AMBUSH AT CORELLIA by Roger MacBride Allen "All right, Chewie, try it now," Han Solo stuffed the comlink back in his pocket and stepped back a bit from the Millennium Falcon, an anxious look on his face. It ought to work this time. But that was what they had figured the time before, and the time before that. He could see into the Falcon's cockpit viewports from where he stood, and Chewbacca didn't look all that confident, either. He saw Chewbacca reach for the lift controls. Han realized that he had been holding his breath, and forced himself to exhale. The Millennium Falcon shifted slightly on her hard stand, then rose slowly into the evening air, Chewie took her up until the landing pads were at Han's eye level, and held her there. Han pulled out the comlink again and spoke into it. "That's good," he said. "Good. Now engage the shields," The air all around the Falcon seemed to shimmer a bit, and then steadied down. Han stepped back just a bit farther, not wishing to be all that close when Chewie cut the repulsors. "All right, Chewie, repulsors-off!" The glow of the repulsors dimmed, and the Falcon dropped abruptly-and stopped, suspended in midair, with the landing pads waist-high off the ground. Sparks and scintillations flared and flickered here and there on the hard stand as the shields' energy webs shifted under stress. "Good," Han said. "Very good." Short of firing a turbo-laser at the ship from point-blank range, it Was about as good a field test of overall shield strength as you could ask for. If the shields could support the weight of the ship, then they couldSuddenly the sparking grew brighter, fiercer, just under the number-two landing pad. "Chewie! Repulsors on! It's going to-' With a shuddering flash of light, the rear shields blew out. The aft landing pads slammed into the hard stand with a bone-rattling impact that sent Han sprawling. The forward end of the ship hung in midair as the rear half bounced on its jacks, back up into the atr. Just as the rear of the ship was at the peak of its travel, the forward shields died. In the same instant the forward repulsors flared to life. The rear repulsors came on, lighting a split second after the forward units, and flickering a bit. Getting slammed into the pavement like that hadn't done the rear repulsor coils any good, that was for sure. Still, Chewie had timed the recovery nicely. Han had seen ships flipped onto their backs trying to recover from a failed shield hover. Chewie brought the Falcon back down to a gentle landing and cut the repulsors. A moment later the gangway lowered itself and Chewie came out, clearly none too happy with the situation. He made a loud bugling noise, turned back up the gangway, and returned a moment later carrying a shield-tuning set. That was not good. After all the years Han had spent with Chewie, he knew better than to let a frustrated Wookiee vent his feelings on a repair job. He was just as likely to tear the shield generator out by the roots as he was to letune it. "Ah, maybe that's not such a good idea, Chewie. Leave it for now. We'll come back to it tomorrow." Chewbacca roared and threw the tool kit down. "I know, I know, I know," Han said. "It's taking longer than it should, and you're tired of tweaking up subsystems that we optimized last week. But that's the way it is on a ship like the Falcon. She's a finely tuned instrument. Everything affects everything else. Adjust one system and everything else reacts. The only way not to go through this would be to sap her and start over-and you don't want to scrap the Falcon, do you?" Chewie looked back toward the ship with an expression that told Han not to press his luck on that point. The Wookiee never had felt as deeply for the Falcon as Han had, and even Han knew the old girl would have to be retired someday. Sooner or later it would be the scrap heap for her-or a museum, more likely. That was an odd thought, but after all, the Falcon had made more than her share of history. But just now the key thing was to get Chewbacca calmed down, or away from the shield system-or, preferably, both. "Tomorrow," Han said. "Back at it tomorrow. For now, let's leave it, all right? Leia's probably waiting dinner on us, anyway." The mention of food seemed to brighten Chewbacca up-as Han had intended that it do. Wookiee management was a full-time chore, and then some. Now and then Han wondered just how much effort Chewbacca put into Han management. But that was another point to consider later. It was time to knock off for the day. Amazing, how times changed, how time changed life. After all the close calls, all the battles, all the captures and rescues and risks and victories Han had been through, now it came down to getting home to dinner. I'm a family man now, Han told himself, still a bit amazed by the fact. And perhaps the most amazing thing of all was how much he liked being one. Han Solo looked up into the evening sky of Coruscant. What was it now? Eighteen years? Eighteen years since he had hired on to fly a crazy old man named Ben Kenobi and a kid named Luke Skywalker out of Tatooine. Taking on that job had changed his life forever-and changed the course of galactic history, if you wanted to get grandiose about it, It was nine years since the defeat of Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Dark Jedi Master, Nine years since the birth of the twins, and just over seven since Anakin was born. "Captain Solo?" It was a female voice that pulled him out of his reverie, The voice was low and throaty, and came from behind him, Han did not recognize it, The unknown voice sounded dangerous, somehow, It was a little too quiet, too calm, too cool, "Yeah," Han replied, turning around slowly. "My name is Solo," A small, slight, dark-skinned human, a woman, stepped out of the shadows by the hangar entrance, She wore a dark blue uniform that might be one of the Republic Navy branches, but then it might not, Han was not up to date on what the navy was wearing these days, "Who might you be?" he asked. She came toward him, smiling calmly. He could see her a bit better now. She was young, maybe twenty-five standard years at most. Her eyes were set a bit wide apart, and : a trifle glassy. Her gaze seemed to be a bit off-kilter, as if she were almost, but not quite, cross-eyed. She was looking right at Han, and yet he had the distinct impression that she was looking over his shoulder, into the middle distancer into the next galaxy over. Her jet-black hair was done up in an elaborate braid that was coiled on top of her head. She walked toward him with an easy confidence that seemed to brook no discussion. "Glad to meet you," she said. "You can call me Kalenda." "All right," Han said. "I can call you Kalenda. So what?" "So I have job for you." he said. That brought Nan up short. A job? He was about to reply with some sort of flip remark, but then he stopped. That didn't make sense. Sile obviously knew who Han waswhich was not much of an accomplishment, as Han and Leia and Luke were famous throughout the Republic. But if she knew who he was, she would have to know he was no longer available for casual hire. Something wasn't right. "Go on," Han said, careful to keep his voice neutral. Kalenda shifted that strange gaze of hers so she was looking almost, but not quite, in the direction of Chewbacca, "Perhaps we should talk alone," she said quietly. There was a low growl from Chewie, and Han did not even bother to glance over his shoulder at the Wookiee. He knew what he would see. Let Kalenda get a look at Chewie's fangs. "Perhaps we shouldn't," he said. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say that Chewbacca can't hear." "Very well," she said. "But perhaps, at least, the three of us could talk in private?" "Fine," Han said. "Come on aboard the Falcon." Kalenda frowned, Clearly, she didn't like that idea either. The Falcon was Han's turf. "Very well," she said. Han gestured toward the ship with a sweep of his arm, and bowed very slightly, just enough to make it clear the gesture was sarcastic. "Right this way," he said. * * * The probe droid hovered silently up into position, coming up over the wall of the hard stand area, then dropping in behind of packing cases to keep out of sight. it was painted matte black, and was all but invisible in the deepening shadows. It watched the two humans and the Wookiee head up into the ship. It extended an audio monitor probe and aimed it at the Millennium Falcon. After a moment's hesitation, it moved in closer to the ship. Doing so exposed it to a greater risk of detection, but the probe droid masters had programmed it to place a high priority on eavesdropping on just this sort of meeting. The droid decided it would be worth the risk if its masters were able to get a good recording of the conversation that was about to happen. * * * Kalenda walked up the ramp and into the ship, Han and Chewie following. It might have been more polite to lead her aboard, but Han wanted to annoy her and he had the hunch she wasn't the sort who liked people behind her, Han could not pass up the chance to make her a bit edgy. She reached the top of the ramp and walked smoothly and confidently toward the lounge. It took Han a moment or two to realize that she had never been aboard the ship before. She should have stopped at the top of the ramp, uncertain of where to go next. Instead she was sitting back in the cushiest seat in the lounge almost before Han and Chewie got to the compartment. She must have pulled up some set of plans from somewhere and memorized the ship's layout. She had just demonstrated how much research she had done on him, how much she knew. All right then, fair was fair. If Han wanted to play games with her, it was only to be expected that she would play a few right back at him. "Fine," Han said as he sat down. Chewie remained standing, and just happened to be blocking the exit to the compartment. "You know everything about me, down to the blueprints of my ship," Han went on. "You have resources. You did your homework. It doesn't impress me." "No, I suppose not," Kalenda said. "You're probably pretty hard to impress." "I try to be," Han said. "And right now, I'd like to get home to my wife and family. What is it you wanted to see me about?" `Your wife and family," Kalenda replied, not so much as batting an eye. Now her odd, near-off-kilter gaze seemed to lock and track perfectly, and she looked right at Han, her expression flat and hard. Han stiffened and leaned in toward her, and Chewie bared his fangs. His family had been exposed to too many dangers, too many times, for him to take even the hint of threat less than seriously. "Threats don't impress me either," Han said, his voice as hard as her face. "With Chewbacca around, the people who make them don't live very long. So you just pick your next words very, very carefully." The compartment was silent for a moment, and Kalenda stared hard at Han. Their eyes locked. "I am n0t threatening your family," she said, her voice still expressionless. "But New Republic Intelligence would like to-make use-of them. And you." New Republic Intelligence? What the devil was NRI doing coming to him? If Han was too well-known a person to do smuggling work, he was definitely too well-known to be much use as a spy. Beyond which, he didn't much like government spies, no matter who the government was, "You're not improving your survival odds," Han said. "Just how are you going to `use' us?" "We know you're going to Corellia," Kalenda said. "Nice work," Han said. "You must have a crack team of researchers that check the news every single day. Our trip to Corellia is not exactly top secret." If anything, it was what passed for headline news in these quiet times. Leia was part of the Coruscant delegation to a major trade conference on the planet Corellia. It was supposed to be the first step in reopening the whole Corellian Sector. The sector had always been an inwardlooking part of the Empire, and of the Old Republic before that. By the time Han had left, Corellia had gone past inward looking to downright secretive and hermetic. By all accounts, things hadn't much improved since the New Republic had taken over, It was rare indeed to see a mention of the Corellian Sector without words like "insular" or "paranoid" or "distrustful" popping up as well. Leia had counted it as a triumph just to get the Corellians to host the conference in the first place. "Your wife's attendance has been reported, yes," Kalenda said, "But there has been little or no mention of your going along, or your children," "What is all this about?" Han demanded, "My wife is going to a conference on my homeworid. So what? I'm going, and we're taking the kids, Be nice to show them where the old man came from, Is that a crime? is there something suspicious about that?" "No," Kalenda said, "Not yet. But we'd like to make it suspicious. "Now you've lost me. Chewie, if the next thing she says doesn't clear things up, you get to throw her off the ship." Chewie let out a half yelp, half howl that had the intended effect of unnerving their visitor. "That means he's looking forward to it," Han said. "So, This is your big chance to tell me, clear,\y and concisely, what this is all about. No more riddles. Kalenda had lost some-but not all-of her poise. Han had to hand it to her. Even the vague notion of tangling with Chewie was enough to make most people snap. "Something's going on in the Corellian Sector," she said. "Something big, and something bad. We don't know what. All we do know is that we've sent in a half-dozen agentsand none of them have come back. None of them has even managed to report." Han was impressed by that news. The NRI was, by all accounts, very, very good at what it did. It was the successor to the old networks of Rebel spies, back during the war against the Empire. Anyone or anything that could kill or capture NRI agents at will was a force to be reckoned with, "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "But what does it have to do with my family?" "We want to send in another team. And we want to provide cover for them. That's you." "Look, Kalenda, or whatever your name really is. If the Corellians are as paranoid as you're saying they are, they probably suspect me already. I'm not the espionage type. I wouldn't even make a good amateur. I'm not a very subtle person. Your files aren't so good if they didn't tell you that." "Oh, but they did tell us that," Kalenda said. "And we didn't need them to tell us that, because everyone knows it already. The Corellians will be watching you like a hawk. We don't want you to do anything except act suspiciously." "I don't get it," Han said. "We want you to act as suspiciously as possible," Kalenda said. "Give yourself a high profile. Be visible. Ask nosy, awkward, questions. Offer bribes to the wrong people at the wrong time. Act like a bad amateur. We want you to draw their attention, distract them while we insert our seal teams." "What about my family?" Han asked. "What about my children?" "To be fiank, your children have a reputation all their own. I doubt we'd even be approaching you if they weren't in the picture. We're assuming they'll cause the opposition headaches all by themselves." "I meant, will my children be sqfe?" Han asked. "I'm not so sure I should even be taking them if things are as bad as you say." Kalenda hesitated a moment. "The situation on Corellia is unsettled. There is no question about that. However, if our understanding of the situation is correct, the role we are asking you to perform will not expose them to any additional risk. Family is still held in high respect on Corellia. It is considered most dishonorable to involve innocent family members in a quarrel. You should know that." There was something in her tone of voice in that last answer that gave Han pause. As if she were talking about something more than planetary tradition, and something a lot closer to ho. The trouble was, he had no idea what. Did the NRI know things about Han's own past that Han did not? Han looked her straight in those strange eyes ol hers, and decided that he did not want to ask. "if I understand what you're saying," he said, "you believe the jot you are asking me to do will not make Corellia any more dangerous for my children, Is that correct?" "Yes," Kalenda said, That didn't satisfy Han. He had the feeling that "yes" was a true answer, if not a complete one. "All right, then," he said, "Now, this next question I am asking as a father, as a Corellian who believes it is dishonorable to involve the innocent. Would it be dangerous to take my children to Corellia?" Kalenda slumped back and sighed. All the surface smugness went out of her, and Han could see doubt and uncertainty. It was as if the NRI agent had suddenly vanished and the person behind was appearing. "I give up being careful. Not when you put it that way. But I wish to the dark suns you hadn't asked me that," she said. "I honestly don't know. We simply don't know what's going on out there. That's why we need to do anything we can to get agents in place so we can find out. But there are children on Corellia right now. Are they in danger? Is Corellia a riskier place than Coruscant? Almost certainly, though by how much I couldn't say. On the other hand, travel all by itself is more dangerous than staying home. Maybe you should never travel at all. If avoiding all risk is your only concern, take your children and hide them away in a cave, just to be sure. But is that the way you want to live?" Han looked deep into those strange eyes that seemed to see things that were not there. In his old days, his reckless days, he wouldn't even have thought twice about flying straight into the worst sort of danger. But fatherhood did things to a fellow. It wasn't just that he didn't want to endanger his kids. It went beyond that. He didn't want to endanger himself needlessly either. Not for fear of death on his own part-but the thought of leaving his children without a father-it was something he had to work into the equation. But suppose he did put his children in a cave, and put a tound-the-clock guard on them. And suppose there was an underground rock slide? Or what if he did manage to protect them from all danger? What sort of life would they have? And how could they be expected to deal with a world full of risk and danger as adults if they had never faced them ù growing up? There were no good answers, no certainties. Risk was a ùpart of life, and you had to take a slice of it along with everything else. But there were questions of, honor, and duty as well. If there was trouble back home, in the sector that had given him birth, what sort of man would he be if he could help and did not? There was yet another factor. Leia was, after all, the Chief of State. She had been getting intelligence reports about Corellia. She had to know about the situation. Very probably she even knew the specific fact that the NRI had agents gone missing. Yet she was willing to bring her children along. And that was good enough for Han. "Thank you," Han said. "I always appreciate a straight answer, But we'll be going to Corellia-and I'll do what I can to act suspiciously. I have a feeling it will fit in with my natural talents." "Officially, I'm glad to hear that," Kalnda said. "But unofficially-very unofficially-I wouldn't blame you if you decided not to go at all." "We go," Han said. "We're not going to be scared away from living our life." "Just like that?" Kalenda asked. "Without even asking any questions? The NRI doesn't have much information, but shouldn't you know what we do?" Chewie let out a low, throaty rumble, the Wookiee equivalent of a chuckle, and then growled a retort. "What9" Kalenda asked. "What's funny? What did he say?" Han smiled, even if the joke was more or less at his expense. "Something to the effect that I've never been one to let facts or information interfere with my decisions. But in all seriousness, it might just be that the less I know the better. If you want me to blunder around like an ignorant fool, maybe I'd do better if! was ignorant." "We half expected you to say that," Kalenda said. "If you know me that well, then the next thing you should be expecting me to say is that it's dinnertime and the family's waiting." Kalenda stood up. "Very well." She turned toward Chewbacca, who was still blocking the entrance. "If your -` friend will excuse me?" she asked, staring straight at Chewie. The Wookiee gave a sort of snort and let her by. After she was gone, Chewie looked toward Han. "I know, I know," he said. "You're going to say it's none of my business. But our agents are vanishing on my turf. Is that my people doing that? She said something is going wrong in the Corellian Sector, my home sector. Should I just turn my back? You tell me. What should I have said?" Chewie didn't have an answer for that one. Instead he behind him to help him power down the ship. grunted and turned back toward the cockpit. Han followed But the Wookiee stopped dead just inside the to the cockpit, and Han nearly waIked up his back. he cried out. "What are youChewie moved his left arm slowly back until it was behind his back. He gestured for silence with a wave his left hand as he stared straight ahead, out the cockpit 5 viewport. Han froze, and tried to see around Chewbacca's looming bulk. He saw nothing, but that told him as much as he needed to know. A probe droid or a living snooper. Chewie had spotted something, some tiny movement or other. Nothing else would explain his reaction. "What-what are we going to do about the shields?" Han asked, trying to make it sound smooth and convincing. Chewbacca took the cue, and growled a casual-sounding answer as he plopped down into the copilot's seat. Han followed Chewie's gaze as the Wookiee scanned his panels. Han saw Chewie's eyes flicker toward the packing cases at the edge of the hard stand for just a moment. All right, then. Han sat down in the pilot's seat and tried to think fast. Someone or something had been listening in on their little chat with Kalenda. The fact that the snooper was still out there could only mean they were hoping to hear more. Otherwise, the snooper would have pulled back the moment Kalenda was gone. And that meant the only chance of catching the snooper would be to keep him or her or it busy until Chewie and he had managed to set something up. Better do something to sound interesting. "That sounds good on the repulsor," Han said. "But if our visitor was right, hardware glitches are going to be the least of our troubles." Chewbacca looked toward Han in some surprise. `Oh, yeah," Han said, improvising as best he could. "With what she was saying, we're going to have a lot to talk about on the way home. Lots of profits in it for us if we play it right." That ought to be intriguing enough to keep their friends interested. Han gestured with his hands, being careful to keep them well out of view of the cockpit ports. He pointed toward himself, and waggled his first two fingers back and forth in a pantomime of walking. He pointed toward the outside of the ship, and then pantomimed pulling a trigger. Chewie nodded very slightly, then pointed at himself, pointed down, indicating he would stay where he was, and then tapped the controls for the ventral laser cannon. Chewbacca burbled his agreement on the subject of profit and nodded a bit more emphatically for the benefit of whoever was outside. "Listen," Han said. "You finish up the power-down, all right? I want to go take a look at the rear landing pads and see if they took any damage." Chewie nodded. Han slipped his left hand under the pilot's chair and pulled out the small holdout blaster that he kept there. It wasn't the most powerful bit of armament, but it was small enough to hide in the palm of his hand. Han got up and headed toward the hatch. He made his way toward the open gangway, moving at what he hoped was a nice, casual pace. If he and Chewie were better actors than he thought they were, or if their snooper was a bit more gullible than average, they would still have company. He walked down the gangway, whistling tunelessly to himself, and paused at the bottom. He yawned and stretched in what he hoped was a convincing sort of way. He wandered over toward the port side of the ship, as if he was about to head around and look at the aft landing pad. By doing so, he came around the side of the heap of packing cases. Anything or anyone hiding behind them would have to drift back a bit, back into the corner, in order to stay out of sight. Han swung his left hand around so his body hid it from view, and got the holdout blaster into position. He continued his leisurely walk toward the rear of the ship and then suddenly shifted direction, started running straight toward the pecking cases, moving as fast as he could, blaster at the ready. