. "Otherwise, I will declare a state of war to exist between the Ishori Confederene and the New Republic."

"This entire system is in deadly danger," Leia said in a loud voice. "You've refused to take steps to oppose this danger. I have therefore done so in your place."

"You risk war between Isht and Coruscant," Av'muru shouted, still coming toward her. "You have until I reach you to cease this action and return this vessel to my command."

Out of the corner of her eye, Leia saw Gavrisom trotting over toward Av'muru's side... and there was now exactly one card left for her to play. "There is no need or reason to involve the New Republic," she told the Ishori. "I hearby resign from the High Council, and the Senate, and the Presidency. I am no longer anything but a private citizen."

"Then you also renounce all diplomatic privileges," Av'muru snapped. Gavrisom had reached his side now, pulling slightly ahead of the Ishori as the two of them continued toward Leia. From Gavrisom's gait, Leia could tell he was trying to reach her first. Probably hoping to stop her himself, with an eye toward minimizing the political damage to the New Republic that she had just caused.

But it was too late for that, and Gavrisom surely knew it. "You are aboard an Ishori war vessel," Av'muru continued. "The penalty for mutiny aboard such a vessel is death."

Leia felt her throat tighten. And that, she realized bleakly, was that. The captain had spoken the word "mutiny," automatically invoking the highest level of Ishori war-law. If she didn't back down before Av'muru reached her, he would have no choice but to bring the entire might of his warship to bear against her.

Could they stop her? Probably not. Certainly not before they reached the comet.

But at what cost? Though she could hold them back, she could almost certainly not do so without the eventual shedding of blood. And if her actions led to death, even deaths from ricochet shots from their own weapons, her fate would be sealed. The strict code of Ishori war-justice would demand her death in return.

And for the sake of unity within the New Republic, she would have to submit. Av'muru and Gavrisom were nearly to her now...

And then, to Leia's amazement, Gavrisom turned sideways and abruptly stopped, his long flank stretching across the aisle between two consoles, blocking Av'muru's way. "I think not, Captain," he said calmly. "I am declaring this war vessel to be under direct New Republic command."

"So it is treason from the New Republic Presidency as well?" Av'muru screamed, trying to push Gavrisom bodily out of his way. "Move aside or die alongside her."

"There is no treason involved," Gavrisom said. His voice was still calm, but he hadn't budged a millimeter. "Unless you bring such a charge upon yourself by refusing an official New Republic emergency requisition of your vessel as per Section 45-2 of the Treaties of Allegiance."

Abruptly Av'muru stopped pushing. "You speak nonsense," he said, screaming now at the top of his lungs. "There has been no official requisition."

"The Treaties are vague about how such a requisition is to be made," Gavrisom said coolly. "Deliberately so, for an emergency situation by its very nature requires flexibility."

He waved a wing toward Leia. "In this case, the requisition began when High Councilor Organa Solo?"

"She is no longer a High Councilor, by her own statement!"

"When High Councilor Organa Solo," Gavrisom repeated, emphasizing each word, "began moving this vessel toward a perceived source of danger."

Av'muru glared at Gavrisom, transferred the look to Leia, turned it back on Gavrisom again. "You cannot seriously believe the Confederene will accept such a ludicrous claim," he bellowed.

"What they will or will not accept is a matter for future discussion," Gavrisom pointed out. "Regretfully, the Diamalan jamming has eliminated any chance for you to communicate with your governments for counsel."

He tossed his mane. "It is your decision, Captain. You must base it on the requirements of the law, my position as New Republic President, and the word of a Jedi Knight that your ship is in deadly danger."

Av'muru was trembling with emotion, his eyes flicking back and forth between Gavrisom, Leia, and the view out the canopy. Leia stole a glance out there herself, confirmed that the Predominance was indeed moving toward the comet.

"Helmsman?" Av'muru shouted.

"Here, my captain," the other replied, stepping hesitantly forward.

"Resume your post," Av'muru ordered, his voice starting to calm down. "Continue on the course which the Jedi Knight Organa Solo has put us on." He paused. "And increase to flank speed."

"Yes, my captain," the helmsman said, brushing gingerly past Gavrisom as the Calibop moved aside. Leia stepped aside as well, and he sat warily down in his seat again. " 'Course and speed as ordered, my captain."

"Come, Councilor," Gavrisom said, gesturing to Leia with one of his wing tips. "Let us move back out of their way."

Together, they retreated again behind the monitor ring. "Thank you," Leia said quietly.

"I was only doing my job," Gavrisom said. "I have often heard it said that Calibops are long on words and short on deeds."

He ruffled his mane. "Sometimes, though, it is the words that must come first."

"Yes," Leia murmured, gazing out the canopy at the comet. She could only hope that the deeds that followed would be in time.

* * *

"We have them both, Captain," the starboard tractor beam officer called up to the command walkway. "Two freighters: a YT-1300 and a Corellian Action II."

"Very good," Nalgol said, still seething over the unexpected and unannounced change in their carefully precise schedule. The strike team on the surface, he promised himself ominously, would have some serious explaining to do when this was all over.

But in the meantime, the Tyrannic was ready to do whatever needed to be done.

And the first job on that list would be to take care of those spies out there. "Bring them in closer, Lieutenant," he called. "Make sure they don't break away."

"They won't, sir," the tractor officer promised.

Nalgol felt a movement beside him. "You sent for me, Captain?" Oissan said.

"That priority/threat list I asked for," Nalgol said shortly. "Where is it?"

"The preliminary list has been filed," Oissan said, sounding a bit flustered. "We were expecting to have more time to complete it."

"Well, you didn't, did you?" Nalgol bit out, thoroughly disgusted. First the strike team, now Oissan. "Get back to work. We still have an hour or two before the battle out there winds down to where we'll be entering it."

"Yes, sir," Oissan said stiffly. "Will you be wanting my staff to interrogate the prisoners?"

"What prisoners?"

"Why?" Oissan floundered. "The crews of those freighters out there."

Nalgol shook his head. "There will be no prisoners."

"But you said?"

"I said to bring them closer, that's all," Nalgol cut him off tartly. "I don't want any debris floating outside the cloaking shield where someone might notice it."

He looked back out the viewport. The YT-1300 was twisting madly in the grip of the tractor beam, still trying to escape, the larger Action II curiously quiet.

"Another minute or two," he added, "and they'll be taken care of. Permanently."

* * *

"There!" Lando snapped, pointing out the Industrious Thoughts's viewport. "Didn't I tell you? The Ishori have recognized the danger and are heading out to take a look."

"They are merely running in an attempt to save their skins," Senator Miatamia countered calmly. "Or else feel that the heightened maneuverability available in deep space will serve their defense better."

"Fine," Lando said. "Either way, you can't just let them go."

"The Diamala seek no vengeance against anyone," the Senator said. "We have thwarted their unprovoked attack against Bothawui. That is sufficient for now."

"But what about the threat I warned you about?" Lando demanded. "We bet on it, remember?"

"If such a threat exists, and if the Ishori are indeed searching for it, they will surely discover it on their own," Miatamia said equably. "There is no reason for any Diamalan ships to expose themselves to danger."

Lando glared out the viewport at the departing ship. However she'd done it, Leia had gotten the Predominance to move against the comet and whatever surprise the Imperials had hidden out there.

But with Thrawn pulling the strings, the surprise was likely to be a memorable one. Almost certainly too big for a single Ishori war cruiser to handle by itself... "I see," he said, striving to keep his voice casual, the tone of a disinterested party who has nothing to gain one way or the other. "I'm sure the Ishori are just as happy to get away from you, too."

"What does it matter how the Ishori see things?" Miatamia said.

"Oh, no reason," Lando said with a shrug. "I was just thinking that if they decided they wanted to make a real fight of it, they'd need to call in reinforcements. And of course, once they're out of range of your jamming, they'll be able to do that."

Miatamia's ears curled over. "Surely they would not do such a thing."

"Why not?" Lando said. "Remember, they think the whole Bothan species should pay for their part in the destruction of Caamas. If I were them, I'd figure that the space over Bothawui would be the perfect spot to hash out their differences with the Diamala."

He nodded back in the direction of the planet beneath them. "Especially with part of the planetary shield collapsed the way it is. Any battle debris that falls through that hole is just a bonus as far as they're concerned."

Miatamia was already at the intercom, speaking urgently into it. Lando stared out the viewport, holding his breath...

And then, to starboard and portside, he saw the other two Diamalan ships turn ponderously toward the departing Ishori war cruiser and begin to give chase. A moment later, he felt the slight tug of acceleration as the Industrious Thoughts followed suit.

"We will keep them silent until the Drev'starn shield generator is repaired," Miatamia said, rejoining Lando. "But when that is done, they will be free to leave if they wish."

"Good enough," Lando said. "You're just bringing the three ships?"

Miatamia gazed out the viewport. "I have suggested to the captain that all Diamalan ships also be summoned to our side."

"Just in case I'm right after all?"