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the ventral laser cannon pep out of its recess and blaze away. The cannon swept along the cases from starboard to port, herding their visitor toward Han. The cases blew apart under the withering fire, lighting up the hard stand. And suddenly, in the flashing strobelike bursts of the laser cannon, it was bright enough for Han to see the thing he was chasing. A probe droid, an old-style Imperial probot, floated in midair not ten meters from him, its eight cruel-looking sensor arms hanging down from its rounded central body. The laser cannon stopped firing and darkness returned. No doubt Chewie didn't want to risk shooting Han. Thoughtful of him. Even without the laser fire, the packing cases were burning bright enough for Han to see his adversary. But if Han could see the probe droid, the probe droid could see him. One of its arms swung around, aiming a built-in blaster dead at him. Han fired without taking the time for conscious thought, and thanks either to luck or marksmanship he shot the blaster off the droid. But the loss of its blaster didn't even slow the droid down. It brought another arm to bear, one with a cruel, needle-sharp end, and moved toward Han at speed. Han dove for the ground and rolled over on his back as it bore down on him, that needle arm reaching to skewer him through the chest. The arm jabbed down, and Han rolled out of the way just barely in time. The needle arm spiked into the permacrete and jammed there for a moment. Han fired up at the droid, but it must have been luck on the first shot, because this time he missed completely. He squeezed the trigger again and nothing happened. The holdout blaster's tiny energy cell had been depleted with only two shots. Han scrambled to his feet and realized he was boxed in by the sound barrier wall of the hard stand. The droid pulled its needle arm up out of the permacrete, and then turned back toward Han, ready to move in for the kill. A single shot from the Falcon's laser cannon flared out, and caught the droid square in the body. The ghastly thing crashed to the ground, and Han started breathing again. Chewie came running up a moment later, carrying a glow rod. He pointed at the droid as he looked at Han and let out a complicated series of snarls and burbling roars. "I can see that," Han said. "Imperial probe droid. Twenty years old at least. Someone dug it up from somewhere and reprogrammed it." Chewie knelt down by the droid and shone the light on it. He glanced up toward Han and yelped a question. "Because that's not the way the Imperials programmed the things. They weren't supposed to fight, they were supposed to spy. If they got caught and couldn't run, they transmitted their data on a tight beam and self-destructed. This one tried to shoot its way out. And don't ask me what that tells us, because I don't know. Except he did know, at least in part. It told him that someone out there was playing for keeps. What the game was, or who the players were, Han had not the slightesi idea. But it had to be Corellia. It had to be. Han stared at the dead machine by the light of the burnin1 packing cases, and wondered what to do about the probe' carcass. The fact that it had been here at this particular time and place had some unpleasant connotations. If the NRI' agents were being followed, he certainly wasn't going t( rush to them and report this little incident. No. Best keep it as quiet as possible. "No one hears about this," said. "Not the NRI, not Luke, not Leia. Nothing they could do about it except get upset, and there might be other listeners out there. We get rid of this thing, fast, clean up the mess, and that's that." Chewbacca looked at Han and nodded his agreement. Han knelt down next to the Wookiee and started trying to figure out how to get rid of the probe. Later he could worry about the other trifling problems, such as the question of who had sent the thing and why. It occurred to Han that he really only knew two things for certain. First, he knew that if someone out there was trying to make him not want to head for Corellia, they were going about it the wrong way. Spies and vague threats and droids might intimidate other men, but Han never had been much for responding to intimidation. And second, he knew it was going to be an interesting trip. CHAPTER TWO Breakage and Repairs Jaina Solo squatted down next to her younger brother and handed him one of the circuit boards. "Come on, Anakin. You can figure it out. You can make it work." Anakin Solo, all of seven and a half years old, sat on the floor of the playroom, surrounded by broken bits of droid and rather worn-looking circuit units. Jacen, Jaina's twin brother, had done most of the scavenging for parts, digging through the discard bins and refuse parts of all the droid repair shops and part suppliers. Jaina had done most of the mechanical assembly work, but now it was up to Anakin. All three of them were good with their hands, gifted in mechanical things-but Anakin went beyond merely being gifted. He could fix things so they worked-even if he didn't know what they did, or what they were. It was almost as if he could see inside machines, read the circuit patterns of even the tiniest microscopic components-and even tempt the broken circuits to heal themselves. Outsiders would have thought it all very remarkable, and perhaps even impossible. But the twins were used to it. To them, all it meant was that Anakin could tap into a different aspect of the Force than most people. Or maybe he didn't know yet that what he did was impossible. If and when the grown-ups found out and convinced him that he could not do what he did, then perhaps the game would be over. For now, a little brother who could make machinery and computers sit up and beg was a most useful asset. In the past, the twins had set him to work on all sorts of jobs when they went exploring the parts of the Imperial Palace they weren't supposed to see. He had opened foolproof locks for them, made security cameras shut down at just the right moments so no one would catch them, powered up lift tubes that were supposed to be inert, and generally come in most handy in the service of his older siblings. But that had just been wandering around the old palace. This ought to be better. This ought to be the best of all. Now they were going to have their own secret droid, with no grown-ups able to force overrides or countermand instructions, or take it away as a punishment. Anakin stared at a bit of circuit board, and turned it over slowly in his hands. "This goes over that part," he muttered to himself. "It goes sideward." Anakin could make himself understood when he was talking to the twins, or to the grown-ups, but not even Jaina or Jacen could make much sense of him when he talked to himself. It didn't much matter, of course. Not so long as the job got done. Jacen watched intently as his little brother went to work. He was better with plants and animals, living things, than he was with machinery. Jaina was the twin who knew machines, the way their father did. She was forever fiddling with this bit of hardware or that, seeing what she could get her multitool to do. She and Jacen closely resembled each other, with dark brown hair and pale brown eyes. They were solid, healthy children, if not especially tall or strong for their age. Anakin was something a little different. He was small for his age, but distinctly brawny and strong. His hair was darker, and his eyes a disconcertingly cold iceblue. It was easy to spot the family resemblance to both parents in all three children, but Anakin was the one least like anyone else in the family. And the least like anyone else, for that matter. Anakin marched to the beat of a drum that no one at all was playing. Anakin plugged the board into the innards of the droid and pressed a button. The droid's black, boxy body shuddered awake, it drew in its wheels to stand up a bit taller, its status lights lit, and it made a sort of triple beep. "That's good," he said, and pushed the button again. The droid's status lights went out, and its body slumped down again. Anakin picked up the next piece, a motivation actuator. He frowned at it as he turned it over in his hands. He shook his head. "That's not good," he announced. "What's not good?" Jaina asked. "This thing," Anakin said, handing her the actuator. "Can't you tell? The insides part is all melty." Jaina and Jacen exchanged a look. "The outside looks okay," Jaina said, giving the part to her brother. "How can he tell what the inside of it looks like? It's sealed shut when they make it." Jacen shrugged. "How can he do any of this stuff? But we need that actuator. That was the toughest part to dig up. I must have gone around half the city looking for one that would fit this droid." He turned toward his little brother. "Anakin, we don't have another one of these. Can you make it better? Can you make the insides less melty?" Anakin frowned. "I can make it some better. Not all the way better. A little less melty. Maybe it'll be okay." Jacen handed the actuator back to Anakin. "Okay, try it."' Anakin, still sitting on the floor, took the device from his brother and frowned at it again. He turned it over and over in his hands, and then held it over his head and looked at it as if he were holding it up to the light. "There," he said, pointing a chubby finger at one point on the unmarked surface. "In there is the bad part." He rearranged himself to sit cross-legged, put the actuator in his lap, and put his right index finger over the "bad" part. "Fix," he said. "Fix." The dark brown outer case of the actuator seemed to glow for a second with an odd blue-red light, but then the glow sputtered out and Anakin pulled his finger away quickly and stuck it in his mouth, as if he had burned it on something. "Better now?" Jaina asked. "Some better," Anakin said, pulling his finger out of his mouth. "Not all better." He took the actuator in his hand and stood up. He opened the access panel on the broken droid and plugged in the actuator. He closed the door and looked expectantly at his older brother and sister. "Done?" Jaina asked. "Done," Anakin agreed. "But i'm not going to push the button." He backed well away from the droid, sat down on the floor, and folded his arms. Jacen looked at his sister. "Not me," she said. "This was your idea." Jacen stepped forward to the droid, reached out to push the power button from as far away as he could, and then stepped hurriedly back. Once again, the droid shuddered awake, rattling a bit this time as it did so. It pulled its wheels in, lit its panel lights, and made the same triple beep. But then its camera eye viewlens wobbled back and forth, and its panel lights dimmed and flared. It rolled backward just a bit, and then recovered itself. "Good morning, young mistress and masters," it said. "How may I surge you?" Well, one word wrong, but so what? Jacen grinned and clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly. "Good day, droid," he said. They had done it! But what to ask for first? "First tidy up this room," he said. A simple task, and one that ought to serve as a good test of what this droid could do. "Certainly, young mister." The droid rolled toward a bit of jurk on the floor. It extended a work arm to pick it up and then stopped dead. Its body seemed frozen, its arm locked in place halfway toward the bit of debris. The one thing it seemed to be able to move was its viewlens. The lens swiveled from one child to the next, Md then stopped on Jacen. "Oh, dear," the droid said. "I seem to have thrun. I am afraid I am goinn-" The droid's voice cut out abruptly and it started rocking back and forth on its wheels. "Uh-oh," Anakin said, scrambling to his feet. Suddenly the droid's overhead access door blew off and there was a flash of light from its interior. A thin plume of smoke drifted out of the droid. Its panel lights flared again, and then the work arm sagged downward. The droid's body, softened by heat, sagged in on itself and drooped to the floor. The floor and walls and ceilings of the playroom were supposed to be fireproof, but nonetheless the floor under the droid darkened a bit, and the ceiling turned black. The ventilators kicked on high automatically, and drew the smoke out of the room. After a moment they shut themselves off, and the room was silent. The three children stood, every bit as frozen to the spot as the droid was, absolutely stunned. It was Anakin who recovered first. He walked cautiously toward the droid and looked at it carefully, being sure not to get too close or touch it. "Really melty now," he announced, and then wandered off to the other side of the room to play with his blocks. The twins looked at the droid, and then at each other. "We're dead," Jacen announced, surveying the wreckage. "We didn't mean to break anything," Jaina protested. "If we only got in trouble for things we meant to do, we'd never get in trouble," her brother pointed out. "Well, hardly ever," he conceded after a moment. Uncle Luke was very insistent on the subject of honesty, and doubly so on the subject of being honest with yourself. "Maybe we can blame it on Anakin," Jaina said. "We could tell them he did it. After all, he is the one that did it. Sort of." Their little brother, already having made a nice stack of blocks, looked up at the twO of them, a little bit worried, a tiny bit startled, yet still a lot calmer than he should have been, under the circumstances. But then, even the twins didn't pretend to understand Anakin completely. "No," Jacen said. "We can't tell them. If they knew the kind of stuff Anakin can do, that would spoil everything." So far as Jacen and Jaina were ooncerned, "they" and "them" meant the grown-ups, the opposing team. It was the grown-ups' job to stop Jacen and Jaina, and the twins' job to outwit the grown-ups. Jacen was enough of a strategist to know that sometimes you had to lose a battle in order to win the war. If they revealed Anakin's abilities, that might protect them for the moment, but the grown-ups would he sure to do something about Anakin, and then where would the twins be? "We can't let them know about Anakin. Besides, it wasn't his fault. We did make him do it. It'd be no fair getting him in trouble." "Yeah," Jaina said, agreeing reluctantly. "I guess you're right. But how do we explain a melted droid?" Jacen shrugged and prodded the ruined machine with the toe of his shoe. "I don't think we can, he said. "I'd sure like to hear you try," someone said from behind them. There were very few people who could enter a room without Jacen realizing it, and only one of that number was likely to be anywhere near the Imperial Palace. Even if he had not recognized the voice, Jacen would have known who it had to he, and the knowledge both relieved and mortified him. "Hello, Uncle Luke," he said as he turned around. If they were going to be caught, Uncle Luke was probably the best-and worst-grown-up to do the catching. "Hello, Uncle Luke," said Jaina, her tone no happier than Jacen's. "Lukie!" Anakin cried out as he jumped up and rushed over to him. At least someone didn't feel all guilty. Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and Master, hero of a hundred battles and a thousand worlds, champion of justice, loved, revered-and feared-throughout the New Repub lie, knelt down to scoop up a bundle of fast-moving nephew. Uncle Luke stood again, holding Anakin in one arm as he surveyed the damage. "Pretty impressive," he said. "So what did happen?" Jacen Solo looked up at his uncle and swallowed nervously. At least it was Uncle Luke, and not Mom or Dador worse, Chewbacca-who had caught them. "Well, it was my idea," he said. There was no sense in pointing at your sister and shouting "She did it! She did it!" when you were talking to an uncle who could sense the truth or falseness of everything you said. "Uh-huh," Luke said. "Somehow I'm not surprised. But what exactly was the idea?" "We wanted our own droid," Jaina said. "One we could use, without bothering the grown-ups." `And without getting the grown-ups to give you permission," Luke said. It was not a question. "You know you're not allowed to use droids without asking your parents or me or Chewie. And you know why, too. So don't go pretending you" were trying to make a droid to make things easy on us. "Well, all right," Jaina conceded. "That's not why." "You were trying to get away with something," said Uncle Luke. Once again, it was not a question. "Yes," Jaina said. Jacen wished she hadn't confessed quite that fast, but she knew as well as he did that trying to tell fibs to Uncle Luke was pointless. "So. You tell me. Why aren't you allowed to use droids for most things?" Luke asked. "Because we have to learn to do things on our own. Because we shouldn't rely on them to do our work for us. Because they can't do a lot of things as well as we can." Jaina spoke the words in a flat, expressionless voice, reciting what she had learned by rote. Jacen could have done it along with her. He had gotten all the same lectures she had. "And you've just learned another reason," Luke said. "It's dangerous to fool around with things you don't understand. Suppose one of you had been close to the droid when it went up? Do you want to spend a week in a bacta tank regenerating?" "No," Jaina agreed. "I didn't think so," Luke said. "But there's more to it than that. You're not going to live your whole life on Coruscant. There's a whole galaxy out there-and most of it doesn't much care about people who can't take care of themselves. You're i of always going to have droids around to pick up after you. "But you have R2-D2," Jacen protested. "He follows you around nearly all the time." "He helps me pilot my ship, and to do data accessand to do other real jobs that he was designed for. Artoo helps me do my work 50 1 can do it better-he doesn't do it for me, or help me get out of doing it." Luke nodded at the melted hulk in the center of the room. "Back before you repaired him so well, do you really think that droid there was designed to do homework for sneaky children?" "Well, no." "Sneaky?" Anakin asked, patting Luke on the shoulder to get his attention. "Not me. I'm not sneaky." Luke smiled and bounced Anakin up and down once more. "No, you aren't," he agreed. "And I want to make sure your brother and sister don't make you"that way. They got you to help them do this, didn't they? "Help? I did it, mostly. They helped me." Luke frowned thoughtfully at that, and Jacen held his breath. If any grown-up were going to figure out just what Anakin could do, it would be Uncle Luke. This was far from the first incident concerning Anakin's abilities. But the same thing that had saved them before saved them this time as well. Uncle Luke laughed, and it was plain from the look on his face that he couldn't quite imagine seven-and-a-half-year-old Anakin Solo assembling a droid. "Sure you did," Luke said. "Sure you did. But right now, I think the question is: What are your brother and sister going to do about the little mess here?" "Clean it up!" Anakin said, shouting gleefully. Luke laughed. "That's right. They're going to clean it up, right after dinner. And during dinner I'll have to think about the rest of their punishment. "Yeah !" Anakin said, smiling. "Punishment!" Jacen sighed. That was the thing about Anakin. He was always ready to help Jaina and Jacen get into trouble. But somehow, he always managed to avoid helping them back out. He plainly enjoyed avoiding the punishments his siblings got. Sometimes, Jacen wondered just how unsneaky Anakin really was. Leia Organa Solo, onetime princess, senator, ambassador, and minister of state, and present Chief of State to the New Republic, did not like it when her family was late to dinner. She knew it wasn't fair, but there it was. If she could juggle her hopelessly complicated schedule to be home for a family meal, why couldn't her husband or brother or children manage? Doep in her heart of hearts, Leia knew she had little right to complain. After all, nightly family dinners had been her idea-and even she had to admit that she missed more dinners than anyone else in the family. There was a priceand a high price-to being Chief of State. But there was not much point in struggling to make time for her family if her family never showed up for dinner. Where was everyone? Leia was on the verge of ordering the kitchen droids to program another twenty-minute delay into the meal preparation when Han and Chewbacca finally came in the door. She was about to light into them both for being late-but then she got a look at Han's expression, and all her angry words melted away. She could instantly see how hard he was trying to pretend everything was fine. Maybe that lopsided grin was sincere enough to fool a bunch of smugglers around a sabacc table but Leia was not buying it. "Hello, Leia," Han said. Sorry we're late. Didn't quite get as far with the shield tests as I expected." "I see," she said, speaking in a cautious voice rather than a hard or accusatory one. Years of diplomatic maneuvering had taught her how to control the tone of her voice. She did not want to push Han. She knew that much at once. Leja had never really gotten caught up on her Jedi training. By now she was resigned to the knowledge that she was never going to be as strong in the Force as her brother Luke. She might have every bit of the potential he did, but she had never had the time for the training. Even so, there were times when she didn't need the Force to know something was wrong. One look at his face told her that much. But in that same moment she knew that she had to pretend right along with him. If she pressed him, demanded to know what was going on, he would tell her. Han might leave a few things out, but he would never lie to her, or let anything harm her if he could prevent it. She knew that. And so if he left things unsaid, he had his reasons. Leia glanced at Chewbacca, and was even more certain that something was wrong. Wookiees had many fine qualities, but they were decidedly below standard in concealing their emotions. Chewie was clearly unsettled, his eyes nervous and edgy. She was tempted to speak, to ask, to demand, but then she stopped. No. He had a reason, a good reason, for saying nothing about whatever it was. "It's all right," Leia said, turning her tone light and casual as she stepped forward and gave him a kiss. "No one else has gotten here yet. You have time to go freshen up." As she got close to him she could not help but notice the slightest scent of smoke and fire, and something that smelled like the ozone after-tang of blaster fire. But she revealed nothing of that in her expression. "Great," Han said. "I'm feeling a bit grubby at that." Chewbacca made a low growling noise and headed to the Wookiee-style refresher unit down the hallway. Chewie was a frequent enough visitor that it had made sense to install the unit for his use-but Leia had never seen him quite this eager to get cleaned up. Clearly Chewie wanted to be out of the way-and maybe wash the same scents out of his fur. Something else to ignore. Leia smiled as warmly as she could and gave Han a kiss on the cheek. "See you in a minute," she said. Han breathed a sigh of relief as he crossed through the bedroom to the refresher unit. Either she hadn't noticed something was wrong, or she was pretending she hadn't noticed. It didn't so much matter which it was. He stripped off his clothes, wondering if Leia had noticed the burned smell they had picked up from the roasted packing cases. He took a quick shower and hurried a bit through the drying cycle before dressing in fresh clothes. Somehow, the familiar ritual of getting cleaned up for dinner settled him down, let the worry drain out of him. The old cockiness seemed to flow back into him, and the fretful worries of a husband and father seemed like they belonged to another man. Let NRI chase shadows and play at spies. All they were really asking him to do was behave naturally, do what he would have done anyway. And after all, this was Corellia they were talking about. His home turf. He knew his way around. let the probe droid lurk about. He didn't know anything anyway. Right now the biggest challenge he faced was in getting the shields on the Falcon back up to speed. Amazing how getting cleaned up could improve your whole outlook. Everything was going to be fine. Han headed back out to the living room and settled himself down in his favorite chair just as Chewie emerged from the refresher. Chewie gestured at the chair and gave Han a derisive little burbling noise. "All right, so I'm getting a little soft. Is there some grand crime in liking a comfortable chair?" Chewie didn't answer - but Han could not help notice that the Wookiee declined to take a seat himself. Han grinned and shook his head. Even after all these years, he was never quite sure what the Wookiee would decide to get competitive about. Leia came back into the room. "I told the kitchen droids to go ahead and get dinner on the table. They can reheat it for the kids. Maybe a dinner or two of overcooked food will teach them to get here on time." Han was about to reply when he heard the apartment's outer door opening. "Looks like they're in just under the wire," he said. He could hear youthful voices and a bit of giggling and the sound of small feet, but it was not his children who appeared at the living-room entrance, but his brother-in-law. Han had clean forgotten that Luke was eating with them tonight. "Sorry we're late," Luke said as he came in. "I walked in on the kids trying to burn down the palace again. We had to have a little talk. I sent them to go wash up." "What was it this time? Anything we need to know about?" Leia asked. Luke hesitated before he answered. "We've already sorted out a punishment. If I tell you, you might feel obligated to reopen negotiations"And that might end up getting us all a worse deal," Leia said. "All right. Tell me in a day or two, once the dust has settled." Han, sitting back in his favorite chair, couldn't help but smile. Leia and Luke's side of the family might be the highand-mighty, important one, all strong in the Force and busy in politics, but it was obvious that his children took after him. So what if that did mean the little monsters were a constant source of aggravation? It seemed as if none of his children was happy unless they were a hairbreadth from some sort of disaster. He had lost count of the times they had "experimented" with their uncle Luke's lightsaber. Rules did not set limits for the children of Han Solo-they represented challenges. Han smiled, thinking back on a few moments from his own childhood. It pleased him no end to see so much of himself in his children. The twins, Jacen and Jaina, were more overt troublemakers than Anakin would ever be. Anakin was a dreamier child, seemingly off in his own little world, but that was deceptive. He was capable of causing at least as much damage as the other two put together. It was just that Anakin never seemed to notice the chaos he caused-while the twins absolutely reveled in it. At that moment the children came tumbling into the room, the twins just a little ahead of Anakin. "Come on," Han said as he stood up. "Let's go in to dinner." CHAPTER THREE Famlly hamis Gleasry, agent of the Human League, sat in his hidden bunker, deep in the bowels of Coruscant, an d checked his detectors one more time. He came up with nothing once again. The probe droid had vanished utterly, and was not responding to any call codes. Phamis fretted to himself, knowing just how costly and difficult it could be to get probe droids, even obsolete ones. Yes, you expected to lose a certain amount of equipment. That was part of the fortunes of war. But he could not imagine the Hidden Leader would be exactly pleased to learn the droid had vanished. But still, the droid's task had been secondary. The real task-of getting to Skywalker-was yet to come. Everything had been carefully timed, the sequence of events worked out most precisely. The Hidden Leader's plan afforded only a narrow window of time for Pharnis. It would have to be after the moment Organa Solo took off for Corellia and before the planned demonstration. If he delivered the message too soon, Organa Solo could elude the trap. If he delivered the message too late, all of the Hidden Leader's other plans might well fall apart. It was a grave responsibility. And truth to tell, Phamis had not felt completely up to it even before the loss of the probe droid. * * * It was not a happy meal, Jaina thought. There was something in the air, something unsettled and nervous. Jaina was not as good as Jacen at sensing such things, but it seemed to her that, somehow, her father was at the center of it. Something was going on with him, something that got Mom upset, and even had Chewbacca a little edgy. Jaina wanted to ask what was wrong, but thought better of it. If the grown-ups wanted to pretend everything was fine, she could do the same thing, even if she did not know what the problem was. Besides, there was another question preying on her mind, one occasioned by the droid they had just blown up. They had built it to get out of doing work they didn't want to do, work that the grown-ups didn't let droids do for the kids. But suppose even the regular droids weren't around? She and Jacen would get stuck doing even more chores. What if the droids weren't coming on the trip? "Dad? Are we taking R2-D2 and C-3PO to Corellia?" Jaina asked as she stabbed at another bite of food. Her father sighed, gave her mother a meaningful glance, and got the slightest of nods in return. Jaina knew what that meant: Mom was on his side with this one. She instantly regretted having raised the question. Bad tactical error. There was always the chance of getting around Mom or Dad, but she should have known there was no hope at all when they presented a united front. "We've been through this a dozen times," Han said. `One, you kids are getting way too dependent on the droids to take care of you. Two, there won't really be room for them on the Falcon. Three, I don't like having droids around in general. Four, I especially don't like them on my ship. I don't carry them if I don't have to. "But-" Han pointed a warning finger at Jaina and cut her off. "And five, I'm your father, and that's final." "I should think now was not exactly the moment for you kids to be asking for more droid favors," Uncle Luke said, nodding his head almost imperceptibly toward the compartment down the hall with the melted results of their failed experiment in it. I was going to talk about the other matter with your parents later, but now you've raised the subject. Of course, if you really want me to discuss it with them here and now-" "No, no, that's fine," Jacen said in hunried tones. `No need to bother. The droids aren't coming. Fine. Fine." Jaina gave her twin brother a dirty look. Just like him to retreat like that. But still, what else could he do? The grown-ups had won this round, and no doubt. Even so, there was still a little part of her that couldn't go down without a fight. She was still a little mad and embarrassed about being caught by Uncle Luke. The temptation to stir things up on another front was irresistible. `Maybe there'd be room for the droids if we didn't have to take the dumb old Falcon," Jaina half mumbled, glaring at her plate. There was a moment of utter silence around the table, and Jaina knew, even as the last words were leaving her mouth, just how big a mistake she had just made. She looked up to see everyone, even little Anakin, staring at her. She stole a glance at her twin brother and saw him shaking his head at her in mute exasperation. "You know how much that ship means to your father," her mother said, using the coldly reasonable tone of voice that was somehow worse than the loudest yelling. "You also know that the Falcon has saved the lives of half the people around this table, some of them many times over. And I know you know that we know you know. So I can only assume you said something that spiteful and insulting with the deliberate intent of being disrespectful to your father. Am I correct?" Jaina opened her mouth to deny it all-but then she caught Uncle Luke's eye, and knew there was no point to it. For that matter, her mother had the same skills in truth sensing as Uncle Luke. That would be the one facet of her abilities in the Force that her mother would have practiced. Life would have been a lot easier if she could fib to her parents the way other kids could. But as it was, there really wasn't any point. "You're correct," Jaina said, not quite able to keep a sulky tone out of her voice. "In that case, I think it is just about time for you to go to your room, young lady." "But..." "But nothing," Han said. That did it for Jaina. There was no point in fighting against her father when he used that tone of voice. She got up from the table and stalked to the room she shared with her brothers, still pouting and annoyed at them all-even though she knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that it was all her own fault. That was the other problem with all this Jedi business. You couldn't even tell fibs to yourself. * * * The rest of the meal did not go much better after Jalna was sent to bed, Leia thought. There was sort of a chain reaction whenever they punished one of the twins. The other twin would get edgy, and ask to be excused, so as to slip away to commiserate with the prisoner. Then Anakin would notice something was wrong and want to go see what was up. Send one child away, and all three would be gone from the table in ten minutes. Usually the adults managed to have a pleasant meal afterward by themselves, and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Not tonight. Han was relentlessly pretending everything was fine, chewie was being even less convincing, and Luke was doing his best to go along with the charade. "Looking forward to the trip to Corellia?" Luke asked, plainly trying to make conversation. "Hmm... Oh yeah. Absolutely., " Han replied "It's going to be great. Wish you could come along." "It's tempting," Luke said. "But I promised Lando that I'd help him with some sort of secret project of his." "Yeah, he mentioned something about that," Han said. "Any hint about what it might be?" Luke shook his head. "Not a word. Just that it might take a few weeks." "Well, I can't wait to see what he's gotten himself into this time." "Me neither," Luke said. "Oh, Leia, by the way, speaking of secrets, I'm supposed to have a meeting with Mon Mothma tomorrow evening. She wouldn't tell me what she wanted, either. Nothing but classified missions for me, I guess." Han gave Luke a strange look, and had to force a smile. "Yeah, real hush-hush stuff," he said. At last Leia couldn't stand it anymore. "Excuse me, she said. "I really have some work I have to do tonight." She got up from the table, not really caring how lame the excuse sounded, and hurried along to her study. She closed the door and slapped the override on the light control before the automatics could brighten the room too much. She edged the lights up just a trifle from minimum. Let it stay dim in here. Of course, the sad part was that work wasn't actually an excuse. There was always some bottomless pit of work, no matter how much she delegated. Leia let out a sigh and crossed to her desk. The desk light tund itself on, a shaft of light bright and clear, and she left it that way. She sat in the darkness, on the edge of a pool of light, and found that she could not bring herself to deal with even one of the vital documents that covered her desk. Why should such a tiny dinneflime scuffle upset her so much? She knew that most of it was the underlying tension at the table, but there was more to it than that. There were times, and this was one of them, when, for no clear reason at all, the whole idea of motherhood, of the job of molding her children into civilized humans, seemed suddenly terrifying. She saw now just how much of her childhood had been spent being told to be quiet and not to fidget during state dinners, being constantly handed off to nannies and guardians when her father was too busy. She had had far more meals with the droids and servants than with Bail Organa. And what childhood she did have had not lasted very long. She had still been in her teens when she found herself getting pulled deeper and deeper into politics. It had been a real accomplishment to become a senator as young as she hadbut the accomplishment was purchased by surrendering the last of her childhood, the last of her innocence. Only now, as she looked at the world through her children's eyes, did she realize just how steep a price that had been. Han never did say much about his own childhood, or about much of anything concerning his life before leaving Corellia. Luke had come the closest of any of them to having a normal upbringing. He had been raised on Tatooine, thinking a farm couple, Owen and Beru Lars, were his aunt and uncle. But his early life had been just as isolated as Leia's, in its own way. A moisture farm must have been pretty lonely place for a child to grow up on, even in normal circumstances-and circumstances had been far from normal. Owen and Beru had posed as Luke's uncle and aunt. As best Leia understood, they had been kind to Luke, but in a distant sort of way. There had never been the closeness, the warmth, Leia wanted for her own children. It didn't escape Leia's notice that neither she nor her brother had actually been adopted by the people who raised them. Circumstances had required a certain degree of subterfuge, of well-intended deception, of careful distance for everyone's protection. Foster daughter and purported nephew were the closest ties Leia and Luke could claim. There was another piece of knowledge, guilty knowledge, that gnawed at Leia's conscience, and, she had no doubt, at Luke's as well. Each had been the unwitting, unwilling agent of death for the people who had raised them. The planet of Alderaan was chosen as a fit target for destruction by the Death Star in large part because it was Leia's home, and Owen and Bern had been killed by Imperial stormtroopers as they searched for the droids Luke had. With all that baggage to carry around, it was scarcely surprising that Leia was determined that her family would be a family, and not just a collection of strangers who happened to share some ancestors. Nor was it ever far from her mind that the children of powerful or prominent families often found themselves as players-or worse, pawns-In complicated power struggles. Even if her children were not going to inherit her office or her powers, they were still the next generation of what came close to being the Republic's royal family. Like it or not, intended or not, her children were, in effect, the second generation of a dynasty. It did not take much imagination to see the dangers in that. The temptations of power and wealth could be strong. Suppose that, somehow, they proved stronger than family ties? Suppose, twenty years from now, Anakin were plotting to gain some advantage over Jacen? Suppose some untrustworthy adviser urged Jacen to push his brother and sister out of the way of some glittering prize? It seemed impossible - but history was littered with such tales. But there was more, and worse. That her children were strong in the Force was, beyond doubt, a great gift. But it was also a great danger. It was never far from Leia's mind that Darth Vader, her father, her children's grandfather, had likewise been strong in the Force-and had been destroyed by the dark side. The day would dawn, no doubt, when each of her children would have to face the dark side. The very idea terrified leia. k made her fear that they might someday bicker with eacti other over money or power seem utterly trivial. Every little outburst of childhood surliness, every momentary black mood, every childish temptation to tell an obvious fib, scared her to death. It was illogical, irrational, but she could never stop herself from wondering if this bit of childish naughtiness or that bit of youthful bad judgment was ally a child succumbing to some temptation of the dark side of the Force. 4n theory, that was not sup~ to be possible. Jedi lore held that childish innocence was a bulwark against the dark side. But Jedi lore also held it all but unheard of for any child to display the ability and strength in the Force that her children exhibited. The dangers were great, but it seemed to her there was but one defense against both dangers, a defense so commonplace that it almost seemed absurd that it could triumph over such mighty forces, but there it was. The best she could do was to raise her children well. Leia Organa Solo was bound and determined that her children would reach adulthood with their characters strong and firm and honest, their family ties solid, with love in their hearts for each other. If that meant being strict with her children, or sending Jaina to bed straight from dinner, or refusing them droid servants, then so be it. Ieia propped her elbows up on the desk and rubbed her eyes. She was just too tired, that was all. A minor dinnertime squabble should not induce this much worry. It would be good to get away, take a rest. It was a fine idea of Han's for them all to go to Corellia for a family vacation before the trade conference. It would be wonderful to have some peace and quiet. * * * Brilliant move tonight, Jaina," said Jacen as he got into his bed and pulled the covers up. "I didn't mean to do it", Jaina replied as she got into her own bed on the other side of the room. "Room, lightsto-sleep mode," she said. The lights lowered, with the only illumination coming from the dim night-light in Anakin's adjoining alcove. The three children could have had their own rooms, of course, and had even tried that arrangement at times, but had soon discovered they were too used to being together. The present aarangement of one big shared room, with Anakin just slightly off to one side, suited everyone best. Besides, they were going to be a bit crowded on the Falcon. They might as well get used to it. Neither of them spoke, and the roon WaS quiet for a moment. The twins could hear Anakin's gentle, rhythimic breathing. Their little brother was already asleep. Jacen found himself in a thoughtful mood as he stared up at the darkened ceiling. "Aren't you being kind of easy on yourself?" "What do you mean?" Jaina asked. "You didn't mean it, so it doesn't count," he said. "It's not what you mean to do that matters. It's what you actually do." That sounded a little preachy, especially considering that he had been tempted to use the didn't-mean-it defense himself a couple of hours before. But it seemed to Jacen that being tempted and not doing whatever it was counted for something. "Anyway, you did mean to cause trouble, and you know it.". "Now you're starting to sound like Uncle Luke," Jaina said. "I could do worse," Jacen said, noting that his sister hadn't denied the charge of deliberate troublemaking. "Uncle Luke is pretty smart. But if it's any help, I don't think it was all your, fault tonight. They were already upset before we came in. "Yeah," Jaina agreed. "They were all worked up over something." "And everyone was making believe there was nothing going on," Jacen said. "Including us," Jaina pointed out. "We didn't say anything either, and we could tell. The only one who wasn't pretending was Anakin. "Don't forget, he let Uncle Luke think he didn't have anything to do with the droid," Jaina said. "He's the best actor of all of us. We knew Anakin was the one that built the droid, and we still couldn't tell if he was pretending with Uncle Luke. Maybe Anakin was putting us on, or maybe he didn't even know what he did." "I hadn't thought of that," Jacen said. But Anakin was an old, familiar mystery. They were used to the fact that he was incomprehensible. "So what do you think is wrong?" Jacen asked as he sed up into the cool, quiet dark. "With the grown-ups, I mean." "No idea," Jaina said. Her sheets rustled as she turned over on her side. "But my guess is that Dad knows something he doesn't want to tell Mom or Uncle Luke." Jacen turned toward her as well and propped his head up on his hand. He could just make her out in the dim light. She was facing him, mirroring his own pose. "Do you think it's a real big deal?" he asked her. "Or just some dumb politics thing that doesn't really matter?" "I don't know. But whatever it is has something to do with us. Mom and Dad never act that weird unless they're worried about us three little darlings." "That's for sure," Jacen agreed. "They sure do worry." Jaina chuckled softly as she turned over on her other side to go to sleep. "Come on, Jacen," she said, her voice a bit muffled by the pillow. "If you were our parents, wouldn't you worry?" Jacen rolled back onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He had to admit that she had a point. CHAPTER FOUR The Dangers of Peace In deep space, far from any inhabited system, a small, solitary star hung in the firmament. It had no name, but only a code number, a string of digits to identify it on the celestial charts. Star Number TD- 10036-EM- 1271 had no planets to speak of, only a few debris belts that had never coalesced into worlds of any size. It had no resources that were not available someplace else, and was not of any particular aesthetic or scientific importance. In short, there was no good reason for anyone to bother with it-and no one did. There were quite literally billions of stars like it in the galaxy, and it was of a size and age and type as well understood as any. Any astrophysicist worth his or her or its salt anywhere in the New Republic would have been able to make several very basic measurements of that star, and report back immediately on its age, the course of its development, and the pattern of its future evolution. And all of the astrophysicists would have been wrong. Many light-years away, hidden deep in the Corellian System, a secret team of technicians and researchers was seeing to that. They had been working for a long time, but soon their efforts would bear fruit. Soon the energies of their machines would reach across the stars. Soon they would change everything. * * * Luke drew himself up and took a deep breath before he pressed the door annunciator at Mon Mothma's quarters. He had learned to respect many beings in the galaxy over the years, but Mon Mothma held a special place in his esteem. Perhaps it was because of her seeming ordinariness, her quiet, backstage approach to things. Pwple who had not been paying attention might easily think that she had played, at best, a rather minor role in recent galactic history. She had commanded no fleets, fought no battles. She had no strange powers, or mysterious past, or remarkable talent. She was nothing more, and nothing less, than a brave, intelligent, ordinary human being, a human being who had pressed and prodded the Rebel Alliance into being. More than any other single person, she had created the New Republic itself. If that did not rate respect, even from a Jedi master, Luke did not know what did. He pressed the annunciator and the door slid silently open. Mon Mothma stood just inside the entrance. She nodded to him and smiled. "Greetings, Jedi Master. Welcome to my home. Please come in." "Thank you, ma'am," Luke said. It seemed to him that "ma'am" wasn't much of a way to address a person of such importance, but Mon Mothma had never been much for titles or honorifics. Luke stepped inside, and looked about with interest. He had, of course, known Mon Mothma for years, but he had been in her home only a handful of times. Mon Mothma's current quarters resembled the woman herselfuiet, unassuming, yet with an air of steady confidence. There was little furniture, but every piece was finely crafted, graceful and yet sturdy, everything perfectly matched to everything else, in muted shades of ivory and white. The room gave the appearance of being larger than it actually was. No doubt ikat was at least in part an effect of simple contrast. Most homes of the high-ranking families of Coruscant were cluttered with bric-a-brac, gaudy souvenirs and collectibles from every world of the New Republic. It was something of a relief to find a home that did not resemble a crowded and badly organized museum. "I am pleased you could come and visit me, Jedi Master," Mon Mothma said. Why in space was she, of all people, addressing him by his most formal title? "I am pleased to come," Luke replied. "I am glad," Mon Mothma said. "Please take a seat." Luke sat down in a severe-looking stiff-backed chair, and was surprised to find that it was much more comfortable than it looked. He did not speak. His host was capable of speaking her mind without prompting from him. Mon Mothma took a seat opposite Luke and looked at him with an appraising eye. "Tell me of your current circumstances, Jedi Master." Luke was taken aback by the question. Then he realized it was no question at all, but a command. After all, why should she ask when she knew the answer as well as he did? She was the former chief of state. She had access to all sorts of information, and had always followed Luke's career with particular interest. "Well, ma'am, as you know, the Jedi academy is now well established. I still visit from time to time there, but the students are progressing well and the first class has reached the point where they should be learning on their own, and, indeed, some now spend as much time teaching the second and third class as they do learning. "So you are not needed there. "Not full-time, no. To be there too much at this stage would be to distract from the process of learning." "So it goes deeper than your not being needed. You choose to stay away so you will not interfere." It was not the most diplomatic way of expressing the thought, but it was true enough. "That is one way to put it, yes." "So what are you doing with yourself?" Luke shifted in his seat, and found that it now seemed far less comfortable than it had before. He had not expected this sort of interrogation. But even if the questions were awkward, a Jedi spoke the truth. And even if the questions were a bit more intrusive than was polite, even a non-Jedi would find it hard to lie or even shade the truth-when looking Mon Mothma straight in the eye. "I find that I have not been doing a great deal," Luke said. "No grand crusades? No desperate battles or heroic missions?" "No, nothing like that," Luke said, starting to feel a bit annoyed. Revered figure or not, she had no right to be so rude to him. "Of course not," she said. "We're at peace." She smiled and laughed in a tired sort of way. "That's the problem with peace," she said. "No crisis. No trouble. No adventure. Which means there's not much need for people who are good at dealing with crisis and trouble. There's