The Senator's ears twitched. "As I have said to you before, the unanticipated may sometimes happen," he said evenly. "The Diamala believe in being prepared for such an eventuality."

* * *

"Hang on," Han gritted, throwing the Falcon hard over first to starboard and then to port. No good; the tractor beam still had a solid grip on them. Reaching to the weapons board, he shifted the aim of the upper quad laser, now firing continuously toward the Star Destroyer. Like the swivel maneuver, all the firepower was doing no good, either.

"The portside stabilizer is flickering again," Elegos announced, peering at the monitor displays. "You may do serious damage to it if you continue this way."

Han bit back a curse. Yes, he might blow the stabilizers. He might also burn out a section of the sublight drive, or melt the quads, or even crack the hull.

But he had no choice but to do whatever was necessary to get clear, even if he had to tear the life out of the Falcon to do it. A cloaked Star Destroyer meant an ambush... and the last thing an ambushing Imperial would want would be to leave witnesses behind.

Elegos, though, hadn't figured that one out yet. "Perhaps we should attempt to surrender," the Caamasi suggested.

"Yeah?" Han grunted. "Why?"

"To prevent our destruction, of course," Elegos said. "Besides, Carib and his group seem to have already done that."

"What do you mean?" Han asked, frowning as he searched the sky. Preoccupied with his own part of the fight, he'd completely lost track of the Action II.

"I mean they aren't struggling against the tractor beam," Elegos explained, pointing out the viewport.

He was right. There was Carib's freighter, a little to starboard and considerably closer to the dark hull than the Falcon was. Making no attempt at all to escape.

But that didn't make sense. Surely Carib knew even better than he did that there was going to be no such thing as surrender here. Had he and the others already been killed?

Or had their newly professed allegiance to Leia and the New Republic never been anything more than a trick?

"Solo?" a voice crackled out from the speaker. "This is Carib. Get ready. "

"Get ready for what?"

"What do you think?" Carib retorted. "And look; if we don't make it, I want you to see to it that our families are taken care of. Deal?"

Han threw a frown at Elegos. What in space??

"We have a deal," Elegos called toward the comm, looking as puzzled as Han felt but apparently willing to play along. "Don't worry."

"All right. It's been nice knowing you."

The comm clicked off. Han stared out at the freighter, a sudden premonition sending a chill up his back?

And then, all at once, the Action II exploded.

Beside him, he heard Elegos gasp. "What??"

"Just watch," Han cut him off, gripping the helm yoke. "And like the man said, get ready." The flare and dust of the explosion cleared, blown away by the expanding air from inside or snatched away by the tractor beam?

And suddenly, from the cloud of debris, a dozen TIE Interceptors burst out.

It took the Imperials no more than five seconds to react to this new and completely unexpected threat. But in this case, five seconds was far too long.

The TIEs swarmed close in across the hull, dodging through the frantic turbolaser fire with casual ease, systematically blasting the tractor beam emplacements.

Han watched in fascination, memories of Baron Fel's legendary flying skill flooding back. Only this time, it was a dozen Baron Fels running interference for him.

And with a jolt that cracked his teeth together, the Falcon was free.

"Hang on!" he snapped, cutting the ship around in a tight circle and pouring power to the sublight drive. The Star Destroyer's turbolasers were starting to open up behind him now as they saw their quarry escaping, and he threw the Falcon into a corkscrewing evasive maneuver as he drove hard toward the invisible edge of the cloaking shield. "You still have the comm ready to transmit to those idiots over Bothawui?" he added, watching the rear deflector indicator warily. If the shields collapsed before they made it out, the Imperials could still win.

"I'm ready," Elegos said. "As soon as?"

He broke off with a gasp. Han twisted his head to the side as the familiar shape of a TIE Interceptor suddenly appeared alongside. Reflexively, he grabbed for the weapons board?

And relaxed just in time. Emblazoned on the TIE's solar panels was the New Republic insignia. Beyond the TIE the rest of Carib's unit was forming up on his flank?

And suddenly the darkness around them vanished, and they were surrounded by stars again. "That's it," he said. "Get busy with the comm."

Elegos cleared his throat. "I don't believe," he said, "that that will be necessary."

Puzzled, Han turned to look.

And caught his breath. Driving resolutely toward them from the direction of Bothawui were a group of over a dozen heavy warships.

The comm crackled. "Han?" Lando's voice came.

"Yeah, Lando," Han called back. "Watch yourselves?there's an Imperial Star Destroyer under that cloaking shield."

"Understood," Lando said. "Are those TIE interceptors with you?"

Han smiled grimly. "You bet they are. Can you whistle up some more help?"

"Captain Solo, this is Senator Miatamia," a new voice spoke up. "We are transmitting your warning to all ships allied to the Diamala and requesting their assistance."

"Great," Han said. "I suggest you invite the Ishori in on this party, too. We're going to need all the help we can get."

"Han?" Leia's voice cut in, sounding breathless and relieved and tense all at the same time. "Han, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, hon," he assured her. "You still with the Ishori?"

"Yes," she said. "The captain's still not sure?"

She broke off abruptly. "Leia?" Han barked.

"Never mind," she said, a sudden grim tone in her voice. "I don't think he has any doubts anymore."

Han frowned, swinging the Falcon around in a tight circle and looking back. The Star Destroyer, its ambush now thwarted, had dropped its cloaking shield.

Only it wasn't just a single Star Destroyer pulling away from the comet toward the incoming fleet. It was three of them.

He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "Now it's a fight."

CHAPTER

41

"Report from Base Command, Admiral," the comm officer called from the portside crew pit. "Enemy Star Destroyer has disabled two more of the tractor beam emplacements."

"Have repairs begun immediately on those emplacements, Lieutenant," Thrawn said coolly. "And order Base Command to lock three more beams onto the target."

Standing a little way off to Disra's left, just aft of the command walkway, Paloma D'asima muttered something under her breath to Karoly D'ulin. "A question?" Disra asked, taking a step toward the two Mistryl.

The older woman nodded toward Thrawn. "I was telling Karoly I don't like any of this," she said, her tone disgusted. "He's playing with them. Why not just blast them and be done with it?"

"Grand Admiral Thrawn is a very subtle man," Disra said, hoping the loftiness of his tone would discourage her from asking questions he couldn't answer. As a matter of fact, he didn't understand what Tierce had in mind with this one, either. But the major was standing straight and tall at Thrawn's side, exactly as a good aide should, so presumably everything was still going according to plan.

Thrawn must have overheard the comment. He murmured something to Tierce, got a nod of agreement, and the major turned and walked back to where Disra and the two Mistryl stood. "Admiral Thrawn heard your question and asked me to come explain his reasoning to you," he said, stepping to D'asima's side where he could talk to her while still keeping an eye on Bel Iblis's attempts to break free of the trap. "He isn't interested in destroying General Bel Iblis, you see.

On the contrary, he wants the general to surrender his ship and crew intact."

He gestured toward the multiple turbolaser blasts. "But as you can also see, Bel Iblis is a proud and stubborn man. He has to be convinced first that he has no chance against the resources of this base. Admiral Thrawn is therefore giving him a chance to do his best against us."

"Showing him the futility of resistance," D'asima said. She still didn't sound exactly pleased, but at least the disgust was no longer evident in her tone. "And adding salt to the sore by increasing the number of tractor beams each time Bel Iblis knocks one out."

"Exactly," Tierce said, beaming. "Admiral Thrawn has always been one to treat even his enemies with respect."

"Though naturally he treats his allies far better," Disra put in. It wouldn't hurt to remind D'asima why she was here in the first place.

"Admiral?" the comm officer called again. "We're getting a direct transmission from the perimeter defense coordinator. He urgently requests your assistance in dealing with the X-wings that have broken through his line."

Disra threw a startled look at Tierce behind D'asima's head. "X-wings?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Tierce replied, his voice taut. He made as if to hurry back to Thrawn's side, checked himself just in time at a quick warning glare from Disra.

It wouldn't do, the Moff had already warned them both, for Tierce to look too vital to the operation. The con man up there knew how to get him back if he needed him.

But for the moment, at least, their Grand Admiral seemed to have it under control. "What X-wings are those, Lieutenant?" he asked, his voice calm but with an edge to it.

"He says he reported the penetration to General Hestiv over ten minutes ago," the comm officer said, sounding confused. "They apparently sneaked in behind one of our freighters."

"One of our freighters?" Thrawn asked.

"An Imperial freighter, sir," the officer corrected himself hastily. "Supply run, probably. The coordinator reports it was running all the proper access codes."

"I'm sure it was," Thrawn said, his glowing eyes flashing. "And General Hestiv just happened to forget to pass this information on to us, did he?"

His gaze shifted around, fell on Tierce. "Major Tierce?"

"Yes, sir," Tierce said, stepping briskly forward at the cue. "Shall I locate that freighter for you?"

"Please," Thrawn said gravely, picking up on the cue in turn.

And then, still looking back in their direction, the glowing eyes suddenly widened. Disra frowned?

"Don't trouble yourself, Major," a familiar voice called from behind Disra. "The freighter in question is currently docked in your number seven hangar bay."

Slowly, disbelievingly, Disra turned around. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

But it was. There he stood, in the center of the archway leading to the aft bridge.

Admiral Pellaeon.

* * *

The element of surprise was gone, the fratricidal battle over Bothawui cut short sooner than the Imperials had most likely hoped. Even now, Leia saw, the last lingering shots of that conflict were dwindling away as the various combatants woke up to the greater danger on their flank.

But even in its brevity the fight had taken a heavy toll, she realized as she studied the Predominance's tactical display. Out of the nearly two hundred ships that had been fighting, fewer than a hundred ten were arraying themselves for battle against the three Star Destroyers now moving toward them.

"We're outgunned, aren't we?" Gavrisom said quietly from her side.

"I'm afraid we are," Leia conceded. "And even the ships that can still fight have all taken damage. Those Star Destroyers are fresh and rested."

"And not all of our ships may actually stay with us once they compute the odds for themselves," Gavrisom said, twitching his wings. "Even with my general summons under Section 45-2, the fact is, we are still asking them to fight in defense of Bothawui and the Bothan people."

Leia nodded grimly. "Something which at least half of them aren't really interested in doing."

"Leia?"

She lifted her comlink. "I'm here, Han," she said. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, sure," he said, dismissing the danger casually. "They gave up shooting at us a long time ago. Look, Elegos has been counting the ships you've got there, and neither of us is very happy with the numbers he's coming up with."

"Neither are any of the rest of us," Leia said. "Gavrisom has a call in to any New Republic forces nearby, but so far there's been no response."

"Yeah, well, maybe I can come up with something," Han said, his tone studiously casual. "You know if Fey'lya's on Bothawui at the moment?"

Leia frowned. "Actually, I believe he is. Why?"

"You know how to reach him?"

"His private comlink frequency's in the Falcon's computer, listed under his name," Leia said. "Why?"

"I'm going to try a little diplomacy," he told her. "See if you can stall off those Star Destroyers a little."

He clicked off. "Right," Leia murmured to herself. "Stall them off."

Beside her, Gavrisom shook his mane. "There is one other matter of immediate concern, Leia," he said. "This fleet is made up of beings who, by and large, do not trust each other. We need someone in command who all will trust, or at least tolerate."

"That one I may be able to solve," Leia said, rekeying her comlink. "Lando?"

"Yes, Leia?"

"Lando, at the request of President Gavrisom, I'd like you to accept immediate reinstatement into the New Republic military," she said. "We need you to take command of this defense force."

There was a short pause. "You are kidding," he said.

"Not at all, General," Gavrisom assured him. "As a hero of Taanab and Endor, you are precisely the one we need."

There was a faintly audible sigh. "I'd argue if I thought it would do any good," Lando said reluctantly. "All right, I'll do it. It would have been nice if you could have given me a bigger fleet to work with, though."

"Hey, no problem, buddy," Han's voice broke in. "It's all taken care of. Take a look behind you."

Leia stared at the bridge's aft-view display, feeling her mouth falling open.

Rising rapidly from the surface of Bothawui were over a hundred ships, everything from Z-95 Headhunters to Skipray Blastboats to even a few small capital warships. And more were still rising through the atmosphere. "Han!" she gasped. "What in the worlds did you do?"

"Like I said, a little diplomacy," Han said. "I got to remembering that Thrawn suggested to Lando and me that Fey'lya had a little private army stashed away.

Made sense to me, so I called the little furball and pointed out that any Bothan who helped save Bothawui could really cash in on that when this was all over."

"And Fey'lya came up with all of that?" Leia asked, still not believing it.

"Not exactly," Han said smugly. "Turns out there was a lot of signal leakage in my transmission. Battle damage, probably. I figure half the planet must have heard what I said to him."

And finally, Leia understood. "And of course none of them wanted Fey'lya to grab all the glory for himself," she said, smiling tightly. "Have I told you lately that you're brilliant?"

"No," he said. "But that's okay?you've been busy. Are we ready?"

"We're ready," Leia said, nodding. "General Calrissian: your fleet awaits your orders."

* * *

For a long minute the bridge seemed to have become suspended in time and space.

Moff Disra stood stiffly where he was, a couple of steps away from the two female civilians, his face contorted with disbelief and hatred and perhaps even a touch of fear. Major Tierce had stopped, too, halfway along the command walkway, looking back at Pellaeon with an unreadable expression on his face.

Captain Dorja and the officers at the side consoles were staring back at him, and even the men down in the crew pits had somehow sensed something was wrong and had dropped their voices to whispers.

"Admiral Pellaeon," Thrawn's smoothly modulated voice broke the silence.

Pellaeon had rather expected him to be the first to speak. "Welcome aboard the Relentless. I'm afraid we somehow missed the news of your arrival."

"As I somehow missed the news of your return," Pellaeon countered. Like Tierce, the expression behind those glowing red eyes was unreadable. "An unintentional oversight, I'm sure."

"Are you questioning the Grand Admiral's decisions?" Disra snarled.

"On the contrary," Pellaeon assured him. "I've always had the highest respect for Grand Admiral Thrawn."

"Then why sneak aboard this way?" Tierce demanded, coming back along the walkway and stopping next to the younger of the two women. "Do you have something to hide? Or some dark errand of treason to carry out?"

Deliberately, Pellaeon shifted his gaze from the major to the women beside him.

"I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced," he said, bowing his head in greeting. "I'm Admiral Pellaeon, Supreme Commander of Imperial forces. "

"Not anymore you're not," Disra growled. "Grand Admiral Thrawn is in command now."

"Really," Pellaeon said, eyeing him coolly. "I wasn't informed of any change of command. Another unintentional oversight?"

"Take care, Admiral," Tierce warned softly. "You're treading on very slippery ground here."

Pellaeon shook his head. "You're mistaken, Major," he said. "Whatever slippery ground exists here is beneath your feet." He looked at Disra. "And yours, Your Excellency."

He shifted his gaze to the man in the white Grand Admiral's uniform. "And yours...

Flim."

Disra's head jerked as if he'd touched a live power cable. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. But there was a new tremor in the Moff's voice, and his eyes were those of a man seeing sudden destruction coming inexorably toward him.

"I'm talking about an accomplished con artist," Pellaeon said, raising his voice so that the entire bridge could hear. "I have his rather colorful life history right here," he added, pulling a datacard from his tunic and holding it up. "Including detailed holos and a complete genetic profile."

He looked across at Flim. "Would you care to accompany me to the nearest medical station for an examination?"

"But we checked his genetic profile, sir," Captain Dorja objected, stepping away from the side console where he'd been standing. "Captain Nalgol took a skin sample and compared it to Thrawn's official records."

"Records can be altered, Captain," Pellaeon reminded him. "Even official records, if the access codes have been sliced. When we return to Bastion, you can compare the genetic records with those on this datacard."

"Lies can even more easily be created on datacards," Tierce said. His voice was calm, but there was an edge of something vicious beneath it. "This is nothing but a last, pitiful attempt to undermine Grand Admiral Thrawn's authority, driven by Pellaeon's jealous fear of losing his position and prestige."

He half turned. "You see it, Captain Dorja, don't you?" he called. "Thrawn came to you instead of Pellaeon?that's what he can't stomach. He came to you and Nalgol and the others and not to him."

Dorja's eyes met Pellaeon's, his face tight with confusion. "Admiral, I've always trusted your word and your judgment," he said. "But in this case.. ."

"There's one other record of interest on this datacard," Pellaeon said, looking back at Tierce. "Again, from the same source. It's the record and life history of a certain Imperial Major Grodin Tierce."

Slowly, Tierce turned back to face him. And this time there was no mistaking the murder in his eyes. "And what does that record say?" he asked softly.

"It says that Major Tierce was one of the finest combat stormtroopers ever to serve the Empire," Pellaeon told him. "That his successes raised him to command rank far more quickly than even stormtrooper norm. That at the age of twenty-four he was selected to serve the Emperor as one of the elite Royal Guard. That his fierce loyalty to Palpatine's New Order was second to none."

Pellaeon lifted his eyebrows slightly. "And that, as part of a stormtrooper unit involved in Thrawn's campaign against Generis, he died in combat.

"Ten years ago."

Once again, the bridge went silent. But this time it wasn't the silence of surprise. It was the silence of total shock.

"You're a clone." The words had come from Disra, but the voice was so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. "You're just a clone."

Slowly, Tierce turned his venomous gaze from Pellaeon to Disra. And then, abruptly, he barked out a short, tortured-sounding laugh. "Just a clone," he repeated mockingly. "Just a clone?is that what you said, Disra? Just a clone?

You have no idea."

He looked around the room. "None of you do. I wasn't just a clone?I was something very special. Something special and glorious."

"Why don't you tell us what that was," Pellaeon invited quietly.

Tierce spun back to face him. "I was the first of a new breed," he bit out. "The first of what would have been a class of warlords the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. Warlords who combined stormtrooper combat strength and loyalty with Thrawn's own tactical genius. We would have led, and we would have conquered, and no one could have stood against us."