just no call for adventurers these days. Or for revolutionaries either. Do you know, Jedi Master, that I haven't been doing a great deal myself in recent days?" There really didn't seem much Luke could say in reply to that, and Mon Mothma didn't seem to be expecting an answer anyway. He kept silent. "You are wise to say nothing, Jedi Master," Mon Mothma said. "You have no idea why I have called you here, or what the point of all this uncalled-for rudeness could be. Well, I shall tell you." She stood up and crossed the room to the opacified window. She touched the controls and the window turned transparent. Coruscant's sun was setting in a glory of reds and yellows that lit up the sky. A spacecraft heading for orbit streaked up through the blaze of light, and reached for the night. "Perhaps I had them put my quarters on the wrong side of the building," she said. "Every day I see the sunset, but never the sunrise. The symbolism is a bit too much for me at times. Every day I look out this window and am reminded that my day is over. I know that I have done good, that I have left my mark on the galaxy. I know that it is even possible that I will be of service someday in the future. Yet I cannot imagine that the future will offer up any challenges like the ones I confronted in the past. Praise be for that, but it leaves me at loose ends. It is-unsettling-to have my life's work ended before my life is. Do you ever feel that way?" Luke could think of nothing to say. Mon Mothiria turned away from the window and looked toward him. "If you do feel that way, it must be harder for you than for me. My day is past," she said again, "but I am an old woman. At my time of life, I find that, at least at times, I welcome the prospect of peace, of quiet, of leisure and privacy. The restlessness, the urgency of youth have burned themselves away, and I can enjoy my life as it is." Mon Mothma looked directly into his eyes. "But what of you?" she asked. "What of the Jedi Master? I fear I know the answer." "And what is the answer?" Luke asked. "That your life's work is indeed done as well," Mon Mothma said. "You have fought your wars. You have saved countless lives, liberated any number of worlds, fought great battles. You have restored the Jedi Knights. Now all that work is done and yet you are a young man still. "You grew up in wartime, and the wars are over. History tells us that peacetime is often not very easy for warriors. They don't fit in. In plain words, Luke Skywalker, what will you do now?" "I don't know," Luke said. "There are things I could do, but-well, maybe the reason I've been at loose ends for a while is just that I've been trying to find things to keep busy. Things I could do. Not things that I wanted to do, or things that needed to be done." His protest sounded hollow. Mon Mothma nodded thoughtfully. "That all sounds very familiar," she said. "But that is the problem. What could compare with what we have done in the past, you and I?" "I don't know," Luke said. "It sounds like you might have some ideas, though." "Well, it does strike me that another member of your family has faced the same problem," said Mon Mothma. "That person seems to have dealt with it." "I'd say that Han is more at loose ends than I am"' Luke said. "I don't think I want to look to him for an example." "It was not Han that I was thinking of. But just in passing, I wouldn't worry about him. He might be having a quiet spell for the moment, but somehow I don't think the universe is likely to leave him alone for long." "That's true enough, I suppose." "I was thinking of another member of your family who also faced the same situation, the same transition from war to peace. She did rather well for herself." Luke frowned thoughtfully. "Leia? I hadn't even thought of her." "My point exactly," Mon Mothma said. "But it's different for Leia," Luke said. "She was doing the same sort of diplomatic and political work she's doing now even before the war. And after the war, she just kept going on with it until-" Mon Mothma smiled. "Until she got my job. I was glad to let the work go, of course, but there are times I miss it. And I might add that it's a job that suits Leia." "I don't know that it's the sort of job that would suit me, if that's what you're getting at. I'm just not good at that sort of thing. I don't think I'd like it." "Leia shows few signs of enjoying her work-but she is good at it. I'probably better than I was. But tell me-what sort of a Jedi is Leia?" Mon Mothma asked, changing the subject again with startling abruptness. Lnke looked up in surprise. Once again, Mon Mothma surely knew the answer as well as he did. But he could tell she was not looking for a pat answer. She wanted Luke to hear himself answer. "She has the innate skills, the inborn talent," he said carefully. "That much is obvious. But there has always been some other demand on her time, that prevented her from pursuing a course of dedicated instruction. That has cost her part of her potential. Even so, if she applied herself, starting now, and studied full-time, she could, in time, have very close to my degree of ability." "But at present she has nowhere near your level of skill in the ways of the Force," Mon Mothma said. "She has not made the most of her gifts." "She has not yet made the most of them. She still could," Luke said, with a bit more passion than he had intended. "If she gave up all the other demands on her time, and studied the ways of the Force, she could develop her skills tremendously." "Do you see any chance of that happening?" Luke shook his head slowly. "No," he said. "She has made her choices already. Her career in politics put too many demands on her. Besides which, she has three children to raise." "Yet it has always been a regret to her-and to youthat she has not developed her skills more. And if I am not mistaken, the issue has been the cause of gentle and repeated reproaches from you?" "Well, yes." "Do you find it upsetting that your sister has great gifts and has not developed them? That she has not made use of them? Do you find it something close to a scandalous waste?" Luke raised his head and looked Mon Mothma straight in the eye. The truth. That was what she wanted to getand, he realized, what he wanted to give. The truth, solid and clear. "Yes," he said in a slow, firm voice. "Yes, I do." "Then, Luke Skywalker, I suggest you consider the fact that some mirrors reflect both ways." Suddenly there was nothing remotely gentle or subdued about her voice or her manner. "Excuse me, ma'am?" Luke asked. It occurred to him that he had had difficulty reading Mon Mothma's emotions since he had come in here. Her calm manner had hidden a subject about which she felt great passion. "I don't understand." "I have heard it time and time again, from all sorts of people," she said, somewhat testily. "How the two of you are twins, how you each inherited the same potential, but only one of you made use of it, while the other chose to do something else, something less. People say what a shame it is. And always it is Leia Organa Solo, the chief of state of the Republic, that they talk about that way. The chief of state, and they whisper that she has not done enough with herself!" "What's your point?" Luke asked, feeling his temper starting to flare. "My point is that I think it is long past time for you to consider that Luke Skywalker made some choices as well. It is long past time to reflect on the fact that you have talents and potential you have never developed." "For instance?" Luke said. "If Leia has potential in the Force because you, her brother, have shown you do, does it not follow that you have potential in other areas because Leia, your sister, has shown she does? She has become a leader, a stateswoman, a politician, a spouse, and a parent. She is building the New Republic even as she is raising a new generation of Jedi. "Let us look in the mirror again," Mon Mothma said. "The Republic is in need of a new generation of political leadership. I don't know whether you realize it or not, but it is all but inevitable that you will enter politics, whether you like it or not." "Me?" Luke asked. "But I'm-" "A hero of the Rebellion. You're famous throughout the Republic, and on hundreds of worlds outside it. The various powers-that-be will not be able to resist someone as well known, or as well liked, or well respected, as yourself will be an inevitable focal point of political maneu" the years to come." "But I'm a Jedi Knight," Luke protested. terI can't go into politics. Besides, I don't Mon Mothma smiled. "How much r has consisted of what you wanted to dr' -6 `when the Jedi, what I most wanted to talk with you about. What are the Jedi to become?" "I'm sorry," Luke said. "I don't understand what you mean." It seemed to him that the whole conversation had been little more than riddles of one sort or another. If the Jedi were the most important thing on her agenda, why had she waited until now to bring them up? As for her question, the Jedi were-Jedi. What else would they be? "All right," Mon Mothma said. "Let me put it another way. In the years to come, as the Jedi grow from a handful of students into an order of thousands of Knights, will they set themselves up as an elite priesthood or as a band of champions? Are they to be cut off from the people by privilege and mystique, answerable to themselves alone? Or will they act in the service of the people, be intimately bound to the people? Will they be part of the people, the citizenry, or outside them?" Luke had never considered the question in quite that way before. "It's obvious what answer you want," he said, "but I think it's the answer I would choose no matter what. It seems to me that an order of Jedi that isolated itself from the population would be a very dangerous thing indeed. It would be very easy to forget the ways of ordinary folk if you never experienced the things they did." "Precisely," Mon Mothma said. "I believe, and believe strongly, that the Republic needs Jedi that get their hands dirty, that are part of the Republic's daily life. Jedi that live in ivory towers might be more dangerous than no Jedi at all. You need look no further than our very recent history to see that it has been the Dark Jedi that have sought isolation. To be a Jedi of the Light, a Jedi must be one with the people. There must be a Jedi on every planet, a Jedi in every city-not a few planets full of Jedi and nothing else. There must be Jedi doing what ordinary folk do, Jedi who are ordinary folk. There must be Jedi doctors and judges and soldiers and pilots-and politicians." "And you believe that my path will guide me into politics," Luke said. `Yes. If for no other reason than because it is your duty to set an example-and you have always been a slave to duty. If you wander off to brood on a hilltop somewhere, your followers will head off to find their own hills to brood on. If you are out in the world, so, too, will they follow that example." "I see your point," Luke conceded, none too happily. Setting a good example was a laudable reason for most things, but was not one that made the heart beat fast with excitement. But Mon Mothma had a point-excitement was going to be in short supply for a while-and for the general population, that was, perhaps, no bad thing. "Do you really think I'll get pulled that deeply into politics?" "I certainly have no way to see into the future," she said. "I cannot see your path. But people will look for leaders, and I believe they will look to you." "I suppose it is possible," Luke conceded. "It is highly probable. Probable enough that you should consider the situation in advance." "But I've never been interested in power," Luke said. "I'm not going to wake up one morning and decide to run for office." "No, of course not. But that is not how it will happen. Someone-I don't know who, or when, or how many, or why-will come to you, seeking not a leader, but a champion. Someone who will ask you to take up their cause, speak on their behalf, fight for their rights. You are not interested in power-but could you resist a call for help?" "No," Luke said, something half-regretful in his voice. Mon Mothma was right. It was exactly the sort of approach he would find impossible to resist. "No, if someone put it that way, of course I'd have to say yes." "And sooner or later someone will put it that way. The question then is if you are to become a real leader, or just a figurehead." "I beg your pardon?" Luke said. "Will you be a figurehead?" Mon Mothma asked again. "Will you know the craft of leadership, of negotiating when you should and of making difficult decisions when you must? Or will you be full of good intentions but ill trained and ill prepared to function in the world of politics, so that others must guide and control-and manipulate-you? If you are to be a real leader for the people, you must prepare for the job, just as you prepared to be a Jedi. You must undergo the training that Leia underwent while you were learning your Jedi skills." There was an unmistakable hint of reproach in her tone, if not in her words. Leia was learning kv doing the boring, necessary drudge work while you were out having exciting adventures. She did not say it, but Luke got the message. "There's been a little more to what I've done than fun and games," he said. "Yes, of course. You have, beyond question, served the Republic well, even heroically. But history moves on. Times change. Tomorrow's galaxy will demand new and different things of us. It is time that you found ways to act as a leader, a negotiator, a spokesman for those with no voice. You will be a guide or a commander or a mentor. Now comes the day of the people marching together. Will you be at the head of the parade?" "I suppose you're right," Luke said, though he didn't feel very convinced. "But even if I wanted to do what you say, there wouldn't be much I could do about it. Not much is going on." "Yes," Mon Mothma said, smiling again. "Very few opportunities for dynamic leadership are presenting themselves at the moment. That's what happens in peacetime. In a way, peace is the whole problem." "How could peace be a problem?" Luke asked. "Please, don't get me wrong," Mon Mothma said. "War is a terrible business, and I hope it never comes again. But there are ways in which war is simple and clear as peace rarely is. "In war, the enemy is clear, and he is outside your group. All of your friends and allies must come together for survival. In peacetime, there is no enemy. There are merely people who vote against you on this issue, and side with you on that proposal. "We fought the Empire in the name of liberty and justice. But now our task is to make liberty and justice real. We are now seeking to correct wrongs that would have seemed trivial in the old days. There was no time to worry about the fine points of fair legislation when we were about to get our throats cut. "Peacetime is complicated, murky. We could win the war by blowing up a Death Star or two-but we can only win the peace by building new space stations, new houses, new cities. That is not a question of largess or generosity. if we do not rebuild, there will be new unrest, new disturbances, and new war. In peacetime, you cannot win by destroying, but only by building-and it is always far easier to destroy. That is quite literally a law of nature. "Rebuilding is slow, painstaking, work, unsuited to a warrior's mentality. That is the real problem, for people like you and me. We became addicted to the tIrrills, the challenges, of war, and now they are gone. There are those who will be tempted to stir up trouble just for the sake of having some excitement." "I doubt that is so, Mon Mothma," said Luke. "There will always be perils and challenges. The universe is a dangerous place. And I also don't know that I am addicted to such things. I could live the rest of my life quite happily if no one ever tried to kill me again." "Perhaps you are right, Luke Skywalker. But even if no task now calls out for you to serve as leader-be ready for such a chance when it comes. Seize it, learn by it. Be not just a Jedi, not even just a Jedi Master-but a Jedi leader." "I will consider your wonds," Luke said, standing up and preparing to take his leave. "That is all that I hoped for," she said. "But there is one other matter in which I hope you will indulge an old woman." a "And what that might be?" Luke asked, a bit warily. "You are to meet with Lando Calrissian," she said. "He is going to ask you to assist you in a-project-of his." "Yes," Luke said, wondering, not for the first time, where she got her information. "That is so. But I do not yet know what the project is." "Ah," Mon Mothma said, smiling one more time. "I thought you might not. It just so happens that I do know what he is up to. It is an unusual sort of project for Lando to undertake, but it does have that grandiose element to it.,' "And you wish me to talk him out of it." "On the contrary, I would like you to offer him every assistance. That it is grandiose does not make it ill advised. No. Help your friend. I believe that in doing so, you will do yourse(( great good as well." It was not until sometime later, when he was out the door, that Luke realized that he hadn't quite managed to ask what she had meant by that. CHAPTER FIVE Rough Welcome Leutenant Belindi Kalenda hesitated a moment before she activated the cargo transport's lightspeed engines. The little ship hung in the dark between the stars, its navigation checks complete, all systems ready for the final stage of the journey to Corellia. Once she fired up the engines, she was committed, with no way back, no way out. That shouldn't have bothered her quite so much, but she knew what was going on in the Corellian System-at least she knew as much as anyone from the outside did. She was flying a small, nondescript freighter, very carefully chosen by NRI to fit her profile of a slightly down on herluck trader. She carried a varied cargo from a halfdozen worlds, and the ship's logs had been expertly manipulated to show that she had ineed been to all those places. Bits of litter in the trash matched her previous ports of call. The air filters even contained stray hairs and bits of shed skin and carap, all of which matched the various intelligent species of the worlds to which she had allegedly been. But the thing that got her most nervous was the deliberate flaw in the lightspeed engines. The remodulating buffer heat sink was just about to go. The NRI technicians assured her that it would function for exactly one more start-up, and then be blown by the heatpulse at shutdown. In short, her hyperdrive would die just as she arrived in-system. They would not be able to throw her out of the system, and they would more or less have to allow her to land and get to the central repair facility, where, by all accounts, it took weeks, or even months, to get anything repaired, unless a bribe changed hands. And Kalenda would just barely have enough to pay the standard repair costs-if she managed to sell her cargo. In shon, she was going to be stranded for an indefinite period of time the moment she hit the Corellian System, hoping that the role of a cargo pilot having a run of bad luck would be convincing enough to let her escape detection. Kalenda sincerely wished that she could wait to go in until after Solo and his family had arrived to serve as a diversion. But that was not to be. No one could make the two operations dovetail like that, for the very simple reason that no one else in NRI even knew about Solo. She had been doing a bit of freelancing there. It would be better for all if no one-and she meant no one-knew about that plan. If one thing was plainly clear from all the things that had gone wrong recently, it was that somehow someone in the Corellian System had done a very good job of penetrating NRI. If she had cleared the Solo-as-diversion plan with her superiors, the odds would have been strong that the Corellian opposition-whoever that was-would have learned about it already, and the whole plan would have been wrecked before it got started. Besides which, she had at least managed to give Solo some sort of warning that something was wrong. It would keep him on top of things, make sure he watched out for his children. They needed some sort of protection. Leia Organa Solo had insisted that her family travel together, alone, before the trade summit. Once the official part of the trip got under way, the chief of state's security detail would have a free hand. Until such time, they were on their owngiving the NRI plenty to sweat about. Speaking of being on top of things, it was past time to get her own little operation started. But had it been compromised? There was the question. If talking to Solo had been a bit of freelance enterprise, then setting up Kalenda's attempted infiltration had been a one-hundred-percent standard-issue NRI operation. NRI prided itself on meticulous planning and a team effort. Normally that was all to the good, but every member added to the prep team increased the odds that the Corellian source would have found something out. Kalenda wished she could change her coordinates for arrival in-system, but she knew that was impossible. The Corellian Defense Forces Space Service had a well-earned reputation for jumpiness as it was. If she arrived from hyperspace outside the authorized entry coordinates, they would go absolutely wild. At best, she would attract a hell of a lot of unwanted attention for herself. At worst, she would get blown out of the sky. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that she had dawdled a bit and was going to arrive a few hours late would throw off any hypothetical Space Service border guards. Maybe they would think she wasn't coming after all, and would give up and go home. Or maybe she was just giving them time to get into position for the intercept. There was nothing more she could do but activate the navicomputer, make the jump to light speed, and hope to luck. Kalenda swallowed hard, flexed her hand a time or two, and pressed the button. She watched through the freight's forward viewport as the stars flared off into starlines and her ship leaped into the unknown and unknowable darkness of hyperspace. She let off a sigh of relief as the last of the stars winked out of existence behind her. She was safe, at least for the moment. Unfortunately, her departure point was only a light-year out from the Corellian System, and she was not going to stay safely hidden for long. She spent the short ride worrying about all the things that could go wrong on her missionor at least some of them. She would have needed a lot more time to get through the whole list. All too soon the navicomputer beeped its get-ready warning. Kalenda settled herself in the pilot's chair and wrapped her hands around the controls. This was it. The navicomputer finished its countdown and dropped her back into normal space. The universe flared back into existence around her spacecraft. Kalenda saw Corell, Corellia's sun, right where it ought to be. She checked her navigation displays and confirmed her position. Good. Good. Right in the middle of the authorized approach lane, nicely on course for Corellia itself. Maybe she was going to pull this off after all. All she had to do was play her assigned role and everything would be fine. Speaking of which, it was time to contact Corellian Traffic Control. She switched on the comm system and punched in the proper frequency. "Corellian Traffic Control, this is Freighter PBY- 1457, on approach to Corellia. Requesting landing and berthing instructions and permission-" Wham! Something slammed her forward in her restraint harness, and her freighter shuddered from a massive impact. Kalenda lunged for the flight controls. It couldn't be the buffer heat sink blowing already. The techs had promised it would be at least half an hour before it went. It had to beWham! Another hit. That was no internal explosion. Someone was shooting at her. Even before she had completed the thought, she had flipped her freighter into a barrel roll and taken it into a dive straight for the planet. There was a flare of light off her port bow as the next shot went wide. She punched up a view from the rear external camera on her cabin display and risked a peek at it even as she jinked her freighter sideways to dodge the next shot. A Pocket Patrol Boat, just as she had thought. If anything but a PPB had made two hits on this old tub, shewouldn't still be alive. A PPB was a very small singlepilot ship that traded high speed for limited firepower. Of course, even the popgun on a PPB would be more than enough to take out this unshielded, unarmed junk heap if she took enough hits. She jinked again, just in time to dodge the next shot. Blast it all! It was obvious they had been waiting for her. Her cover had been blown before she even entered the system. She had to think, and think fast. She couldn't outrun a PPB, and she couldn't outmaneuver it for long. She threw another random turn into her flight path as she rushed for the planet. Could she bluff a run back toward hyperspace? No, think! They obviously knew everything else about her. They'd have to know her hyperspace motors had been gimmicked. The bluff wouldn't fool anyone. She couldn't enter hyperspace without the whole hyperspace engine blowing outWham! A bigger hit that time, harder. Alarm bells started going off, and Kalenda could smell smoke and burning insulation. Dead. She was dead if she played by the rules. Her freighter lurched suddenly as the number-three engine flared and died. Kalenda cut power to number three and diverted it to numbers one and two. No sense worrying about engine overloads now. The PPB would stay on her tail and use her for target practice until it ruptured the hull and got her dead. She couldn't reach the planet and she couldn't enter hyperspace without the buffer heat sink exploding and dropping her right back outYes! That was it. It was a near-suicidal plan, but everything was relative, and staying here would be utterly suicidal. She reached for the hyperspace controls with one hand as she flew the ship with the other. She cut off all the safeties and overrides, cut the selector to manual, and stabbed in the activate button before she could think of what she was doing. An uncalibrated, uncalculated jump into hyperspace this near a planet was nothing more than a fancy way to kill herself, but if she stopped long enough to tell herself that, she would already be dead. No smooth transition to light speed this time, but a lurching, horrific crash into hyperspace, as graceful as slamming the ship into a brick wall. The freighter started to tumble end over end, but Kalenda didn't even try to stop it. Not whenBlam! With a horrible, shuddering explosion that sent the ship into new paroxysms, the buffer heat sink blew. The plan had been for it to give out quietly during the cooldown phase. But with the hyperdrive under power, the heat sink failed in far more spectacular fashion, detonating with almost enough energy to tear the ship in two. The hull breached somewhere in the engine compartment, and air thundered aft out into space. The cockpit's hatch slammed shut automatically. Alarms were clanging everywhere, and Kalenda hit the general override button, cutting the alarms off and killing power to all systems. With the heat sink destroyed, it took less than a half second for the hyperdrive coils to overheat and melt down. With an even more violent lurch, the freighter crashed back into normal space. At least Kalenda hoped it was normal space. Plenty of ships had vanished from hyperspace over the millennia and no one knew where they had gone. But Kalenda had more immediate concerns than what sort of space-time continuum she was in. She had to keep the ship from breaking up or blowing up. She needed to get the tumble under some sort of control. It wasn't easy with half the altitude control system destroyed, but she managed to get rid of about ninety-five percent of the tumble, leaving the ship in a sort of slow, off-kilter barrel roll. She checked her system displays and confirmed what she had already suspected-the hyperdrive system wasn't there anymore. It looked as if the number-one engine was out for good as well. That left her the number-two engine, with a very large question mark behind it. The cockpit displays said it was still there, and Kalenda devoutly hoped they were telling the truth. At last she had time to look around and figure out where she was-and found that she had finally drawn at least one piece of good luck. There, hanging round and lovely in the firmament, was Corellia, the planet half in daytime and half in night from this angle. At a guess, she had managed to travel all of a few hundred thousand kilometers in hyperspace, and in something roughly like the right direction. At an eyeball estimate, she was on the opposite side of the planet than she had started out from, and perhaps twice as far away from it. She could just as easily have been thrown completely out of the galaxy, or into the dark between the stars. In theory at least, she ought to be able to get down to Corellia from here. If that one engine really was still in one piece, she still might get out of this thing alive. If she were realty lucky, the Corellians would think she was dead. Maybe the PPB pilot would get it wrong and report her ship had blown up instead of jumping into hyperspace. Or maybe everyone wouldquite properly-assume the odds against surviving an uncontrolled hyperspace jump were too high to worry about her surviving. In any event, even on the odd chance that they thought she was alive, they certainly did not know where she was. She hoped to keep it that way. * * * Part of knowing how to survive was knowing when to rush, and when to take things slowly. Kalenda gave herself a good three hours for the next step. She did a careful checkout of the freighter-or as much of it as she could manage from the cockpit. The only pressure suit on the ship was in its rack, in vacuum, on the other side of the sealed cockpit hatch. A triumph of planning and design, that, but there was no help for it now. Even on this ship, the cockpit data displays could tell her an awful lot. She concentrated on the surviving main engine, and confirmed, by every means she could, that it was still operational. Not that she was going to trust it at anything like full power, of course. She would have to assume that it was about to fail, and treat it very gently. The cockpit's life support was in moderately good shape, though there seemed to be a few slow microleaks in the hull, and the cooling system was showing signs of failing. She wouldn't want to stay in the cockpit more than a day or two. Not that she could, anyway. There were no food or water or sanitary facilities in the cockpit. The ship's survival pack was stowed in a rack right next to the pressure suit. Obviously, the only way out of this mess-and, incidentally, the only way she could complete her mission-was to get down to one of the planets in the Corellian star system. Corellia itself was the obvious target, but not the only one. For a moment she toyed with the idea of trying for another of the habitable planets in the Corellian System. There were certainly enough of them. Besides Corellia, there were Selonia, Drall, and the Double Worlds, Talus and Tralus, two planets that orbited about each other. If there were to be a search for her, it would almost certainly take place on Corellia, making it a good place to avoid. But there were strong arguments against that line of reasoning. They probably did think she was dead. Therefore, there probably would not be a search. Besides, a planet was a rather largish place. Even if they were on the lookout for her, she was a trained operative, after all. She ought to be able to stay one step ahead of them. Them. Who was the "them" in this case? And what were "they" up to that merited the taking of such risks? One didn't attack New Republic operatives lightly. Kalenda realized she had no idea who she was up against. She had not spent any time at all wondering why the Corelliansor some group of Corellians-was so intent on killing NRI agents, or on how they knew her arrival plans. But no time to worry about such things now. They were certainly important points, but they really didn't matter, one way or the other, unless she stayed alive. Best to focus on that small matter first. She decided not to try for any of the other worlds. Corellia was closest. She had the best odds of reaching it. The risk of detection was only marginally greater there than on the other worlds. Besides, Corellia itself was where the action was. Whatever was going on, was going on there. The question then became one of how to get there. It was all very well to look out the port and see the planet, but she couldn't simply point the freighter at Corellia and switch on the engine. She needed to do a great deal more navigation work first. One bit of good luck was that she seemed to have retained more or less the same initial velocity as she had started out with before her abortive jump to light speed. The only difference was that she was on the other side of the planet, moving away rather than toward it. The planet's gravity was slowing her, of course, and sooner or later would start pulling her back. In plain point of fact, she was going to fall straight in on the planet and land about as lightly and gently as a meteorite unless she did something. And, of course, she did not dare make anything like a normal landing. A daylight landing of any kind was out of the question. The risk of detection was too great. A few minutes' careful work with the navicomputer let Kalenda work out a slow and careful approach to the planet that met the conditions she had chosen: a water landing, at night. She managed to find a trajectory that would allow her to come in just off the east coast of the main continent. Not that she was especially pleased to find it was possible to do that sort of landing, but the risks of touching down on land at night were just too great. Kalenda did not know the lay of the land well enough to look out the window in the dark and judge whether she was coming down in a nice, empty glade or a village square, a soft canopy of trees or a patch of low scrubby bushes that hid solid rock just below. Water was water no matter how you landed on it, and was more likely to be private. The odds on being heard or seen were much lower over water. Of course the odds on drowning were nil over land, but that could not be helped. Kalenda laid in her course and powered up that one remaining main engine as slowly and gently as she could, taking a good ten minutes to bring it up to one-quarter power, to the accompaniment of a number of disturbing bumps and thuds and bangs as the ship's structural members strained against the unbalanced thrust and bits of debris knocked themselves loose and clattered around in the compartments behind the cockpit door. Kalenda watched her displays carefully, and it did not take long for her to be inspired to curse a blue streak. Even at one-quarter power, she was getting a whole series of rather alarming readouts. The engine seemed to want to overheat. Its cooling system must have been damaged. She backed off to one-eighth power and tried to divert cooling power from the dead engines, to little or no effect. More than likely she was sending commands to sstems that weren't even there anymore. Lowered thrust required a longer engine burn, of course, but that beat having her last engine melt down. She adjusted her course to compensate and watched Corellia grow bigger in the viewport. Now she did have the leisure to worry over how they had known to jump her, and over what the devil was going on down there on the planet. The Corellians seemed to be zeroing right in on NRi's objectives, such as herself, without any need to bother searching through civilians to find them. There had to be some sort of leak back at HQ. Kalenda had a hunch that the higher-ups in NRI were starting to figure that out for themselves. That meant they were working on some more carefully compartmentalized operations against Corellia, wherein the left hand would not have the least idea what the right was doing. She had suspicions that there were a few NRI agents placed among the trade delegations. For all she knew, the attempt to insert her was at least in part meant as a diversion, to get the opposition looking the other way from someone else's arrival. It occurred to her that she should have been bothered at the thought of being someone else's diversion, but that was the way of the world-at least the espionage world. If you did not wish to risk the chance of being a piece on someone else's game board, it was best not to volunteer for the service. But there was at least the hope that, even if she did not get through, did not find out what was going on in this madhouse of a system, someone would. Maybe that was why the thought of being a diversion did not upset her. If she was a diversion, and she did die, and manage to get the Corellians looking in the wrong direction at the proper moment, then at least her death would not be in vain. Not much of a comfort, but with the Corellians gunning for her, and her life staked on an engine that wanted to give up and a night water landing, Lieutenant Kalenda needed all the comforts she could imagine. * * * Kalenda woke with a start as the alert buzzer blatted in her ear. She blinked, looked around, remembered where she was, and wished she hadn't. But what had set off the alert? Had something else given out on this old tub? She checked her boards, and her eyes lit on the chronometer. Good. No malfunction. The alert was from the plain old alarm-clock function. Time to wake up and get ready for reentry. She pushed a button and shifted in the pilot's seat and stretched as best she could in a vain attempt to work the kinks out. Now would come the time for some real piloting. Flying a freighter in on manual, unpowered reentry was no easy job in the best of times. Coming in at night, over hostile territory, with no guidance, in a badly damaged ship was going to take everything she had-and maybe more. Hold on. No sense going into this thing with such a negative attitude. Think good thoughts, about how the freighter was a solid old ship to hold together as long as it already had. About all her training, and her painstaking memorization of every map of Corellia. About how it was very unlikely that anyone was looking for her, and how she would be damned hard to find even so. Yes, that was the tone to take. Good thoughts. Good thoughts. She checked over all her systems one last time, and wished that they were looking better, even as she gave thanks that they were not looking worse. She looked out the port to the huge bulk of Corellia, looming lovely and dark, so close she thought she could reach out and touch it. She was square over the night side of the planet, but by no means was Corellia in absolute blackness. The lights of cities shone here and there, and starlight gleamed off gray cloud tops and blue sky and black land, making it all seem to glow as if from within, knots and whorls and points of light shining out from the sleeping world below. A lovely world, and one full of danger. She would have to be careful down there. If she lived. She checked her countdown clock. It was almost time to cut the engines. The normal procedure, of course, was for a powered descent, going in with the engines throttled up, decelerating from orbital speed to flying speed with the brute force of the ship's engines. But her freighter's sole remaining engine did not have anything like the power to manage that. She would have to do it the old-fashioned way, bashing her way through the atmosphere, using air friction instead of engine power to slow her craft. In theory, her freight was built to survive just that sort of emergency entry, but she would have been just as happy not to test the theory. Not that she had any choice in the matter. The countdown clock clicked off the seconds to engine stop, arriving at zero far too quickly. Her one surviving main engine cut off, and Kalenda reoriented the ship, pointing it in the right direction for an aero-braking reentry. Any moment now she would start to feel the first slight stirrings of atmosphere on the freighter's hullAlmost before she had finished the thought, the freighter bucked and quivered, and the controls tried to leap out of her hand. Kalenda grabbed the flight stick in a death grip and forced the ship back to an even keel. She had flown plenty of reentries, and on nearly all of them initial contact with the atmosphere had been smooth and subtle. This was more like hitting a brick wall. The exterior of the freighter must have goflen more torn up than she thought. This was going to be interesting. There was another series of shudders and thuds, and then, with a long-drawn-out shrieking noise, something tore off the aft end of the ship and broke clear. The freighter tried to flip itself over, and it was all Kalenda could do to force it back to a level flight path. On the bright side, it seemed as if the ship were flying a bit more steadily with the whatever-it-was gone. She checked her actual flight path against her planned course. She found she was running a bit fast, and a bit high. She made what adjustments she could, and started watching her hull temperatures climb steadily upward. The freighter began to shudder again, with a new, deeper, noise, a sort of rhythmic banging, thrown into the mix as well. Something else back there wanted to tear itself off, and no mistake. The freighter plunged deeper and deeper into Corellia's atmosphere, bucking and swaying and banging and shrieking its way down. The nose of the ship started to glow a cherry red, something Kalenda had never seen before. She was used to gentle, fully powered descents, not this sort of primitive aercbraking approach. The g forces were starting to build up, and Kalenda felt as if she were being shaken to death and crushed to death at the same time. A new alarm went off, barely audible in the cacophony that filled the ship's cockpit. Kalenda was being shaken anound so badly that she could focus her eyes only clearly enough to see what the visual displays were telling her. A temperature alarm. It had to be a temp alarm. Well, that was just too bad. She didn't dare take either hand off the flight stick long enough to make any adjustments, and besides, there was precious little she could do to cool things off. She couldn't even abort the landing attempt anymore. At one-eighth power, her one remaining engine didn't have anything like enough thrust to push her back into orbit. Not that orbit was a good place to be on a ship that was probably losing air, on a ship with no accessible food or water. Wham! The noise was loud and sudden enough to make Kalenda jump clear out of her seat if she hadn't been belted in. Something had just broken loose back in the ship's interior. A second, smaller crash announced that whateverit-was had just slammed into the opposite bulkhead. The vibration reached a crescendo, and just when it seemed that it would tear the freighter apart, it began to taper off, fading away more quickly than it had come on. Now Kalenda had some faint hope that she was through the worst of it. The freighter was still jouncing around quite impressively, but it had at least survived the reentry phase proper. It had become a badly damaged aircraft, not a halfwrecked spacecraft. Not that it was handling any better, or that she would be any less dead if she lost control of it and the freighter succumbed to its obvious desire to crash. Kalenda heard a loud whistling from behind the cockpit door. It began at a high pitch and gradually worked its way down through the scale to a low rumble. It was the sound of air leaking back into the aft compartments of the ship. Kalenda did not dare take her eyes off the viewport and the main displays for even a moment to check the environment display, but air in the aft compartment had to be good news. She would be able to get back there and grab the survival gear. She checked her rates, forward and down. Still a bit fast and high, but now it was a question of energy management, of controlling her descent, trading altitude and speed for distance, rather than any question of burning up in the atmosphere. She set the freighter into a series of wide, gentle S-turns to shed a bit more speed. Well, at least they were meant to be wide and gentle. If the freighter had handled like a live bantha in convulsion during reentry, in normal aerodynamic flight it handled like a dead one. The ship barely responded to the controls at all, and she had to fight it through every moment of every turn. Something in the control system started hammering and banging, o-testing the strain. She gave it up and got back on her ground-track course, and never mind if she were a bit fast and high. The ship glided downward into the velvet darkness of Corellia's night sky, biting into thicker air now-and suddenly all of Kalenda's concerns about being fast and high vanished. The ship's performance in the lower atmosphere was atrocious. She should have expected that, with half the aerodynamic surfaces shot to glory, but she had been concentrating so hard on staying alive long enough to get into deep air that she had never thought of how the ship would fly once she got there. Suddenly it was not a question of overshooting her target point by a few kilometers, but a question of not undershooting by several hundred kilometers. She had planned to put down just offshore, not in the middle of deep ocean. She had no choice but to relight her main engine and try to stretch out her glide as much as she could. She had hoped to avoid doing so. She didn't trust that engine, and she wasn't sure about the ship holding together while it was taking stress from both the aerodynamic surfaces and the engines. With the stress on the stabilizers and the off-center thrust of one engine, things could go very wrong very fast. However, it was not as if she had a choice at this point. It was relight the engine or drown. Kalenda looked out the port. It was a lovely view, and even in the midst of her struggle for survival, she felt privileged to see it. She granted herself a second, two seconds, to drink it all in, so that she might die with some recent memory of beauty, if die she must. The clear and cloudless sky was blue black, pocked with jewel-bright stars, white, red, blue; diamonds and rubies and sapphires shining down on the blue-black sea and its gray whitecaps far below. Lovely. Lovely. But if she was going to live to deserve further such privileges, she was going to have to tear her eyes away and get back to the job at hand. As gently, as delicately as possible, she powered up her single engine and brought it up to one-sixteenth power. The freighter slewed over a bit to port, but she managed to compensate without too much trouble. There was a low groan from the hull as the stresses on the ship rearranged themselves, but that was to be expected. She checked her displays again, and saw that she was still losing more speed and altitude than she could afford, even if the loss rate had decreased. She was still going to fall short of her intended landing zone, and that was not good. If need be, she could swim three kilometers to reach the shore-but she could not swim fifty. She bit her lower lip and throttled up toward one-eighth power, as slowly as she could. The hull began to groan again, but this time the sound did not fade out, but grew louder. The damaged ship was not likely to take much more strain. The freighter's nose started to drift to port, and she pulled it back to starboard-and then had to heel back over to port as it started to heel over to starboard. Almost before she knew it, the ship was in a dangerous oscillation, its nose wobbling back and forth, unable to hold a stable attitude. If that oscillation got much worse at all, the freighter would heel over all the way and go spiraling into the drink. Kalenda throttled down until the oscillation faded out again, and the groaning of the hull members receded. She checked her displays and swore. Not enough. Not enough. She was still going to land short of her intended ditch point. One last card to play. She brought the nose of the ship up just a bit, in hopes of tempting just a bit more lift out of the wings. For a wonder, it seemed to work. Her rate of loss of altitude faded away, and she actually achieved level flight. But Kalenda knew better than to relax her guard. Something else was bound to go wrong. It started as a low hum, almost below the range of hearing, but it did not stay hard to hear for long. Bi-bi-bi-be-heebee-bee-bang-bang-hang.Bang-Bang-BANG BANG BANG BANG! BANG! BANG! It grew louder and louder, and shook the ship harder and harder. Some bit of the stabilizer, or a torn-up piece of rudder, was slamming itself against the hull with incredible violence. Kalenda set her teeth and hung on. As best she could see with the ship bucking and bouncing like a mad thing, she was still flying level, and every second she did that was another few hundred meters toward shore. So long as it got her in toward shore, the freighter could tear itself to pieces as much as it liked. Getting closer now. Kalenda scanned the horizon, watching for land. There! A strip of motionless, darker darkness off in the distance. Stars and sky, she was going to make it. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Long past the time when it seemed impossible, the banging was getting worse. What in the name of space was trying to tear itself loose back there? BANG! BANG! BANG! BANThere was a sudden silence, and then, a heartbeat later, the gut-wrenching shriek of metal on metal and a final shudder that spasmed through the whole ship. Kalenda felt the freighter's tail pull up and heel over to starboard. Well, whatever it was that had just pulled itself loose must have been part of the horizontal stabilizers. She corrected back toward port, but not too far. Let the ship hang at an odd angle of attack, as long as it was flying straight, more or less. How far to shore now? She checked her navigation displays. Not more than twenty kilometers to go. If she could just hold this thing together that much longerPing -PING! Ping-PING! Ping-PiNG! Kalenda hit the alarm reset and checked her displays. Damn! The engine overheat alarm. The thing was going to hit meltdown if she kept pushing it, and no mistake. She knew what she had to do, but she didn't like it. What good in getting this far if the engine blew up and she crashed into the sea here and now? With infinite reluctance, she throttled the engine back down to one-sixteenth power, and grimaced as the freighter promptly set back to work losing speed and altitude. Ping-PiNG! Ping-PiNG! Ping-PiNG! She hit the alarm reset and swore under her breath with a fair amount of creanvity. The engine was still overheating. Some last cooling connection must have failed altogether. With all cooling systems out completely, the engine would explode in short order, no matter how little power she ran through it. For one mad moment she toyed with the idea of letting it blow, taking the explosion in trade for whatever last driblets of thrust she could get from the engine. But if there was one thing this ship was not going to take, it was yet another explosion. She braced herself, and then cut all power to the engine. The freighter lurched violently, and tried to pull its nose up into a stall, but she forced it back into something like a level glide. And that was that. No power left, no tricks left to try, all options explored. She was left with a deadstick glide into a nighttime open-ocean ditch. It didn't get much worse than that. Kalenda tried not to tell herself that at least she had the blessing of fair weather, for fear of the universe conjuring up a storm for her out of sheer perversity. Flying is divided into two sorts of time-the steady, careful stretches where the idea is to keep things more or less as they are, and the sudden, rushing, fast-moving moments where the idea is to get from one state to another as quickly as possible while not getting killed. Pilots should not be rushed or hurried during cruise operations, but they must move fast for the takeoffs and landings. As Kalenda was in the process of learning, all that was true in spades for a deadstick water landing. That water down below was coming up on her awfully fast. Best to get ready. She was going to have to get out of here in a hurry, once she put down. Keeping one hand on the flying stick, she reached up with the other and pulled down on the safety cover for the overhead escape hatch. She risked a glance up to spot the safety releases, then got eyes forward again. Getting closer. Much closer. She reached up without looking and flipped the releases, then yanked down hard on the hatch eject lever. Blam! The bolts blew and the hatch flew clear. Suddenly the wind was roaring past, and the stale, burned-insulationflavored atmosphere of the cockpit was swept away by the cool, tangy salt air of the Corellian ocean by night. Much, much closer. Kalenda struggled to flatten out her glide angle and braced herself for impact. Water might seem softer than land, but it still packed a hell of a wallop if you hit it at speed. And here it came. Kalenda resisted the temptation to shut her eyes, and got both hands back on the flight stick, hanging on for dear life. Coming in closer, lower, faster-faster-faster! The water so close now it was a blur, all the nice neat waves she could see so clearly from higher up nothing more than a smear of blue gray she could not focus on. The wind roared through the hatchway, and her hair got loose and blew wildly into her face. She ignored it. Better to go in halfblind than to take her hands off the stick. Closer faster can't get closer must be there but we're not closer faster fasterWith a shuddering, roaring crash the ruined freighter slammed into the waves, bounced clear, and slammed down again with renewed vigor. Kalenda held on for dear life as the ship slammed head-on into wave after wave after wave, the water slashing up over the viewports, then clearing away before the next wave blinded her again. The shuddering, terrifying ride seemed to go on forever, with always the next wave lunging into view just as the last one washed away. But at last the freighter slowed, rode lower in the water, eased itself to a halt, and the stupefying, crashing roar of the landing was quite suddenly replaced by the absurdly prosaic, hollow, echoing sounds of water sloshing about under a hull, of waves crashing on a nearby shore. She had made it. At least, made it this far. Kalenda allowed herself a moment to resume breathing. She peeled her hands off the flight stick, released her crash belts, and stood up, more than a little weak in the knees. She wanted to give herself time to recover, but there was no time. The nose was already creeping up into the sky as the freighter's aft end took on water. She went to the cockpit hatch and pulled open the manual release panel. She pulled down the lever and felt the latch disengage. She leaned into the hatch and shoved it open. There. The pressure suit she'd never had the chance to get to-and the standard-issue survival packs. She grabbed both ration packs and the gear case, and noticed her feet were wet. Water. Water already coming in. Hurry. Move. The ration packs had carry straps, and she threw one over each shoulder while carrying the gear case by its handle. She heaved the case out the overhead escape hatch and then scrambled through it herself as fast as she could, for fear of the case sliding off the hull without her. She managed to snatch at it just as it was threatening to slip off into the water. In theory, there was a life raft in the case, along with all the other hardware. Kalenda had planned to open the case, get the raft and its paddles, close the case, inflate the raft, load it up with the gear case and the ration packs, climb in herself, and then paddle sedately away. She might as well have planned to compose a few Selonian sonnets as well, for all the good it would do her. The freighter was sinking beneath her feet, and it was, after all, the dead of night, and far too dark for rurrunaging around in a gear case looking for a life raft. Well, if the survival gear designers had had any senseshe heaved the gear case into the water. Sure enough, praise be, it floated, and fairly high in the water at that. She readjusted the straps on the ration packs-which seemed likely to act in the stead of flotation devices in their own right-and stepped sloshingly off into the cool salt water. After an anxious moment or two when it seemed the gear case wanted to escape from her altogether, she managed to grab it by the handle, and sort of pull herself on top it, so that she was lying on her stomach on the case, her feet dangling off the end. She discovered the case had a handle on either side, and took one in each hand. She started paddle-kicking vigorously without worrying too much about which direction she was going. She was eager to get some distance between herself and the sinking ship. A ship, even a small one, produces quite a bit of suction as it goes down, and she had no desire to be pulled under as the freighter went to the bottom. Judging that she was far enough away, she turned herself around with a kick or two of her feet and watched as her poor old freighter commenced its final voyage, toward its last resting place, on the bottom of the Corellian sea. The nose of the ship continued to angle up out of the water. There was a flash, and a shower of sparks illuminated the cockpit from the inside as some power system or other shorted out. The ship's interior lights flared, guttered down, flared again, and then died altogether. There was a dull thud and a mass of dirty bubbles belched out of the water from the aft end of the ship. The nose of the ship swung clear over to the vertical. There were a few creaking sounds, and the sound of water rushing in, and the nose of the ship sank straight down, moving with an odd sort of dignity. A final slosh, a gurgle, and the nose of her ill-starred freighter vanished beneath the waves. Kalenda stared at the spot where it had been, more emotions than she could rightly name running through her as she watched what might well have been her own watery grave close over itself, as if there had never been any such thing as a freighter that ditched in the sea. It had vanished altogether. She looked up at the gleaming stars overhead. Possibly someone had seen the glowing trail of her reentry across the sky, but Corellia's skies were just as full of junk as most places these days. That was one grim legacy of the Republic-Imperial War: Most star systems were cluttered up with shot-up spacecraft of one sort or another. No one even bothered to report the most spectacular of fireballs anymore. She had come in at night over water precisely to avoid being seen, but if there were any witnesses on the planet, her arrival would have looked just like the entry of dozens of derelict fighters and tenders and space-probe spacecraft that had crashed into the planet these last few years. The odds were very good that she had made it, and that the Corellians didn't know she was here, and would have no way of finding her if they did. The question became-what good was that going to do? A wave lifted her up a bit, and she levered herself up a bit over the gear case to try and get her bearings. Good. Good. She was already pointed toward land, which looked to be only a few kilometers away. She started kicking her feet, propelling herself toward the shore. CHAPTER SIX Farewelland Hall Luke threw his black cloak back over one shoulder and stepped out of the shadows, toward where the Millennium Falcon was sitting on her hard stand, ready for liftoff. It was a scene of organized chaos-or more accurately, two such scenes mixed up with each other. On the starboard side of the ship, Han was arguing with one of the spaceport safety inspection service, apparently about some sort of clearance regulation, while at the same time shouting at Chewbacca, who was crouched down over an access panel on the starboard wing of the hull. Well, Han and Chewie had been arguing over how to keep the Falcon patched up ever since Luke had known them. No reason to expect they'd stop now. On the port side of the ship, Leia was surrounded by a little knot of governmental types of all sorts and descriptions. Luke looked over the crowd. Clerks, civil-service droids, cabinet officials, senators, and a sprinkling of military officers. No surprises there, either. Even in as democratic and informal a government as Leia was trying to build, it wasn't possible to let the chief of state escape for her vacation without at least a few stray details-and egosto sort out at the last minute. A line of household service droids were rolling through, straight between the two groups and up the ship's ramp, delivering the last of the luggage aboard the Falcon. Han and Leia's three kids were racing around like wild things, beside themselves with excitement at the start of the big adventure-and, no doubt, well aware of the fact that they were about to get out from under Threepio's nagging and fussing. Luke smiled at that thought. No wonder they had wanted to make their own droid, the way that old bucket of bolts worried and niggled over everything. As Leia was attempting to deal with the Bimm ambassador, Han was, by default, on child duty, doing his best to control them. Understandably under the circumstances, his best was none too good. Seeing things might be moving toward a crisis, Luke decided to step in. "Jacen! Jaina! Slow down a minute!" he called out. "Take it easy! Anakin! That landing leg isn't for climbing on! Come down from there." "But Chewie climbs on the ship," Anakin protested. He came down off the landing leg, but not willingly. "But he's not playing on the ship," Luke said, reflecting, not for the first time, on the futility of attempting to reason with a child Anakin's age. `He's working on it, trying to make it go better." "I could make it go better," Anakin said, poking himself in the chest with a very confident thumb. "Lots of ways." "I'll bet you could," Luke said, with a laugh. Anakin did seem to have a remarkably precocious way with machinery, but somehow Luke doubted Chewbacca would be eager to take too much help from him. "But why don't we let your father and Chewie worry about all that?" While Anakin was considering that, Luke took advantage of the moment to change the subject. "Are you all set to go on the trip?" he asked. "Uh-huh. I got all my stuff." "Good. You ought to have lots of fun." Luke looked up and spotted Jaina trying to get into the luggage the droids were carrying about the Falcon. "Come on, Jaina," he said. "Leave that stuff alone." "But I wanted to get my book chips," Jaina protested. "I think they're in this bag. "You're not going to have any chance to read until after takeoff anyway," Luke said, hoping that Jaina was in asrelatively-cooperative and reasonable a mood as Anakin. He shooed the droid on its way. "What good is it going to do to get all your stuff dumped out on the landing pad?" "But I want the chips now!" So much for being reasonable. "Well, you should have thought of that before you packed. "I didn't pack. I would have kept the chips out if I had. The droids packed for me." `I told you that you were letting them do too much for you," Luke said. "This is the sort of thing that happens. Do things for yourself, and they'll turn out right. Let others do them, and you've got no right to complain. So no sulking, and remember this for next time. All right?" "All right," she replied, quite reluctantly. "Good," Luke said. Maybe, just maybe, the punishment she and Jacen had gotten for the previous droid accident had left some sort of impression. "Now take Anakin with you and find a place to sit quietly until it's time to go." Luke looked up and spotted Jacen at his father's side. He was about to call him over, tell him to quit bothering his father. Then Han put his arm around the boy in an absentminded sort of way, while still arguing with the ground crew. Jacen seemed most interested in the argument. Leave itbe. Keeping half an eye on Jaina and Anakin, who were, for a miracle, indeed sitting quietly on an overturned shipping container, Luke went over to see if he could help Leia extricate herself from the crowd of people who seemed intent on keeping her on the landing pad, asking "just one last question," until night had fallen. But he should have listened when Mon Mothma reminded him that he was not the only one of the two siblings with skills the other had not developed. The crowd around her was already melting away, each dignitary and hanger-on leaving with a smile on his, her, or its face, clearly pleased with the results of the conference, each of them plainly feeling that the Chief of State had paid special attention to his, her, or its concerns. Luke had never been that good with people, and he felt the slightest pang of envy to see the apparent effortlessness with which she handled them all. It was the same old story, of course-everything was easy if you practiced the skills required for years on end. He had sold Leia short. He could not make it up to her all at once, with a single gesture-but at least he could make a start. She was bidding her farewells to the last of her visitors as he came up. She turned to him and gave him the starburstbright smile that always melted his heart. There was no contrivance, nothing but the deepest and sincerest feelings behind that smile. Maybe that was the secret. She always did feel the emotions she was expressing. "Hello, Luke," she said. "An exciting day." "That it is," he agreed. "You're finally going to get a look at where he came from," he said, nodding toward Han, who was still shouting at the Wookiee and the ground staff even as he kept an affectionate arm around his son. "Must be hard being married to a mystery man," Luke said, only half joking. "I bet you're looking forward to seeing where he got his start." "Oh, Han's no mystery man," Leia said. "What you see is absolutely what you get. His past is a mystery, yes. He's never said much and I doubt he ever will. Anyway, I don't think a family tourist trip is going to do much to shed a dazzling light on the hidden corners of his personal history." "And that doesn't bother you?" Luke asked. Leia shrugged. "It used to. Not anymore. Han is Han. How much more do I need to know?" "I suppose," Luke said. "Still, take a look at Corellia, and tell me all about it.". "That I'll do," she said. "It will be good to get away as a family, too, without all that crowd' `-she gestured in the direction of the last of the departing dignitaries-' `chasing after me every two minutes." "Well, speaking of family," Luke said, "I have a gift I wanted to give you, brother to sister." He pulled a package out of his satchel. It was wrapped in the finest black velvet. It was thin and heavy, about as long as Leia's forearm. He handed it to her. "What is it, Luke?" she asked. "Open it and find out." There was a silver ribbon tied around the velvet. Leia undid the ribbon, unfolded the velvet-and let out a little gasp of surprise. "But... but..." "I know you already have a lightsaber," he said, "but i never see you carry it., "It's been a long time since I felt I had the right to carry one," Leia said as she lifted the weapon out of the wrapping. "A long time since I felt as if i were getting remotely close to being a Jedi." "And that's why I'm giving you one," Luke said. "I couldn't think of a clearer way to say! think you're a Jedi." "But I should make my weapon for myself," Leia said. "That's one of the tests." Luke shook his head. "It can be a test. It doesn't have to be. Yes, all the traditions say a Jedi is supposed to make his or her own lightsaber, as part of the progress toward knighthood. But tradition is all it is, after all. Nothing more. There's no hard and fast law. And remember Obi-Wan Kenobi gave me my first lightsaber, after all. i didn't build it. So take this one. i made it for you." Leia looked at the Lightsaber for a long moment and hefted it once or twice. "How does it feel?" Luke asked. "Like it belongs there," Leia said. "As if it's supposed to be there, in my hand. It's perfect. But-but I haven't completed the training," she said. "i never built my own lightsaber because I never felt I was ready to do so." Luke shook his head. "No," he said, "that's where you're wrong. If there is anyone in this galaxy with the right to wear a Jedi's lightsaber, it is Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic. You are Jedi. Your training is complete. Different from mine, but complete." "But that's not true!" Leia protested. "There is so much I don't know. There is so much you still need to teach me. "But Mon Mothma reminded me that the reverse is also true, ` Luke replied. "There is much you have to teach that I must learn. None of us ever learns all that we should know. If it happens that you don't know a few mind tricks or haven't gotten every move with a lightsaber down cold, that has not prevented you from fighting for justice, or knowing right from wrong and acting on it. Take the lightsaber. You have earned it-and you might have need of it." Leia tried the heft of the lightsaber again and then stepped back from Luke a pace or two. She pressed the power stud and the saber flared into life with a low-throated hum of power. A shaft of glowing ruby red leaped from the handle. With a flick of her wrist, she whirled the blade through the air, and the hum was suddenly louder for a moment as the saber's lightblade slid through the air. "Try me," she said to Luke, stepping back another pace or two as she brought the saber to bear. Luke hesitated a moment. There was something detached, distracted, about her voice and expression. By the way her eyes were locked on the saber's blade, Luke had no trouble understanding why. Luke stepped back himself and shrugged off his black cloak, letting it fall to the ground. He drew his own lightsaber, keeping his eyes fixed on Leia. He switched the saber on and heard the familiar low throb of power as the blade came to life. Trained to watch his opponent and not himself, he did not see his own blade at all as he held it low, close to his body. Leia took a two-handed grip on her blade and raised it to the classic guard position. Luke raised his own weapon to hers, touched his blade to hers, and was rewarded with a crackling hiss of power as the lightblades met. Leia's face was a study in concentration and suppressed excitement as she drew her blade back. Luke could understand her reaction. His blood, their father's blood, coursed through her veins as well. Luke knew deep in his heart that he dearly loved the thrill of danger, of challenge, of battle. Whether that was some aspect of the dark side of the Force, or merely a perfectly normal competitive drive, he did not pretend to know. But for all of that, he knew the feeling in himself-and right now, he could recognize it in his sister as well. No doubt she had fought many battles of the mind during her recent years of government service. She had won great victories for the New Republic-often by outmaneuvering the enemy so tidily, winning so completely at the conference table, that there was no need for fighting. But it had been a long while since she had been given a chance to fight with her hands, her speed, her agility, rather than just her mind. No wonder there was a gleam in her eye as she raised her lightsaber and swung it down toward Luke's blade. He deflected her first thrust down and to the left and went back to guard just in time to parry another thrust that came close to getting under his guard. Leia let her blade slide down Luke's and then pivoted under his guard, freeing her blade to face him from the right. Luke stepped back and swung around as he adjusted his stance to meet her attack. He had intended to go easy on her, but it seemed that he was not going to get the chance. She was too fast, too good. Luke decided to move to the attack. He dropped his left hand from the saber's grip and extended his blade in a one-handed thrust to give himself more reach as he advanced toward Leia. But she would have none of that. She brought her lightsaber crashing down at the tip of his blade, striking with maximum violence at precisely the angle required to knock his blade downward. The strike forced Luke into an awkward backhanded stance while weakening his grasp on the saber's handle. His blade slammed down into the permacrete of the landing pad, gouging a hole in it, forcing him to concentrate, if only for a moment, on freeing his blade, rather than on his opponent. He almost had the blade clear, but it was already too late. Leia reversed her stroke and swung hard at his blade from the opposite direction, slamming it clear of the permacrete-and knocking Luke's lightsaber completely out of his hand. The lightblade cut off automatically when Luke's hand was off the grip. The weapon went sailing through the air, landing fifteen meters away on the hard stand. Luke looked up at his sister in stunned surprise, and caught the wide grin on her face. She raised her blade in salute, and then shut off the lightsaber. The ruby-red blade vanished with a final whir of power, and she clipped her Iightsaber to her belt. Luke walked over to his own lightsaber and picked it up. He clipped it to his belt. He stood there and regarded his sister from a new angle. She was a fighter. She might not beat him the next time, but she had beaten him this time, and even a fluke victory over Luke Skywalker was impressive. She lacked the polish that could only come from endless years of practice, she had an inborn talent that needed little urging to come out. He walked back toward her, shaking his head in amazement. You're good," he said. "Very good." Leia grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "You'll get me next time," she said. "Maybe," he said. "If I do, it'll be because I'll know what to watch out for." He glanced over toward the ship, and saw that the three children had seen their mother take a Jedi master apart. Well, if it made them treat Leia with a bit more respect, maybe getting beaten was no bad thing. "I've been practicing when I can, on the quiet," she said, her voice a bit more serious. "Even Han doesn't know about it.,. "Practiced how?" Luke asked. Leia shrugged. "With the lightsaber I already havewhich is nothing like as good as this one, by the way. Against a series of drone opponents. Mostly I've been working in the courtyard behind my office. I haven't been able to do much practice, but I guess it's done some good." "I'll say," Luke said, massaging his wrist. It still stung a bit from having the lightsaber knocked out of his hand. "I don't think you realize just how much good. Come on, let's see how Han is getting on with the safety people." "I'm afraid to look," Leia said. "I could have gotten us waived through all the port formalities, of course. But this is a private trip. It didn't seem right to pull rank just to let us go on vacation. Han told me not to worry about it. He said to file it all as a private trip, and that he would handle all the formalities in his way." Luke couldn't help but smile at that. Han's way of doing things was rarely the quiet way. * * * Han was getting on about as well as could be expected, which was to say not well at all. By now there was a small crowd of spaceport bureaucrats around him, all of them pointing at this regulation or that in their datapacks, each of them engaged in loud argument with Han. It was probably lucky for all concerned that Han was not wearing a blaster. Luke would not have put it past him to quiet them all down with a few shots into the air-and the stars only knew how many safety regulations that would have violated. In the old days, there had been none of this sort of fuss over a takeoff. You just sealed up your ship, got departure clearance, and off you went. But in the old days, there had been something like a tenth the traffic in and out of Coruscant. In recent years, there had been one or two crashes too many caused by hot-wired piles of junk that should have been grounded. Elsewhere, flight regs were still pretty free and easy, but Coruscant just had too many ships coming and going to let things slide. There was really no choice but to follow the regulations to the letter, and never mind that no one had paid attention to the regs in generations. The trouble was that the regs required ships as old as the Falcon to have a thorough inspection once every standard year. Somehow, the Falcon had just happened to miss every inspection for the last umpteen years, but now the bureaucrats had finally caught up with her. Well, you really couldn't blame the pencil pushers for wanting the Chief of State to fly in a spacecraft that was at least within hailing distance of the safety regs. No doubt the aforementioned Chif of State could have smoothed everything over with a quiet word or two, or an official signature on the right sort of waiver, but Leia made no move to wade into the fracas, and Luke felt no urge to get involved if she didn't. After all, in some strange way, Han enjoyed this sort of thing. Let him have his fun. Leia and Luke stood by and watched the show. `Hold it!" Han shouted at last. `One at a time! One at a time, or I call the Wookiee down off the ship and let you shout at him." That quieted them down. "All right, then. You," Han said, stabbing a finger in the direction of the fussiest-looking official. "Go." "It's your hyperdrive regulators, Captain Solo. The radiation shields failed their inspection last week-" Han held up his hand, signaling the inspector to stop talking. "A slight misunderstanding." He reached into one of the pockets of his vest and pulled out a sheet of paper. He unfolded it to show the profusion of stamps and seals and official initials that obscured half the text of the underlying form. "This ought to clear that up, and a lot of the other problems as well," he said. "This certifies that the hyperdrive regulators, the navicomputer, the repulsor subsystems, and all the other systems have been reinspected and cleared." "But if you had this form all along, why have you been arguing with us?" the inspector demanded. "Maybe I just don't like paperwork," Han said. Or maybe he was waiting until !