He turned around, his movements becoming almost jerky in his agitation. "Don't you see?" he shouted, his eyes darting to each of the officers and crewers staring in fascination or revulsion at him. "Thrawn took Tierce and cloned him, but he put some of himself into the process. He added part of his own tactical genius to the usual flash-learning, combining it with Tierce's own mind."

He spun again to face Disra. "You've seen it, Disra. Whether you know it or not, you've seen it. I was manipulating you from the very start?don't you see? It was me, right from the minute I maneuvered myself in as your aide. All those pirate attacks?the Preybird deals?that was me. All me. You never saw it? you never even guessed it?but I was the one making the quiet suggestions and feeding you the right data in the right order to get you to do what I wanted.

"And all the rest of you have seen it, too," he shouted, spinning around again.

"I've been running the tactics here. Not Flim?not that red-eyed figurehead. Me.

It's always been me. And I'm good at it?it's what Thrawn made me to be. I can do this."

His eyes seized on Disra again. "You talk about the Hand of Thrawn, his last ultimate weapon," he said, his voice almost pleading. "I can be that Hand of Thrawn. I can be Thrawn himself. I can defeat the New Republic?I know it."

"No, Major," Pellaeon said. "The war is over."

Tierce spun back to face him. "No," he snarled. "It's not over. Not yet. Not until we've crushed Coruscant. Not until we've had our vengeance against the Rebels."

Pellaeon gazed at him, pity and revulsion swirling together within him. "You don't understand at all," he said sadly. "Thrawn was never interested in vengeance.

His goal was order, and stability, and the strength that comes of unity and common purpose."

"And how would you know what Thrawn was interested in?" Tierce sneered. "Do you have part of his mind inside you? Well? Do you?"

Pellaeon sighed. "You say you were the first of these new warlords. Do you know why there weren't any others?"

Tierce's eyes seemed to withdraw within him. "He ran out of time," he said. "He died at Bilbringi. You let him die at Bilbringi."

"No." Pellaeon lifted the datacard slightly. "You were created two months before his death?there was plenty of time for him to have made others. The fact is that there weren't any others because the experiment was a failure."

"Impossible," Tierce breathed. "I wasn't a failure. Look at me?look at me. I'm exactly what he wanted."

Pellaeon shook his head. "What he wanted was a tactically brilliant leader," he said gently. "What he got was a tactically brilliant stormtrooper. You're not a leader, Major. By your own statement you're nothing but a manipulator. You have no vision, only a thirst for revenge."

Tierce's eyes darted around the bridge, as if looking for support. "That doesn't matter," he ground out. "What matters is that I can do the job. I can defeat the Rebels. Just give me a little more time."

"There is no more time," Pellaeon said with quiet finality. "The war is over." He looked over at Ardiff. "Captain Ardiff, please call a security detachment to the bridge." He started to turn away?

And in that instant, Tierce exploded into action.

The young woman standing beside him was his first victim, doubling over in agony as Tierce swung his fist viciously down and back into her stomach. In the same motion he plucked away the blaster that had suddenly appeared in her hand, twisting around to fire a shot at the older woman as the younger collapsed to the deck. He twisted back, bringing the blaster to bear on Pellaeon. There was a flicker of movement at the corner of Pellaeon's eye?

And Tierce jerked back, screaming in rage and pain as his gun hand was slapped to the side, the shot going wide, the blaster itself flying uselessly from his grip to skitter across the deck and down into the starboard crew pit.

And from concealment around the side of the archway behind Pellaeon, gliding silently across the deck, came Shada D'ukal.

Tierce didn't even bother to pull out the lacquered zenji needle now waving bloodily from the back of his gun hand. Screaming incoherently, he hooked his fingers into predator's claws and charged.

Reflexively, Pellaeon took a step backward. But he needn't have bothered. Shada was already there, meeting Tierce halfway.

And in a blurred flurry of hands and arms, it was all over.

"Captain Dorja, call a medical team to the bridge," Pellaeon ordered as Shada stepped over Tierce's broken body and hurried over to kneel beside the injured woman. "Then order all Imperial forces to cease fire immediately."

"Yes, sir," Dorja said hesitantly. "However..."

Flim lifted a blue-skinned hand. "What he's trying to find words to say, Admiral, is that they'll expect any such order to come from Grand Admiral Thrawn," he said. His voice had changed, subtly but noticeably; and as Pellaeon glanced around the bridge, he saw that they finally recognized the truth. "If you'll permit me?"

Pellaeon gestured. "Go ahead."

Flim turned to the comm officer and nodded. "This is Grand Admiral Thrawn," he called, once again in that exquisitely perfect voice. "All units, cease fire; repeat, cease fire. General Bel Iblis, please call on your forces to do likewise, then stand by for a transmission from Admiral Pellaeon."

He took a deep breath and let it out; and as he did so, the aura of leadership and command subtly fell away from him. He was just a man again, a man in blue makeup and a white uniform.

And Grand Admiral Thrawn was once again gone.

"And may I say to you, Admiral," he added as he walked back along the command walkway, "how relieved I am that you're here. This whole thing has been a nightmare for me. An absolute nightmare."

"Of course," Pellaeon said gravely. "We'll have to make time later for you to tell me your tale of woe."

Flim half bowed. "I'll look forward to that, sir."

"Yes," Pellaeon said, looking over at Disra. "So will I."

CHAPTER

42

The loud gushing sound had subsided now to a quiet sloshing as the water continued to creep its slow but steady way up the sides of the room. A sloshing sound that was being rhythmically punctuated by the splashing of chunks of rock as Luke's lightsaber carved a deepening conical pit into the top of the dome.

"I think you're wasting your time," Mara said as the splash from a particularly large chunk echoed through the room. "There's nothing up there but solid rock."

"I think you're right," Luke conceded, shifting his arm to a new spot around her shoulders and trying to hold her a little closer. Soaked clear through, they were both shivering in the cool, damp air. "I was hoping we might be able to punch through to the main power generator area. But I guess if we haven't hit it by now, it's not there."

"It's probably twenty meters behind us," she said, her teeth chattering slightly.

"We'd never be able to cut through to it in time. Are your ears starting to hurt?"

"A little," Luke said, reluctantly closing down his lightsaber and calling it back to his hand. Cutting through the ceiling had been his last, best idea. "The air in here's being compressed. The extra pressure should help slow down the incoming water a little."

"Along with making our eyes go all buggy." Mara nodded toward the far wall. "You suppose there's any chance the top of the room's above the level of the lake? If it is, we might be able to cut our way out horizontally."

"And if it isn't, we'd drown ourselves that much sooner," Luke pointed out. "Anyway, I really don't think we're high enough."

"I didn't think so, either," Mara agreed regretfully, leaning forward to look past Luke at Artoo. "Too bad we lost the datapad?we could have asked Artoo to take some sensor readings. We could still ask, of course, but we couldn't understand the answer."

"Wait a minute," Luke said, another idea suddenly hitting him. "What about that passageway where we first came in? We could send Artoo there with my lightsaber to enlarge it."

"No good." Mara shook her head, the movement sending strands of wet hair slapping gently across Luke's cheek. "That whole section is solid cortosis ore.

I checked it the first time we went through."

Luke grimaced. "I thought it sounded too easy."

"Isn't it always," Mara said, the faint sarcasm sounding odd coming as it did through chattering teeth. "Too bad we don't have a Dark Jedi handy we could kill.

Remember that big blast when C'baoth died?"

"Yes," Luke said mechanically, staring off into space. The insane Jedi clone Joruus C'baoth, recruited to fight against the New Republic by Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Thrawn. Clone...

"Mara, you told me cortosis ore wasn't structurally very strong. Just how weak is it?"

"It was flaking off under our boots as we walked through the passage," she said, throwing him a puzzled look. "Other than that, I haven't the faintest idea. Why?"

Luke nodded at the vast pool below them. "We've got a lot of water here, and water isn't compressible the way air is. If we could create a hard enough jolt here in this room, the pressure wave should travel all the way down the tunnel to the passageway. If it's powerful enough, maybe we can collapse that whole area."

"Sounds great," Mara agreed. "Just one problem: how exactly do we engineer this massive jolt of yours?"

Luke braced himself. "We cut through that transparisteel barrier and flood the cloning alcove."

"Oh, my stars," Mara murmured; and even through his mental exhaustion Luke could feel her ripple of stunned apprehension. "Luke, that's a Braxxon-Fipps 590 fusion generator in there. You dump water on that and you're going to have more jolt than you know what to do with."

"I know it's risky," Luke said. "But I think it's our only chance." Letting go of his grip on her, wincing as his wet clothing shifted against his skin, he stood up. "Wait here; I'll be right back."

She sighed. "No," she said, standing up beside him and taking hold of his arm. "I'll do it."

"Like blazes you will," Luke growled. "It's my crazy idea. I'll do it."

"Okay," she said, crossing her arms. "Tell me how you do a Paparak cross-cut."