œLia, his wtfr and your boss, was standing next to him, Luke thought. It had to be a lot harder to kick up a fuss over incomplete paperwork with the Chief of State tapping her foot and waiting to be on her way. "Here. Take it. Hope it makes you real happy." He handed the form to the chief inspector, and the rest of the inspection team clustered around the paper, studying it carefully, pointing to the various stamps and signatures and approvals, and discussing them quite animatedly. Luke couldn't hear what they were saying, but by the tone of their voices, it was clear they weren't entirely convinced. However, there were three or four other officials who didn't seem the least bit interested in the document. "Let's see," Han said, addressing the one he had been shouting at the hardest, "you're from immigration, right? Okay, like I told you, my wife here has all the departure forms and passports and stuff for the family. Leia?" Leia stepped forward and produced the documents, doing a very bad job of hiding her amusement. All the officials knew perfectly well that Leia was the Chief of State and, ultimately, was the boss. But they all likewise knew perfectly well that Leia was traveling with her family as a private citizen, to be treated just like everyone else. And if that weren't a pile of nonsense, Luke didn't know what was. The idea that some lowly passport clerk was going to dare find anything wrong with the Chief of State's papers was laughable. And while the ship inspectors might have had the nerve to challenge Han's paperwork, they certainly weren't willing to do so in front of Leia Organa Solo. Luke didn't need the Force to sense the doubt, the uncertainty, in their minds even as they stamped the finaldeparture approvals on the form. Luke heard quiet footsteps behind him, and turned to see Lando Calrissian coming out onto the landing stage. Lando was, if anything, looking more dapper than ever, in a turquoise cape over a gleaming white tunic and trousers the same shade as the cape. But for all of that, he did not, for once, seem much interested in being noticed. His movements were quiet, almost subdued. Luke did not need his Force sense to know that Lando was here to see, not to be seen. Something was up, even if Luke could not quite tell what. Lando came up beside him and nodded absently. "Hello, Luke," he muttered as he watched Han and Leia dealing with the bureaucrats. Luke looked closely at Lando, but could read nothing from his face. His expression was utterly blank, dead-pan, determined to give nothing away. Luke was tempted to use his powers in the Force to reach into Lando's mind and see what he had to do with this, but his own momentary curiosity was no excuse for such a huge invasion of privacy. Let it be. "Well, uh, hmm," said the chief inspector. "Everything, uh, seems to be in order here," he said, the doubt plain in his voice. "It would appear that we have nothing more to do than wish you a safe and pleasant journey." Han gave the inspector a roguish, lopsided grin and a clap on the shoulder that the inspector clearly did not appreciate. "Thanks," Han said, grabbing the official's right hand in his own and pumping it vigorously. The inspector nodded and gave a sort of gulp, then backed away, turned, and hurried away as quickly as he could while maintaining a modicum of dignity. His underlings scuttled away after him, and the immigration officers and the other officials seemed no less eager to be on their way. Han grinned wolfishly at the man's back. "Come on, kids," he called to his children. "Go ahead and get aboard. Chewie, you can shut that inspection panel and stop looking intimidating. Get aboard and start the preflight sequence. I'll be there in a minute." Chewie gave a short, growled bark and nodded agreement. He pulled his tools out of the service compartment-it would seem he hadn't actually been doing anything with them in there-and slammed the panel shut. Luke turned toward Lando, intending to ask him what was going on, but before he could, Lando shook his head and let out a low chuckle. "You did it, you old pirate," he said as he stepped forward and shook Han's hand. "I guess that means you lose our little bet." "Han! You and Lando haven't been betting on the Falcon again," Leia said. "Nah, nothing that exciting," Han said. "I just bet Lando dinner that we wouldn't get past the safety inspectors. "Well, that's all right, then." Leia smiled and patted her husband on the arm. "I'd better go ride herd on the children before they try rewiring the weapons panel." She turned and followed the children into the ship. Leia was certainly taking things rather casually, Luke thought, feeling more and more confused. Han was dodging a safety inspection and she didn't care? "Why isn't Leia upset?" he asked. "And what's Lando got to do with your ship getting clearance?" he asked. "Who do you think arranged for all the clearance documents to be forged?" Lando asked, grinning more broadly still. "So when do I collect on that dinner?" he asked, turning to Han. Han frowned. "I'd say here and now, onboard ship with the family, before we take off, except we're in a bit of a hurry to get away. Your people might have forged the paper and sliced into the data banks to show we passed all the safety checks, but I don't think we should push our luck. Something might go wrong." Lando laughed again. "The man who plans to fly a museum piece across the galaxy is worried about pushing his luck with the safety inspectors! That's a good one. Let's just say I'll pick my own time and place to collect," Lando said. "Good enough for now?" "Good enough," Han said. But it wasn't good enough, Luke told himself. Not by half. "Han-wait a second," he said. "It's one thing to risk your own neck in a dicey ship. But you can't take your wife and children along in a ship that the safety people won't pass." "Take it easy, kid," Han said. "You think I'd take chances on my children? Or that Leia would let me even if I wanted to try? I promise you all the safety systems they were worried about are at spec or above. That wasn't the problem." "I don't get it,', Luke said. "Real simple," Lando said. "According to the official records on file with Coruscant control, the Falcon is now a nice, normal light stock freighter. All of the illegal weapon systems and smuggling hardware removed. Except Han never did get around to removing all the handy little modifications and add-ons and military-specification sensors and weapons, and it wouldn't be a good thing if the inspectors happened to notice all the things Han forgot to remove." "I've had other things on my mind," Han said, with a deadpan voice and expression that didn't fool anyone-and was not meant to. "Besides, that sort of gear could come in awfully handy out there. Peacetime or no peacetime, the Corellian Sector can be a tricky piece of space. Safety regs are all very well, but I want a little extra firepower on hand in case the pirates decide it's time to go shopping." "Well, I certainly can't blame you for that," Luke said. He didn't need his Jedi abilities to sense Han was worried about more than the remote possibility of tangling with halfmythical pirates. But whatever had Han worried, Luke was not going to make things better by pressing him on the subject. "You take care of your family, and never mind about the rest of it.,. "That's the plan, kid," Han said. "An"'way come on aboard you two, and say your good-byes. Han led the way up the Falcon's ramp with Lando and Luke following behind. Inside, they found Leia and the children in the lounge. It felt good to be aboard the old Falcon again, Luke thought. So many of the key events in his life revolved around the Falcon in one way or another. He looked around, letting the flood of memories wash over him. It was here, in the lounge compartment, that Obi-Wan Kenobi had given him his first practice with a lightsaber. It was this ship that had saved his life at Cloud City, that had given him the covering fire he needed to take out the first Death Star. But all that was in the past. Just now the ship seemed too full of bustle and life for such things to matter. Han had already wandered over to the cockpit to check Chewie's preflight settings. The twins were in their seats, their seat belts fastened, but bouncing with so much excitement that the belts did not seem likely to hold them down for very long. Leia was just getting an equally bouncy Anakin strapped in for takeoff. "All right, everybody," Han said, coming back from the cockpit, Chewie right behind him. "Time to say goodbye to Lando and Uncle Luke." After a deafening chorus of shouted good-byes, Luke gave each child a kiss and a hug. He stood up, hugged his sister, slapped Han on the shoulder, and made a formal bow of farewell to Chewbacca. It was not wise to get too emotional or demonstrative with a Wookiee. If the Wookiee got demonstrative and hugged back, you'd be lucky to escape with crushed ribs. Lando was making his own farewells, further complicating the choreography in the tight spaces of the ship. But at last all the good-byes were complete, and it was time to head down the ramp, offer one last wave good-bye to Han as he raised the ramp and sealed the ship, and move back to a safe distance for the takeoff. No ship takes off without a few moments of delay that seem inexplicable from the outside-least of all, the Falcon. Luke and Lando could see Han and Chewie settling into the Falcon's cockpit, checking switches, setting up the controls. But at last the moment came, and the Falcon's repulsorlifts came to life, glowing with power. Moving with a smooth and perfect grace that seemed out of character for the cantankerous old freighter, the Falcon rose smoothly into the air, did a ninety-degree turn to port, and lit her main sublight engines to move off into the dusky sky. "There they go," Lando said, his voice betraying a low, quiet, excitement. Luke could understand. Maybe they were only a family off on a vacation, a quick trip sandwiched in before Leia got caught up in the Corellian trade talks, but that didn't matter. They were on a ship, and the ship was already heading out between the stars. It could have been any ship, going anywhere. To Luke, and to Lando, too, for that matter, there could be no more powerful symbol of adventure, of possibility, of hope and freedom, than a ship heading out into space. Mon Mothma had told Luke that he craved adventure, and he had denied it. It hadn't taken much to show him the error of his ways. He wanted to be out there, in the thick of things. "Come on, Luke," said Lando. "You and I have things to talk about." broke down and Organa Solo returned to Coruscant, after Pharnis had done the Skywalker job, it could prove most embarrassing. No. Give them time to get well away. Tomorrow. He would do the job tomorrow. * * * Luke and Lando were not the only ones to watch the departure of the Millennium Falcon. Phamis Gleasry, agent of the Human League, watched as well, albeit from a discreet distance. He was several kilometers away, on an observation platform on another of Coruscant's massive towers. The platform was crowded with tourists who took him for one of their own and paid him no mind. It was far enough away that he was obliged to use macrobinoculars to see much of anything. The constant jostling he suffered from the tourists did not make it any easier to keep the macrobinoculars steady. But he could see the ship take off for all of that. And he could see two tiny figures, still on the hard stand. He could see them watch the Falcon vanish, see them turn away and head back inside. Pharnis was all but certain that the one on the left was Skywalker. The other was definitely Lando Calrissian. Good. Good. Pharnis was pleased to get visual confirmation that his target was on-planet. With Organa Solo safely on her way, it was time for Skywalker. But Pharnis had done his homework. He knew that the Millennium Falcon was not the most reliable of craft. Best to give her time to get out of the system. If the Falcon CHAPTER SEVEN Proposal Accepted So what is this project you want my help with, Lando?" Luke asked as they made their way back from the landing bay. Lando Calrissian smiled at Luke as they walked, and there was more than a bit of mischief in his expression. "A whole new approach to the way I do business," he said. `Or it might be more accurate to call it an investment opportunity. Anyway, I want your help to get it off the ground." Investment opportunity? Luke thought. He glanced at his companion. Lando had always been one to go after highstakes, large-scale projects, but he had never been one to invite his friends to join the wild schemes. Even Lando knew there were limits-or at least he had, up until now. Not that it mattered, of course. Lando could hit up Luke for money all day long, but it wouldn't do any good. You needed to have money before you could give it to someone-and Lando ought to have known that a Jedi Master was not the sort of person likely to have a stack of spare credits lying around. To put it rather crudely, saving the universe didn't pay very well. But Lando had to know Luke was not rich. Was it something worse still? Was he hoping to trade on Luke's good name, get him to endorse the scheme so Lando could get others to invest'? "Ah, Lando, I don't think I can help you. I really don't have the sort of big-stakes money you're after. And I don't think I'd be much good trying to sell it to others-" Lando burst out laughing. "Is that what you thought I was after? Calrissian's Fly-by-Night Investments, as endorsed by Luke Skywalker, Hero of the Galaxy? No, no, Ithat's not it. That kind of gall would be beyond even me." "Well, that's a relief," Luke said. "I was scared you were about to ask me to go on some sort of promotional tour. Lando gave him a funny look and smiled. "In a sense," he said, "I am. But not for the sort of product you've got in mind." "Lando, so far you're not making sense." "No, I suppose not." Lando stopped walking for a moment, and Luke did as well. Lando turned toward Luke, took him by the arm, and seemed about to say more. But then he glanced around, as if he were trying to judge the likelihood of unwelcome eavesdroppers. "loook," he said at last. "There's something I've been meaning to show you. A new project of mine. Let's head there. We can sit down quietly, in private, and I can explain the whole thing." `All right, I suppose," Luke said, more than a little doubfful. "What sort of project?" he asked. "My new home," Lando said. "Something kind of special. ` "Special in what way?" Luke asked. "You'll see," said Lando, slapping Luke on the shoulder. "Come on. We'll take the scenic route." Luke had thought he knew Coruscant fairly well. but Lando led him through a labyrinth of passages and tunnels and lifts and moving walkways Luke had never seen or heard of before. All of the passageways seemed to lead off in every direction at once, but it soon became clear that they were going deeper and deeper into the bowels of the city. By the time Lando had gotten to the level he wanted, Luke guessed they were at least one or two hundred meters below ground level-if Coruscant could be said to have a ground level. The planet-wide city of towers and monolithic structures had been built and rebuilt and overbuilt and dug up and reburied so many times that no one really knew where the original surface was anymore. Virtually all of the land surface had been built over. Here and there were hummocks of dirt where scruffy plant life had managed to secure a foothold. But hardly any of these were truly at "ground" level. They were just sheltered spots where the winds and rains had been able to deposit enough dust and dirt and detritus to form a soil of sorts, places where a stray seed or two from one of the lush indoor gardens had found its way. But for all of that, Luke knew they were unquestionably underground. Half the tunnels were just bare, raw rock, solid granite. In places the tunnel walls were bone-dry. In others, they were clammy and wet, with riverlets of moisture oozing down the walls and pooling here and there. If this was where Lando lived now, Luke could not help thinking that Lando had, quite literally, gone down' in the world. An underground address was considered a mark of very low status on Coruscant. That worried Luke. He had always known Lando to be very concerned with appearances. There had been times he had seen Lando quite literally threadbare-but even in the worst of times, Lando had made a determined and successful effort to seem prosperous. Part of it was vanity and ego. Lando had plenty of those in stock. But there was a more practical side to it as well. Lando was, among other things, a salesman, and a salesman who didn't look prosperous was not going to get far. Except that Lando did look prosperous-if anything, better than he had in years. But if he was doing so well, why was he living underground? For that matter, why was he taking Luke to where he lived by such a round-about route? There had to be a more direct way to get where they were going. Probably that was nothing more than force of habit. Back in the bad old days, Lando had often felt the need to be rather secretive about the location of his living quarters. While he had never had half the galaxy's bounty hunters after him, the way Han had at one point, Lando Calrissian had managed to develop a pretty fair number of enemies over the years. There had been times when not even his most trusted friends knew where he lived. Even the most trusted person could be tailed, or be tricked into wearing a tracer tab, or tortured or drugged. Nowadays, there wasn't any real need for such precautions, but old habits died hard in ex-smugglers who didn't die young-and Lando was still very much alive. And it could very well be that Lando still had a few old associates he didn't want to meet unexpectedly. Maybe it wasn't so foolish to take the long way around. Lando kept up a steady monologue as they walked, nattering on cheerfully about every subject under the stars, from the best odds to be found in the various small-stakes gambling houses-legal and otherwise-in the bowels of Coruscant, to the enormous profits to be realized by anyone in the right place at the right time, should the Corellian Trade Summit prove successful. That much about Lando had stayed the same, Luke thought. As interested in the five-credit bet as he was in the fifty-million-credit investment. And given his usual luck on the fifty-million side of things, he probably was wise to pay attention to those five credits. Lando Calrissian was famous for developing a huge project, living high off the proceeds-and then, through no fault of his own, having the whole thing crash down around his ears. He had done a splendid job of running Cloud City on Bespin-and gotten out with not much more than the clothes he was standing up in. It was more or less the same story for his mole-mining operation at Nkllon. And then there was that mining on Kessel . . . If he hadn't had a fair bit of skill at the gaming tables, Lando would never have been able to recover from those disasters. And now, it appeared, he was gearing up to start up all over again. But if he didn't want Luke's money, and didn't want to trade on Luke's name, then how in the galaxy did it have anything to do with Luke? On they walked, through increasingly squalid and dirty passages. The occasional pools of water grew more frequent, and more filthy. There were a number of unpleasant odors, some of which Luke could identify, and a number that he was just as glad he could not. At last the walkway they were on came to a halt before a huge blastproof door. Lando punched a combination into a keypad, and the door slid back into the wall with a ponderous rumbling of machinery. They stepped onto a terrace overlooking a huge subterranean cavern, a hollow dome, easily a kilometer across. Luke, quite astonished, found himself on a platform that looked down into a complete pocket city of low stone buildings and cool green parks. The dome was brightly lit, the air sweet and pure, the walkways and byways clean and tidy. The buildings were widely spaced, their stone walls brightly painted. Pathways snaked through neatly kept lawns, and the roof of the dome was painted a royal blue. "Welcome to Dometown," Lando said. "Very nice, Lando," Luke said as he leaned over the low wall of the terrace and admired the view. "Very nice indeed. Not at all what I expected." "Well, our developers kept it quiet," Lando said. "Didn't want just anyone knowing about it. We found this underground chamber. it'd been built for space knows what reason, and who knows how old it is. Back then it was full of ruined machines, and old junk, and a whole herd of mutant hive rats and practically everything else you'd ever want to find. We got it cleaned up, refurbed the air and water and security system, and built some decent housing. It's not exactly in the poshest neighborhood, but who cares? You can rent a nice big place here for a tenth what it would cost to get a high-status broom closet on the surface." "I supposed you were one of the investors in this little project?" Luke said. Lando laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, and led him down a low, wide ramp into the dome. "Suppose away," he said. "I decided, just for once, to put my money into something small and local. Just this once, why not be one of many partners, instead of being the whole show myself? Why not think small, and build a nice neighborhood? I've run a whole city by myself, and take it from me, this is easier." "So you're no longer thinking about the grand-scale projects?" Luke asked. Lando looked at him as they walked along, clearly surprised and maybe a little bit hurt. "I'll never quit doing that, Luke. If you don't think big, what's the point of thinking at all? I just got tired of having nothing at all to fall back on. It might not be in a high-status neighborhood, but status isn't everything-and no one has to know where I live, anyway. Now I've got a little bit of income from this place, enough to live on and just a bit more, and I have a place to live that's mine, that no one can take away from me. And it's all in the most bombproof and secure depths of the capital planet." "A safe, secure investment," Luke said, grinning at his friend. "I