He blinked. "A what?"

"A Paparak cross-cut," she repeated. "It's a technique for weakening a stressed wall so that it comes down a minute or so after you're safely out of the vicinity. Palpatine taught it to me as part of my sabotage training."

"Okay," Luke said. "So give me a fast course."

"What, like a fast course in becoming a Jedi?" she countered scornfully. "It's not that easy."

"Mara?"

"Besides," she added quietly, "when whichever of us goes down pops up again, the other one's going to have to get them back up here out of the way of the blast.

I don't think I can lift you that far that fast." Her lips pressed briefly together. "And frankly, I don't want to sit here and watch myself fail."

Luke glared at her. But she was right, and they both knew it. "This is blackmail, you know."

"This is common sense," she corrected him. "The right person for the job, remember?" She smiled faintly. "Or do you need another lecture on that topic?"

"Spare me," he said with a sigh, running his fingertips across her cheek. "All right, I'll lift you over there. Be careful, okay?"

"Don't worry," she said, taking a deep breath and pulling her lightsaber from her belt. "Ready."

Stretching out to the Force, he lifted her over the railing and across the room to the transparisteel wall. Her mind touched his, her thoughts indicating she was ready, and he lowered her into the water. She took a few more deep breaths, then bent at the waist and ducked her head beneath the surface. A single vertical kick of her legs, and she was gone.

Across the ledge, Artoo moaned nervously. "She'll be all right," Luke assured him, gripping the top rail as he stared anxiously at the choppy water. He could feel Mara's thoughts as she maneuvered her way back and forth across the wall, making short, deliberate cuts with her lightsaber. Stretching out harder, he could sense the change in flow against her skin as the water began to seep through the cracks.

And if the water level rose high enough in there to reach the generator before she was finished...

"Come on, Mara, come on," he muttered under his breath. "It's good enough?let's go."

He felt her negative thought; the wall wasn't yet shredded to her satisfaction.

Luke pressed back his impatience and fear, the faces of Callista and Gaeriel hovering before him. Only a week ago he'd told himself firmly that he could never permit himself to love Mara, that such a closeness and commitment from him would inevitably put her in danger.

And now he'd reneged on that determination. And sure enough, like all the others, his actions or inactions had put her in deadly danger. He felt a flicker in her emotions, mixing with the fear and dread rising chokingly from within him?

And suddenly her head breached the surface. "Got it," she gasped.

He had her moving before the second word was even out of her mouth, pulling her toward him with all the speed he could manage. He flipped her over the railing and lowered her flat on her stomach on the ledge, stretching himself protectively down on top of her as she landed. "How soon?" he asked, reaching out to the Force to try to create a low-level shield that could provide at least a minimal barrier against the impending explosion.

"Could be anytime," Mara answered, her voice muffled by the rock wall she was facing. "And by the way, just for future reference, don't you ever not care for someone just because you're afraid they might get hurt in the process.

Especially not me. You got that?"

Luke grimaced in embarrassment. "You weren't supposed to hear that." Behind him, he heard the sudden crack and surging of water as the transparisteel wall collapsed?

And with a brilliant flash he could see even with his eyes squeezed shut, the generator blew up.

The sound of the blast itself was almost muffled; but the roar of the wave that slammed over them more than made up for it. The water surged and roiled all around them, effortlessly picking them up and slamming them back and forth between the wall, the ledge, and the railing. Luke held grimly on to Mara, wishing belatedly he'd thought to tie Artoo down somehow.

And then, as suddenly as it had struck, the swirling water fell away, leaving them bruised and drenched but otherwise unharmed. Shaking the water out of his eyes, Luke pushed himself up on one arm and looked out into the chamber.

And caught his breath. Only one of the room's glow panels had survived the explosion; but by its dim light he could see that the water level was rapidly going down. "Mara?look. It worked."

"I'll be Kesseled," she said, spitting out some water. "Now what? We jump in and follow the flow?"

Luke leaned over the railing, trying to see the exit tunnel. If it wasn't still full to the ceiling...

But it was. "It's not quite that simple," he told Mara. "The flow should carry us back into the caverns, all right, but there's still the matter of getting through the tunnel and underground room."

"Why don't we just wait until the level goes down far enough?"

"We can't," Luke said. "I don't know why."

"Jedi hunch," Mara said. "Then we're back to hibernation trances. How fast can you put me in one?"

"Pretty fast," he told her. "Take a few deep breaths, and tell me what phrase you want me to use to snap you out of it."

"A phrase, right," she said, inhaling deeply, a strangely cautious mood touching her mind. "Okay. See if you can handle this one..."

She told him, and he smiled. "Got it," he said, and stretched out with the Force.

A minute later she was fast asleep in his arms. "You go first, Artoo," Luke told the droid, lifting him up with the Force and easing him over the railing. "We'll be right behind you."

The droid warbled; and then he was in the water, his dome bobbing above the waves as he was swept toward the tunnel. Wrapping his arms protectively around Mara, Luke jumped in behind him. The current grabbed them, pushing them along behind the bobbing droid as Luke struggled to keep their heads above water. The wall and the top of the tunnel archway loomed ahead; and just before they reached it, Luke took a deep breath and pulled them both under the surface.

The rest of the trip was a blur of dizzying speed, continual buffeting of the water, near-collisions with smooth walls and rough stone, aching eyes and lungs.

Through his half trance Luke was vaguely aware of where they left the tunnel and entered the underground room; was more sharply aware of where they slammed through the newly enlarged gap in the wall and the protective cortosis ore barrier as the turbulence threw them back and forth against the rock. The torrent dragged them, twisting and turning, through the caverns and tunnels they'd so laboriously picked their way through days earlier with Child Of Winds and the Qom Jha. Dimly through his slow asphyxiation, Luke decided it was just as well that they'd cut away so many of the stalactites and stalagmites that would have been in their way...

Abruptly, he snapped awake, half submerged in water, his head and chest resting precariously on a slimy boulder, Artoo's frantic twittering in his ears. "Okay, right," he managed, shaking his head to clear it.

And suddenly stiffened. Mara was gone.

He shook his head again, digging out his glow rod with numb, half-frozen fingers as he scrabbled around looking for footing. He found it immediately; the water he was in turned out to be only waist high. He fumbled the glow rod out at last and flicked it on.

He was standing in a pool just off the edge of the last of the underground rivers he and Mara had passed during their trip through the caverns. Five meters to his left, the torrent that had brought them here had vanished, leaving only the river rippling its sedate way along.

And two meters to his right, bobbing gently in the pool as she floated beside the craggy rock, was Mara. Her eyes closed, her arms and legs limp. As if in death.

The precise image he'd seen of her in that Jedi vision on Tierfon.

And then he was at her side, raising her head out of the water, gazing at her face in sudden fear. If the trance hadn't kept her alive?if she'd struck something hard enough to kill her after he'd lost his grip on her?

Behind him, Artoo whistled impatiently. "Right," Luke agreed, cutting off his sudden panic. All he had to do to bring her out of it was speak the key phrase she'd chosen, the phrase she'd wondered aloud if he could handle. Almost as if she was afraid he couldn't...

He took a deep breath. "I love you, Mara."

Her eyes blinked open, blinked again as she chased the water from them. "Hi," she said, breathing heavily as she grabbed his arm and maneuvered herself upright. "I see we made it."

"Yes," Luke said, taking her in his arms and holding her tightly, his tension and fear evaporating into a mist of utter calm and relief. The vision had been passed, and Mara had survived it.

And they were together again. Forever.

"Yes," Mara murmured. "Forever."

They loosened their grips on each other, just slightly... and standing together in the cold water, their lips came together in a kiss.

It seemed like a long time before Mara gently pulled away from the embrace. "Not to put a damper on this," she said, "but we're both shivering, and we're still a long way from home. Where are we, anyway?"

"Back at our underground river," Luke told her, reluctantly bringing his mind back to practical matters.

"Ah." She peered toward the stream. "What happened to our personal flood? "

"It seems to have ended," Luke said. "Either we drained the lake completely?"

"Which is real unlikely."

"Right," Luke said. "Or else it's gotten stopped up again somehow."

"Probably more of the chamber wall collapsed," Mara said, reaching up to push back some of the hair that had gotten plastered across her cheek. "Or else it's jammed up with what's left of the cloning equipment."

Luke nodded, helping her push the rest of her hair back out of the way. "Good thing we didn't wait any longer to make our exit."

"Sure is," Mara agreed. "Handy things, those Jedi hunches. You'll have to teach me how to do those."

"We'll work on it," Luke promised, wading toward the edge of the pond. "I think the Qom Jha said this river emptied out into a small waterfall."

"Sounds good," Mara said. "Let's go find it."

* * *

Another wave of Skipray Blastboats shot past, pelting the Tyrannic with laser fire. Behind them, two of the Ishori war cruisers had gotten inside the kill zone and were scattering a dazzling pattern of more powerful turbolaser blasts across the ridgeline. "Two more starboard turbolasers knocked out," the fire control officer called tensely. "Forward ridgeline has been breached; crews are sealing it off."

"Acknowledged," Nalgol said, hearing his voice trembling with a frustrated and wholly impotent fury. It was unthinkable?unthinkable?that a fleet of three Imperial Star Destroyers should find themselves fighting for their survival against such a pitiful ragtag of aliens and alien-lovers.

But that was exactly what they were doing. There were just too many of them to keep track of. Too many of them to fight.

And with all his pride in his ship and his crew and his Empire, Nalgol was realist enough to know when the fight had become hopeless.

"Signal to the Obliterator and Ironhand," he ordered between clenched teeth. "Pull back and withdraw. Repeat: pull back and withdraw."

"Acknowledged, Captain," the comm officer replied.

"What heading, sir?" the helmsman called.

"A short jump in any direction." Nalgol glared out the viewport. "And after that, set course directly for Bastion. Grand Admiral Thrawn needs to hear about this."

And he would indeed hear about it, Nalgol promised himself silently. Yes, indeed.

He would hear all about it.

* * *

The waterfall exit was considerably less cozy than Luke had expected it to be, the hole possibly having been enlarged by the flood that had just forced its way through. There weren't any footholds right at the mouth, but in the dim starlight Mara spotted a likely ledge about five meters to the left. Using the Force, Luke lifted first Mara, then Artoo, across the gap. Then, a bit more tentatively, Mara brought him across to join them.

"Any idea what side of the fortress we're on?" she asked, looking around the darkened landscape. "Or how much longer we've got until dawn?"

"No, to both questions," Luke said, stretching out with the Force. There was no danger nearby that he could detect. "Probably the far side; and probably not more than a couple more hours."

"We'd better use the time to get under cover," she suggested, peering up at the cliff above them. "We don't want to be out in the open when Parck sends out his search parties."

"I just hope he doesn't find the ship we borrowed," Luke said. "Aside from giving him back his quick access to Bastion, it would lose us our only way of getting out of here together."

"Well, if he does, you and Artoo will just have to take your X-wing and go for help," Mara said.

"You mean you and Artoo will go," Luke said firmly. "I mean that, Mara. No argument this time?"

Jedi Sky Walker?

Luke looked up. Fluttering to a landing on a boulder above them were a dozen dark shapes.

And the tone and mind of one of them seemed very familiar. "Yes," he said. "Is that you, Hunter Of Winds?"

It is I, the Qom Qae confirmed. My son, Child Of Winds, informed all nearby nestings of your deeds this night. We have been watching for your return.

"Thank you," Luke said. "We very much appreciate your efforts. Can you show us to a place of shelter nearby? We need to hide from those in the High Tower until we can make our way back to our ship."

Hunter Of Winds ruffled his wings. No need for shelter, Jedi Sky Walker, he said.

We will carry you to your flying machine, as my son and his companions did earlier this night.

Luke frowned. After Hunter Of Winds's quick and cavalier dismissal of him and his mission when he and Artoo first landed, such magnanimity seemed suspiciously out of character. "You're very kind," he said carefully. "May I ask why you're willing to take such risks for us?"

Hunter Of Winds ruffled his wings. I have spoken to the Bargainer for this nesting of the Qom Jha, he said. Eater Of Fire Creepers has agreed to release you from your promise to help us against the Threateners, provided you leave our world at once.

Luke felt his face warming. "In other words, our presence here has become a liability to you?"

Child Of Winds has said the Threateners will not harm us if we do not bother them, Hunter Of Winds said gruffly. It is to that end that we wish you to leave.

"Nothing like being appreciated, is there?" Mara muttered.

"It's all right," Luke said, touching her hand and her mind soothingly.

Reminding her that, embarrassment and even veiled insult aside, this was in fact the result she herself had said she wanted. Parck and the Chiss would now be left alone, unharassed by the Qom Jha and Qom Qae, and free to focus their full energies on their work in the Unknown Regions.

"Fine," she said, and Luke could feel her grudging acceptance. "But he's not Child Of Winds anymore. After what he's been through, he deserves to have a name of his own."

Really, Hunter Of Winds said, giving her a long, thoughtful look. And what name do you suggest for him?

"The one he's earned," she said softly. " 'Friend Of Jedi.' "

Hunter Of Winds ruffled his wings again. I will consider it. But now, let us depart. The night grows old, and you will wish to be gone before the sunrise.

* * *

"I'll look forward to it," Flim was saying as Karrde rounded the archway onto the Relentless's bridge.

"Yes," Pellaeon said. "So will I."

The Admiral turned as Karrde stepped up beside him. "You're late," Pellaeon said mildly.

"I was watching the turbolift," Karrde explained. "I thought Flim and his associates might try to bring a squad of stormtroopers in on their side of the dispute."

"They might have, at that," Pellaeon said. "Thank you."

"No problem," Karrde assured him, looking around the bridge. The Major Tierce clone was lying unmoving on the deck, Shada was across with the other two Mistryl, the con man Flim was waiting with studied unconcern just back of the command walkway, and Moff Disra was a little off to one side, standing as aloof and cold and dignified as a man facing his own destruction could manage. "Besides, it doesn't look like my presence was really needed."

"Not for this part, no," Pellaeon agreed. "Your friend Shada is quite impressive.

I don't suppose she'd be interested in a job."

"Well, she is looking for a higher cause to serve," Karrde told him. "However, to be perfectly honest, I don't think the Empire is it."

Pellaeon nodded. "Perhaps we can change that."

"Admiral Pellaeon?" a voice called from the crew pits. "I have General Bel Iblis for you now."

"Thank you." Pellaeon looked to Karrde. "Don't run off?I'll want to speak with you later."

"Certainly."

The Admiral headed down the command walkway, passing Flim without a second glance. Throwing one last look at Disra, Karrde crossed to where Shada and the other young Mistryl were helping the older woman to a sitting position. "How is she?" he asked.

"Not as bad as we thought," Shada said, probing gingerly into the scorched tunic.

"She was able to twist almost out of the way of the shot."

"Well-honed reflexes." Karrde nodded. "Once a Mistryl, always a Mistryl, I suppose."

The older woman eyed him balefully. "You're very well informed," she growled.

"About a great many things," Karrde agreed calmly. "Among them the fact that Shada seems to have earned your displeasure somehow."

"And what, you think this makes up for it?" the woman snapped contemptuously.

"Doesn't it?" Karrde countered. "If she hadn't stopped Tierce when she did, you two would have been the next to die after Pellaeon. You were the most immediate threats to him."

She snorted. "I'm a Mistryl, Talon Karrde. My life is gladly given in the service of my people."

"Really." Karrde looked at the younger woman. "Do you also consider your life not worth a little gratitude?"

"Leave Karoly out of this," the older woman bit out. "She has nothing to say on the matter."

"Ah," Karrde said. "Soldiers with no voice or opinion. Remarkably similar to the philosophy of the Imperial stormtroopers."

"Karoly allowed Shada to escape once before," the woman said, glowering at her.

"She's fortunate she wasn't punished herself for that."

"Oh, yes," Karrde murmured. "How very lucky for her."

The woman's eyes flashed. "If you've quite finished?"

"I haven't," Karrde said. "Clearly, you don't consider Mistryl lives worth anything. What about Mistryl reputations?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

Karrde waved toward Flim. "You were about to make an alliance with these people.

You were about to be taken in by nothing more than slick talk, whipped air, and a dirt-level fringe con man. And don't bother denying it; a member of the Eleven doesn't travel off Emberlene just for the exercise."

The woman's eyes drifted away from his gaze. "The issue was still under discussion," she muttered.

"Glad to hear it," Karrde said. "Because if even your reputation doesn't matter to you, consider what binding the Mistryl to a vengeful man like Moff Disra would have meant. How long do you think it would have been before you became his private Death Commandos?"

"That would never have happened," Karoly put in emphatically. "We would never sink that low, not even under a treaty."

Shada stirred. "What was it you tried to stop me from doing on the Resinem Complex roof?" she asked quietly.

"That was different," Karoly protested.

Shada shook her head. "No. Condoning and cooperating with murder is no different from committing it yourself."

"She's right," Karrde said. "And once you started down that road, it would have meant the end of the Mistryl. You'd have burned your sky-arches behind you with every other potential client; and when Flim's soap bubble collapsed, as it inevitably would have, there would have been nothing left out there anymore for you.

"And with the end of the Mistryl would have come a final end to Emberlene."

He crossed his arms and waited... and after a few seconds the older woman grimaced. "What is it you want?"

"I want the Mistryl hunter teams called off Shada," he said. "Whatever her alleged crime against you, it's to be forgiven and the death mark lifted."

The woman's mouth twisted. "You ask much."

"We've given much," Karrde reminded her. "Is it a deal?"

She hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. "Very well. But she will not be reinstated into the Mistryl; not now, not ever. And Emberlene will forever be closed to her."

She turned burning eyes up at Shada. "From now on she is a woman without a home."

Karrde looked at Shada. Her face was tight, her lips pressed tightly together.

But she returned his look steadily and nodded. "Fine," he said. "We'll just have to see about finding her a new home."

"With you?" The woman snorted. "With a smuggler and seller of information? Tell me again how low a Mistryl can sink."

There was no answer to that. But fortunately, Karrde didn't have to come up with one. There was a sudden bustling at his side, and then he was gently but firmly shouldered away by the medical team as they gathered around the injured woman.

He stepped back out of their way, shifting his attention to the security team that had arrived at the same time. With professional efficiency they scanned Flim and Disra for hidden weapons, put restraints on them both, and escorted them back to the aft bridge turbolift.

Another group, following behind them, was carrying Tierce's body.

"Karrde?"

He turned to see Pellaeon walking back along the command walkway toward him. "I have to go across to the Errant Venture and speak with General Bel Iblis," the Admiral said as he reached him. "But before I go, I wanted to discuss the price for the Flim and Tierce information you brought me."

Karrde shrugged. "For once in my life, Admiral, I'm not sure what to say, " he admitted. "The datacard was a gift to me. It seems a bit dishonest to turn around and charge you for it."

"Ah." Pellaeon eyed him speculatively. "A gift from those aliens whose ship scared the stuffing out of my sensor officers at Bastion?"

"From an associate of theirs," Karrde said. "I'm really not at liberty to discuss the details."

"I understand," Pellaeon said. "Still, your ethics apart?which I find laudable, incidentally?I'd like to find a way to thank you with something more concrete than just words."

"I'll see what I can come up with." Karrde gestured toward the Star Destroyer visible out the viewport. "In the meantime, may I ask what you're going over to discuss with General Bel Iblis?"

Pellaeon's eyes narrowed slightly. But then he shrugged. "It's still highly confidential, of course," he said. "But knowing you, you'll probably know about it soon enough, anyway. I'm proposing a peace treaty between the Empire and the New Republic. It's time for this long war to finally end."

Karrde shook his head. "The things that happen when I'm out of touch at the edges of known space," he said philosophically. "For whatever it's worth, Admiral, I agree wholeheartedly with your goal. And I wish you luck."

"Thank you," Pellaeon said. "Feel free to leave whenever you wish, or allow your crew to take advantage of any of the Relentless's facilities if they'd like. And again, thank you."

He headed off toward the turbolift. Karrde watched him go, then looked back at Shada. The medical team had finished their preliminary work and were helping the injured woman onto a stretcher. Shada was watching them from a few paces away, an expression of private pain on her face. Like someone watching the last member of her family leaving home.

And then, unbidden, an idea drifted into Karrde's mind. Something larger than herself, she'd told Car'das. Something she could hold on to and serve and believe in. Something more honorable and noble than the life of a fringe smuggler.

Something that would make a difference...

"Admiral Pellaeon?" he called, hurrying back to the aft bridge. "Admiral? "

Pellaeon had paused at the open door of the turbolift. "Yes?"

"Let me ride over with you to the Errant Venture, if I may," Karrde said, stepping to his side. "I have a modest proposal I'd like to make to you."

* * *

Luke's final fear was that the Hand of Thrawn's weapons towers would spot them as they lifted their borrowed ship out of its hiding place, forcing their departure from the Nirauan surface to be yet another mad race against death. But the Chiss were apparently still dealing with the aftermath of the hangar destruction, with no attention left to turn outward.

And so they lifted out into space without challenge; and with Mara's touch on the hyperdrive lever the stars became starlines and faded into the mottling of hyperspace.

And at long last, they were on their way home.

"Next stop, Coruscant," Luke said with a sigh, leaning back tiredly in the copilot's seat.

"Next stop, the nearest New Republic base or one of Karrde's outposts," Mara corrected. "I don't know about you, but I want a shower, some clean clothes, and something besides ration bars to eat."

"Point taken," Luke said. "You always were the practical one, weren't you?"

"And you always were the idealistic one," she said. "Must be why we work so well together. Speaking of practical, remember back in the cloning chamber when Artoo went all squeaky?"

"You mean just before the sentinel droids showed up?"

"Right. We never did find out what was tying him in knots that way."

"Well, let's find out now," Luke said, levering himself out of his seat and making his way back to the droid alcove where they'd plugged Artoo into the ship's computer. "Okay, Artoo, you heard the lady. What was it about the Unknown Regions data that got you all excited?"

Artoo warbled, his words appearing on the computer display. "He says it didn't have anything to do with the Unknown Regions," Luke reported. "Which he says he didn't get more than a general overview of, by the way."

"I didn't think he'd gotten very much," Mara said regretfully. "He wasn't connected to the computer nearly long enough to download everything."

"Well, we're sure not going to go back and get the rest now," Luke said, skimming down the scrolling words. "But there was something he stumbled across in one of the other records..."

Mara must have picked up his sudden shock. "What is it?" she asked sharply.

"I don't believe it," he murmured, still reading. "Mara, he found it. He found it."

"Wonderful. Found what?"

"What else?" Luke looked up at her. "Thrawn's copy of the Caamas Document."

CHAPTER

43

Fifteen days later, in the secondary command room of the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera, the peace accords between the Empire and New Republic were signed.

"I still say you should have been the one over there," Han groused as he and Leia watched from the back of the room while Pellaeon and Gavrisom performed the ceremony amid the crowd of assembled dignitaries. "You did way more on this than he did."

"It's all right, Han," Leia said, surreptitiously wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. Peace. After all the years, after all the sacrifice and destruction and death. Finally, they had peace.

"Yeah?" Han countered suspiciously. "Then how come you're crying?"

She smiled at him. "Memories," she said. "Just memories."

He found her hand, took it comfortingly. "Alderaan?" he asked quietly.

"Alderaan, the Death Stars?" She squeezed his hand. "You."

"Nice to know I'm in the top three, anyway," he said, looking around the room. "Speaking of old memories, where's Lando? I thought he was going to be here."

"He changed his mind," Leia said. "I guess Tendra wasn't very happy with him heading out to Bastion with you without at least telling her about it. He's taken her art shopping on Celanon to make it up to her."

Han shook his head. "Strong women," he said, mock sadly. "They'll get you every time."

"Watch that," Leia warned, digging her elbow into his side. "You've always liked strong women. Admit it."

"Well, not always," Han said. "Ow?okay, okay. I like strong women."

"What's this about strong women?" Karrde's voice asked from Han's other side.

"Just a friendly family discussion," Han assured him. "Good to see you again, Karrde. How come you're not over there with the rest of the high-class people?"

"Probably the same reason you're not," Karrde said. "I don't exactly fit in with that sort of group."

"That'll change soon," Leia assured him. "Particularly now that you're respectable and all. How in the worlds did you talk Gavrisom and Bel Iblis into this joint Intelligence service idea?"

"The same way I talked Pellaeon into it, actually," Karrde said. "I simply pointed out that the key to a stable and calm peace is both sides knowing the other isn't plotting some kind of move against them. Bastion doesn't trust your Intelligence network, and Coruscant definitely doesn't trust theirs."

He shrugged. "Enter a neutral third party?us?who straddle both regimes and are already equipped to gather and assemble information. We'll simply now be supplying it to your two governments instead of to private buyers."

"It could work, I suppose," Han agreed cautiously. "The Bureau of Ships and Services has been operating independently for years without going political, either under the Empire or the New Republic. You might be able to pull it off."

"I like the fact we'll be getting the same information about our own systems that you'll be giving Bastion," Leia said. "It'll supplement the data the Observers are sending us and help us keep track of what the various system and sector governments are up to. That should help us spot problems before they get too big to deal with."

"Yeah," Han said darkly. "Just because the Caamas Document Luke and Mara brought back slowed down a lot of the brush wars doesn't mean they won't start up again."

"Still, I suspect that seeing how easily their old rivalries were manipulated by Disra and Flim has made them more cautious," Leia pointed out. "I know of at least eight conflicts where the participants have now petitioned Coruscant for mediation."

"It may also depend somewhat on how the trial goes," Karrde said. "I was a bit surprised so many of the culprits are still alive."

"Bothans tend to be long-lived," Leia said. "I'm sure that group is regretting that fact."

Across the room, Leia could see Bel Iblis and Ghent talking with Pellaeon now, Ghent looking extremely uncomfortable at his inclusion into such?to his mind?exalted company. A little ways behind them, Chewbacca was riding patient herd on Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin as the children chattered excitedly away to Barkhimkh and two other Noghri about their adventures on this latest visit to Kashyyyk. "Did Luke tell you where he found that copy of the document, by the way?" Karrde asked. "I couldn't get anything out of Mara."

"No, he and Mara have both been very quiet about it," Leia said. "Luke said they have some thinking to do before they give us any details. It most certainly has to do with that odd spaceship they came back in."

"I imagine there's an interesting story behind it all," Karrde suggested.

Leia nodded. "I'm sure we'll hear it eventually."

Han cleared his throat. "Speaking of Luke," he said, "and speaking of strong women," he added, throwing Leia a grin, "how's your organization going to manage without Mara?"

"We'll have some problems," Karrde conceded. "She was running a good deal of the organization, after all. But we'll adjust."

"Besides, he's got someone new to take her place," Leia couldn't resist adding.

"Shada's officially joined him?had you heard that?"

"Yeah, I did," Han said, giving Karrde a highly speculative look. "You know, I asked you once what it would take to get you to join the New Republic. Remember?

You asked what it had taken to get me to join up?"

"Yes, I remember," Karrde cut him off, an uncharacteristic note of embarrassment coloring his voice. "Kindly bear in mind that I have not joined the New Republic.

And my relationship with Shada is nothing like that."

"Neither was mine," Han said smugly, putting his arm around Leia. "That's okay.

Give it time."

"It's not going to happen," Karrde insisted.

"Yeah," Han said. "I know."

* * *

On the ship's layout map, the room was called a forward visual triangulation site, for use in line-of-sight weapons targeting if any enemy managed to knock out the main sensor array.

But for tonight, at least, it had become a private observation gallery.

Mara leaned against the cool transparisteel viewport, gazing out at the stars.

Wondering at the right-angle turn her life had just taken.

"You realize, of course," Luke commented as he came up behind her with their drinks, "that they're all probably wondering where we are."

"Let them wonder," Mara said, sniffing the air appreciatively over the mug he handed her. The courtiers of Palpatine's court had always been openly contemptuous of hot chocolate, considering it beneath the dignity of elite such as themselves. Karrde and his people, like the good smugglers they were, had turned up their noses at all nonalcoholic drinks in general.

But the drink fit perfectly with Luke's farm boy past. It gave her a warm feeling, evoking a sense of comfort and stability and security. Simple necessities, which she'd missed so much throughout most of her life.

She took a sip. And besides that, the stuff just plain tasted good.

"Has Leia talked to you about the wedding?" Luke asked, sipping from his own mug as he leaned against the viewport facing her.

"Not yet," Mara said, making a face. "I suppose she's going to want some big blowout High Alderaanian ceremony."

Luke grinned. "Wants, probably. Expects, no."

"Good," Mara said. "I'd rather have something quiet and private and dignified.

Mostly dignified, anyway," she amended. "With New Republic dignitaries on one side and Karrde's smugglers on the other, we'll probably need a weapons check at the door."

Luke chuckled. "We'll figure something out."

She eyed him over the rim of her mug. "Speaking of figuring things out, have you decided what you're going to do about the academy?"

He turned his head to gaze out the viewport. "I can't just abandon the students I have there," he said. "That much I know. I was thinking maybe I could slowly turn it into?oh, call it a pre-Jedi school. A place where beginning students can get the basics, maybe learning from older students, and do a little practicing among themselves. Once they've passed that stage, you and I and other instructors can complete their training. Maybe in a more personal one-on-one arrangement, the way Ben and Master Yoda trained me."

He looked back at her. "Assuming you want to be involved with the training at all, that is."

She shrugged. "I'm not completely comfortable with the idea," she admitted. "But I am a Jedi now?at least, I assume I am?and until we can swell the ranks of instructors I suppose teaching is going to be part of my job." She considered. "At least, it will be once I've got a little more training of my own under my belt."

"Private training, of course?"

"I should hope so," she said. "Before I can do that, though, I'll need time to gracefully disengage from Karrde's organization. I've got responsibilities I have to transfer over to other people, and I can't just let them slide." She smiled. "Responsibility and commitment, you know."

There was a flicker in his emotions. "Yes," he murmured.

"Though even when I'm ready to start teaching I don't think I'll want to stay on Yavin to do it," she continued, studying him closely. "Maybe the two of us could travel around the New Republic with the more advanced students, teaching them as we go. That way we'd be available for emergency conflict mediation and conciliation and all the other things Jedi are supposed to do, while at the same time giving the students a taste of real-life situations."

"That would be very useful," Luke said. "I know I could sure have used some of that myself."

"Good." She regarded him thoughtfully. "Now tell me what's bothering you. "

"What do you mean?" he asked warily, his thoughts closing in on themselves.

"Oh, come on, Luke," she said gently. "I've been inside your head and your heart.

You can't keep secrets from me anymore. Something hit you when I mentioned responsibility and commitment a minute ago. What was it?"

He sighed, and she could sense him give up. "I guess I still have some lingering doubts about why you'd want to marry me," he said hesitantly. "I mean, I know why I love you and want to marry you. It's just that it doesn't seem like you'll be gaining as much from this as I will."

Mara gazed down at the dark liquid in her mug. "I could point out that marriage isn't a game of profit and loss," she said. "But I suppose that would just be deflecting the question."

She took a deep breath. "The fact is, Luke, that until that mental and emotional melding we had during the battle in Thrawn's cloning chamber, I didn't even know myself what it was I wanted. Sure, I had friends and associates; but I'd cut myself off so completely from any real emotional attachments that I didn't even realize how much a part of life was missing."

She shook her head. "I mean, look, I cried when the Jade's Fire crashed. A ship?a thing; and yet I cried over it. What did that say about my priorities?"

"It wasn't just a thing, though," Luke murmured. "It was your freedom."

"Sure," Mara said. "But that's part of the point. It represented freedom, but it was freedom to escape from other people if I decided I wanted out."

She looked out at the stars. "In many ways, I'm still all closed up emotionally.

You, on the other hand, have such an emotional openness it sometimes drives me crazy. That's what I need to learn; and you're the one I want to learn it from."

She moved closer to him and took his hand. "But that's just profit and loss games again. The simple, bottom-line fact is that this is the right path for us.

Like that Qom Jha proverb Builder With Vines quoted at us in the caverns, the one about many vines woven together being stronger than the same number used separately. We complement each other perfectly, Luke, all the way down the line.

In many ways, we're two halves of a single being."

"I know that," he said. "I guess I just wasn't sure you did."

"I know just about everything you do, now," Mara reminded him. "Faughn was right?we do make a good team. And we can only get better at it. Give us a few more years, and enemies of the New Republic will be running for cover like crazy."

"And those enemies will definitely be there," Luke said, sobering as he turned again to gaze out the viewport at the distant stars. "That's our future, Mara?out there in the Unknown Regions. Our hopes and dreams; promises and opportunities; dangers and enemies. And for the moment, we're the ones who hold that key."

Mara nodded, stepping close to his side and putting her arm around him. "We'll have to decide what to do with that overview Artoo downloaded. Maybe send probe ships out to take a look at some of the worlds Thrawn had listed, just to see what's there."

"Sounds reasonable," Luke said. "Either on our own or under New Republic auspices. And we also have to decide what to do about the Hand of Thrawn."

"My vote is that we leave them out of it," Mara said. "If they're not interested in talking to us, the last thing we want to do is try to force the issue."

"What if Parck decides to talk to Bastion instead?" Luke asked.

Mara shook her head. "I don't think he will. If he hasn't contacted them by now, it must mean he's picked up the news reports that the Thrawn sighting was a hoax and decided to go back to lying low."

"He could also be plotting how to come after you for what you did to his hangar and ships," Luke warned.

"I'm not worried about it," Mara said. "The ships themselves he can undoubtedly replace, and he ought to be grateful I stopped him from giving the Hand of Thrawn to Disra and Flim."

She shrugged. "Besides, Fel did tell me to take my best shot."

Luke smiled. "I doubt that was exactly what he had in mind."

"I'm not responsible for what Baron Fel has in mind," Mara reminded him. "Seriously, I think if they do anything it'll be to try to recruit me again."

"And, of course, wait for Thrawn to return."

Mara thought about the dead clone floating in the flooded chamber. "That could take a while."

"True," Luke said. "Still, I suppose that even if they get tired of waiting and contact Bastion, we have a treaty with the Empire now. Maybe ultimately we'll all head out to develop those regions together."

Mara nodded. "And to face whatever's out there. That could be interesting."

Luke nodded back, and for a few minutes they stood arm in arm looking out at the stars. An almost-vision floated before Mara's eyes, a vision of the future?their future?and of what they would face together. Challenges, children, friends, enemies, allies, dangers, joys, sorrows?all of it swirled into a sort of living mosaic, fading away into the distance. A vision like she'd never seen before.

But then, she'd never been a Jedi before. There were indeed going to be interesting challenges ahead.

"But that's the future," Luke murmured, his breath warm on the side of her face.

"This is the present."

Mara pulled a little away from him. "And as head of the Jedi academy and brother of High Councilor Organa Solo you should at least put in an appearance at the ceremony?" she suggested.

He gave her a wry look. "Yes, that's just about what I was going to say," he acknowledged. "I can see this is going to take some getting used to."

"There's still time for you to back out," she pointed out.

He kissed her warmly. "Not a chance," he said. "I'll see you later."

Setting down his mug, he headed for the door. "Hang on a minute," Mara said, stepping away from the viewport and her tantalizingly brief vision of the future.

As Luke had said, this was the present. The future would take care of itself.

"I'll come with you."