know, I know," Lando said. "Don't let it get around, or I'll ruin my reputation. Come on, my house is just up this way. Let's go in." Five minutes later they were relaxing in the elegant, if somewhat spartan, confines of Lando's house. Luke had to admit that Lando had a point about space. Only the richest of beings, or the most exalted of government officials, could have afforded anything this size anywhere near the surface. The house was built of stone-a highly cheap and available building material when one is building underground-and the walls and floors were smooth-polished granite. It was cool and quiet, and the rooms were comfortably expansive. Lando sat Luke down on a low, luxurious couch and brought him something cool to drink before sitting down on a matching chair next to the couch. Then Lando began to talk-and talk about everything but the matter at hand. Most uncharacteristically, he seemed reluctant to come to the point. He fussed about, worrying that the room was too hot or too cold, that Luke was not comfortable, and that his drink needed freshening up. At last Luke decided he was going to have to push a bit. "Lando, you didn't bring me down here to find out how much ice I like in my drinks. Why am I here?" "All right," Lando said. He paused for a long moment, and shifted in his seat. Even if he was coming to the point, he seemed to feel the need to do so gradually. He set down his own drink on the side table and leaned forward, an earnest expression on his face. "I told a bit of a fib back there as we were walking up this way, when I was talking about building this place," he said. "The truth is I did stop thinking big, for a little while there. I didn't even realize it at first. I got all involved in getting Dometown put together. It was a safe, secure job, and they needed someone with my skills, and I liked the work. Heck, after putting Nkllon together, getting this place built was more like a hobby than a job-and I liked the way it was easy. I'd been shot down and kicked out and blown up and wiped out so many times I just didn't want to deal with that kind of big-time struggle anymore. So I put all my energy into getting Dometown put back together and cleaned up and families moved in. "Nothing at all wrong with that," Luke said. "You've really accomplished something here. "Yes, I have," Lando said, a touch of pride in his voice. He looked around his parlor, obviously seeing beyond the walls to the town he had made. "That is to say, I did a good job here. But then, after a while, it dawned on me I was still doing the job, even though the job was done." "I don't understand," Luke said. "How could you be doing the job if it was finished?" Lando shook his head sadly. "That's easy, Luke. Billions of beings do it every day. They get up in the morning, push some pieces of paper around on a desk, make some com calls, decide on the blue-gray paint for the corridor over the gray blue, have a meeting, and feel like they've accomplished enough for one day. They go home, and then they come back the next day and do it all again. That might be all right for some, but not for me, and when I caught myself doing it I realized it was time to move on." "Move on to what?" "I don't know," Lando said, making a rather abrupt gesture of dismissal. "That's not even really that important just now. The main question is move on with what? My father used to say, `You can't think deeper than your pockets,' and there's a lot of truth to that. I started thinking back on all my schemes that had crashed and burned one way or the other. It seemed to me that I could have stuck it out if my pockets had been deeper, if they had been filled with more credits. "If I had the reserves, the resources, I could have ridden out the bad times and gotten Bespin or Nkllon back on a paying basis. Deep pockets give you staying power, let you hang in and lose money until you're earning it again. I realized that the question was: How to get money? Serious money. How could I get those deep pockets?" "And now you've figured out how, and you want my help to do it"' Luke said, more than a little amused. "Right," Lando said. "Exactly right. I've figured out how to get deep pockets full of money, and I need your help to do it." "Well, then," Luke said. "How do you get deep pockets?" "Simplest thing in the universe," said Lando. "You marry them." There was a moment of dead silence as Luke stared straight at Lando. It wasn't easy to surprise a Jedi Master, but Lando had done it. "You're getting married?" Luke asked at last. "To whom?" Lando shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "I haven't the faintest idea," he said. "Well, that's not strictly true. I do have a short list of candidates, but it could be anyone on the list, or maybe even someone I haven't thought of yet." "But-but-how can you marry someone you don't know?" "I'm not marrying a who," Lando said. `I'm marrying a what. I'm marrying money. What's so strange about that? People have done it since the beginning of time. A rich wife could do me a lot of good-and I could do her a lot of good, too. Make her richer, for one thing." Luke looked at his old friend, and asked a careful question. "Where do I come into all this?" Luke asked. "Ah, now that's the tricky part," Lando said. "I'm not altogether unknown in the galaxy. People have heard of me. Unfortunately sometimes they haven't liked what they've heard. Stories get started. Some of the stories aren't even true. But they're out there just the same. That's why I want you to come with me while I'm searching for my wife-" "What? That's the reason for the trip you want me to go on?" Lando looked surprised. "Yes. I thought I had explained that part. I want you to come with me while I go wife hunting." "And do what?" Luke asked. `Convince them that the true stories aren't true'? I can't go around bending the facts just to suit you, Lando. `No, of course not," Lando said. "But I've changed, Luke. I'm not going to say I'm a whole new person or any nonsense like that. I couldn't get you to believe it anyway. But I'm not the way I was in the old days. I'm more solid, more steady. Could the old me have gotten this place built?" he asked. Yes, Luke thought. Built it and then lose it all on one hand of sabacc. But fortunately for Luke, his sense of tact was not called upon to battle with his need to tell the truth. Lando was talking on, without waiting for an answer. "I'm not going to deny my past," Lando said. "There's no point in even trying. Anyway who wanted to find out about me could do so very easily. I have nothing to hide." He caught the look in Luke's eye and shrugged. "Well, nothing much. Besides, most of the women I want to get a look at know who I am already. Some women even like my reputation. They think it's exciting, or romantic or something. Besides, look at where I started, and look at where I am and all the places I've been on the way. I'm proud of what I've done." Lando looked at Luke again and put his hands up in a mock gesture of surrender before Luke even had a chance to object. "All right, I'm not proud of all of it, maybe, but at least some." "And you ought to be proud," Luke said, trying to be reassuring. "You've done great things. The New Republic might not even be here today if not for you. "Thanks," Lando said. "I appreciate that, especially coming from you." "Is that what you want me for?" Luke asked. "To go and say that to all your prospective brides?" "Nooco, not exactly," Lando said. "I just want you to be there with me. I figure if I show up with you, that's going to make me more respectable even if you never say a word. They'll know my intentions are honorable if I show up with a Jedi escort. There won't be any hanky-panky while you're around." Luke fought hard to repress a smile. "Wait a second,' he said. "Just let me understand this. You want me to be your chaperon?" Lando rewarded Luke with one of his most dazzling smiles. "Exactly. Couldn't have put it better myself. With you around, I'll be respectable. They'll know I'm sincere." "Are you sincere?" Luke asked. lando looked surprised again. "About money? Never anything but." "No," Luke said. "About marrying. What about the woman in question?" Lando looked puzzled. "How do you mean, what about her?" "Well, you can't just walk up to a woman and say, `Hello, I heard about your large bank account, let's get married." Why should she want to marry you? And what about love, and romance, and commitment, and children and so on? She'll want to know where you stand on all that sort of thing." laando seemed a bit taken aback. Perhaps it had never entered his head that there was a woman alive who wouldn't want to marry him. "You've got some good points there," he said, in the tone of voice of a man tripped up by an unexpected question. "I must admit that I haven't thought them all through. But don't you forget that marriages are more than just love and flowers. They're business relationships, even political relationships. "Besides, even if you leave romance out of it, I really am not at all a bad catch." He made a wide sweeping gesture with one hand. "I have this place-not just the house, but Dometown-providing me with a nice little income. I won't need my wife's money to live on. I'd just use it to invest. I could take money that's just lying around and make it work, make it grow. I have a lot of experience in managing large projects and dealing with people, I have a pretty fair war record, and let's face it, I do have some connections with the powers-that-be on Coruscant." "And bringing me along would remind them of all that," Luke said. "Absolutely," Lando said, completely unabashed. "You'd make a great sales tool even if you never said a single word." "I see. Well, who's on your list?" Luke asked, no longer even trying to repress a smile. "Quite a number of people," Lando said, his voice earnest and thoughtful, like a salesman who wanted to be sure you knew just how impressive his stock was. "I've been working the data banks hard, of cour'se, doing all sorts of searches. But not everything gets into the computers. In fact, most things don't. So I've been working the rumor mills, reading off-planet news, talking to ship captains, that sort of thing." "All the things you do when you're looking for a business opportunity," Luke said. But Lando missed the joke. "Exactly," he said. "I've been doing it all. And I've come up with about two hundred and fifty candidates." "Two hundred and fifty!" Luke half shouted. "That's right,', Lando said. He pulled a portable data reader out of the pocket of his blouse. "I've got `em all right here." "Lando, I can't go around with you to visit two hundred and fifty women!" Even as he said the words Luke knew he was trapped. Lando, galaxy-class salesman and con man, had pulled him in. Luke had just let Lando know there was some lower number of women that Luke was willing to go and see. Luke hadn't really wanted to agree, but it was already too late. Now it was merely a question of haggling over the price, the number of women Luke would be willing to visit. "Oh, I don't expect that much of you," Lando went on in the same earnest, slightly anxious tone. "For that matter, I certainly don't plan to visit anywhere near that many myself. I've ranked the list, and I sincerely hope I don't have to go past the five or ten most desirable candidates." "Five or ten most desirable, eh?" "That's right. Of course, when I find what I'm after, I'll stop looking. Maybe we'll-I'll-get lucky at the first stop." Luke reached for his drink. "So who's that first stop?" he asked, making ready to take a sip. "Who's your numberone prospect?" "A young lady by the name of Tendra Risant. Ever heard of her?" "No," Luke said. "Any particular reason that I should have?" "Not really. She's a minor functionary on Sacorria, one of the Outlier worlds in the Corellian Sector. She's not the richest on my list, but she's wealthy enough, and her family is the real draw. They have strong contacts throughout the Corellian Sector. And those connections could be worth a lot more than cash to the right sort of fellow." "To a fellow sort of like you?" Luke asked. Lando smiled wolfishly. "A fellow sort of like me," he agreed. "Who else?" Luke asked. "Let's see," he said, consulting the data reader. "There's Condren Foreck on Azbrian. She's a little on the young side, but her father's getting on in years. "What's that got to do with it?" Luke asked. "Come on, Luke, think it through. If I'm going to marry an heiress for the money, I've got to consider how long it will take me to collect." He took a moment to read over the notes on the data reader again. "Still," he said thoughtfully, "her father has quite a stack of the stuff. It'd be worth waiting for, and besides, she gets a pretty fair income off the trust funds in the meantime. Not a bad prospect at all. Hmmm. I assume she's healthy enough. It says here she's a famoust athlete on her world. Of course, that could just be Daddy buying her way to the trophies. You never know." Luke did not pretend to follow the last portion of what Lando had said. Maybe Lando wanted a wife that would die early and leave him in sole possession of the proceeds. Or else maybe he wanted a young healthy wife who was likely to outlive her father in the long run and keep the trust funds coming in the meantime. "All right," he said. "Who's next on your list?" "Actually, the first one I plan to visit," Lando said. "Sort of a long shot, but she's on the way to the Corellian Sector, and that's where I want to end up, so I can attend the last half of the trade summit and see what deals are being made." "So who is your choice number three?" Lando looked at his notes again. "Karia Ver Seryan,' he said. "Lives on the planet Leria Kerlsil. Getting on toward middle years, or perhaps a bit past. Widow of one Chantu Solka rather sharp fellow I knew pretty well in the old days. He was a ship broker who made his money knowing which side to het on in the war against the Empire-and kept his money by knowing when to change his bets. She married him about eight years ago and he died about five years ago. Left everything to his wife. She sold the business. I don't have much information on her, but according to my accounts, she doesn't seem to do much now that she has her money. I guess she's better at spending the money than earning it.,' It didn't take much for Luke to develop a mental image of Karia Ver Seryan that was, to put it mildly, not alluring. "And that's someone you'd be willing to marry?" he asked. "For the right money, absolutely. I'd leave her alone and put her money to work making more money, and she'd leave me alone and still have money to spend. More money to spend, for that matter." Lando glanced at the data reader again. "Then, rounding out the top five, we have Dera Jynsol on Ord Pardron, and uh-oh yeah, one Lady Lapema Phonstom on Kabal. And so on down the list. But I'm not going to worry much about them until I've dealt with the first three names." "Lando, you're making my blood run cold." "Come on, Luke. How long have you been out in the real world? Money is what makes the galaxy go round. People have treated marriage as the business deal it is since the beginning of time. The only difference here is that I'm not dressing it up in pretty words, or pretending that I'm going to seek out my one true love, and she'll just happen to be the richest woman who'll have me." "But this is all so ruthless. You're just looking for the woman you can make the best use of, as if you were shopping for a good deal on a landspeeder." "That's the way it is in lots of cultures. They don't have much interest in true love-just marriages that can stand the test of time. Besides, the lady in question is going to be shopping for the best deal she can get. The best kind of business deal is the one where both sides get what they want. That's all I'm after. A nice, honest business deal." "And do you seriously think that any of these women might consider you as a husband?" "Why not?" Lando said. "Besides, I'm not really expecting to settle a final deal on this run. It's a scouting trip." He held up the data reader. "I know some of this information is dated or incomplete, maybe even inaccurate. I need to gather some more intelligence. I want to get a look at a few possibilities and let them get a look at me." "So these women know you are coming?" Luke asked. "Of course, Lando said. "Not that I've done intense negotiations. Just that I am shopping, I'm interested, and I'd like to come get acquainted." "And they've said yes?" Luke asked. Lando shrugged. "A lot didn't." He gestured with the data reader. "These did." He dropped the data reader down on the couch and looked Luke straight in the eye. "So what do you say?" he asked. "Want to come along? I need someone to keep me out of trouble. It'd do you some good to get off this overgrown apartment house of a planet. Get out in the galaxy and spread your wings a bit." Luke hesitated. He hated to admit it, but he was tempted. He had been kind of cooped up on Coruscant for a while. And he had to confess to a certain curiosity. How the devil would Lando handle himself? It would require more gall than Luke could imagine to wander the galaxy brazenly shopping for a wife. And Mon Mothma had urged Luke to join Lando on his journey. "How many of them do I have to help you see?" Luke asked, trying to retain the last scraps of his caution. `The first ten on the list," Lando said, just a bit too eagerly. "That would be enough. That would get the word around that the great Jedi Knight was traveling with me. Even if you didn't stay with me longer, the fact that you had been with me would help improve my credentials." "Three," Luke saying, knowing full well that was not what he was going to get. "Eight," said Lando. "Four," Luke said. `Come on, Luke. For old times' sake. Six." `Well-five," Luke said. Lando's face split into a wide grin. "Great! Great. That's perfect," he said. He stuck out his hand, and Luke took it, more than a little reluctantly. Lando had not wanted or hoped for Luke to go along on any more than five of these absurd visits. Yet he had managed to make five visits seem like a grand compromise, a great concession on his partwhile it was Luke who was doing him the favor. "So," Lando said. "When can you be ready to go?" Luke stood up and shrugged vaguely. "Tomorrow morning, I guess," he said. Mon Mothma had hit close to the mark when she had suggested that there wasn't much holding him to Coruscant. Maybe she was right. Maybe it would do some good for him to get back out into space. Into action. If you could call chaperoning Lando much in the way of action. "Great, Great," Lando said. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "This is where the Lady Luck is berthed. It's just south of the Windward docks. Know where that is?" "Of course," Luke said, taking the paper. "I've flown in and out of Coruscant enough times." "Good. See you there after breakfast?" Luke was almost tempted to haggle over the departure time as well, just on general principle, but there wasn't much point. Lando had him, had his word as a Jedi Knight that he would go along. Lando wouldn't care about departure time. Tomorrow or the next day or the next week would suit him just as well as tonight. No doubt Lando had the Lady Luck being held ready to go right now, just in case Luke had been willing to leave at once. No, Lando had rolled over him already. No purpose would be served by any further game playing. "See you then," Luke said, and offered his hand again. Lando grinned and shook hands with even greater vigor. "You've got yourself a deal," he said. a whole spacecraft with the power of his mind. And yet Lando had managed to play him like a windblower. Luke smiled to himself as he reached his front door. No two ways around it. Some people managed just fine without the least little bit of help from the Force. * * * Lando gave Luke detailed instructions on how to get back to the higher levels of the city, and of course Luke had them memorized on first hearing, but he didn't bother to follow them. He chose instead to wander the city on his own, moving now through the sordid byways of the undercity, built by long-forgotten workers in days lost to memory, now through the magnificent upper city, with its mighty castles and grand promenades and gleaming towers. Even in the darkest ways of the city, Luke Skywalker had nothing to fear. There were few on Coruscant with so little sense as to disturb a Jedi Master, and fewer still that Luke could not sense long before they could attack. He could walk where he would without fear of molestation. But Luke paid little attention to his route. Fetid tunnel and grand esplanade were all the same to him that night. His mind was elsewhere. He walked for hours, thinking of Mon Mothma's advice, of his sister and her family off on their holiday, of Lando's amazing gall, of the hugeness of the city, and of the galaxy beyond. But his thoughts kept returning to Lando. He was a piece of work, that was for certain. Lando had had absolutely nothing that Luke needed, and yet he had managed to convince Luke to do exactly what he wanted. Amazing, really. Luke had the power to look into the minds of others, to manipulate their thoughts. He could lift. CHAPTER EIGHT Homeward Bound Peace and quiet were rare commodities in Han Solo's family, and they should have been rarer still when the family was cooped up in a small ship. And yet, two days out from Coruscant, things seemed to be going remarkably well. Oh, there had been one or two minor scuffles, and a bit more fussing than normal at bedtime the first night, but all in all, there was far less trouble than Leia had expected from her husband's children. She smiled at herself. No doubt she had that habit in common with every mother in history. When they were good, they were her children. When they were bad, or when she feared they might be bad, they were Han's. Well, just at the moment she was more than happy to admit to mothering this brood. It would be hard to imagine any children behaving better than Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin were right now. It was just after dinner on the first night out from Cornscant, with the Falcon due at Corellia in twO days. The Falcon could have made the trip in far less time, of course, but just this once blind speed was not the only consideration. Leia had urged Han not to try to set any records. Better they got there a day or two later, rather than not getting there at all because they had run the hyperdrive at max and blown out a coil or something. For once, Han had been easy to persuade. Maybe he felt it would be no bad thing to baby his ship, just this once. Things seemed so calm that Leia wondered if she was with the right family. The remains of dinner had been cleared up, Chewie was sitting at the table with his tools spread out, tinkering with some broken bit of machinery. Anakin was watching Chewie with rapt attention, offering his own advice now and again, speaking in a low voice, and pointing here and there at the gizmo's interior. Chewie was either taking the advice seriously, which seemed unlikely, or else displaying a degree of patience that seemed more unlikely still. The twins were sprawled out on the floor-except, Leia reminded herself, she ought to call it a deck now that they were on a ship-both of them reading. Han was at the auxiliary control station at the aft end of the lounge, doing some sort of check or another on the Falcon's systems. Probably it was something that didn't really need doing, just some bit of fiddling with part of the biggest, best toy in the universe-a starship. Han looked happy, at ease, in a way that Leia had not seen in quite a while. Leia was seated at the far end of the table from Chewbacca and Anakin. In theory, she, too, was reading, giving herself the rare treat of curling up with a good hook instead of slogging through some bureaucratic report. She had been looking forward to this for a long time. Instead she found herself doing little more than sit there in a maternal glow. She was basking in the moment of family, with her children and her husband around her, all safe, all well, and all happy to be together. "What's it like, Daddy?" Jaina asked, looking up from her book. There hadn't been much in the way of conversation for a while, but it would seem that Jaina had something on her mind. "What's what like, Princess?" Han asked, turning around in his swivel seat. "Corellia. What's it like? I keep hearing everyone being so excited that we're going there, but no one ever says much about the place." Jaina stood up and walked over to her father. Han seemed flustered for a moment, and Leia looked at him intently. Han had hardly spoken about his homeworld, and had said even less about his life in the Corellian Sector. For years, she had forced herself to restrain her curiosity. But now. Now he would surely have to say something. "Well," Han said thoughtfully, "it's a very interesting place." "And you lived there when you were a kid?" Jaina asked as she climbed up into her father's lap. Jacen stayed where he was, sitting crossed-legged on the floor, but Anakin took his cue from Jaina. He hopped down from where he was sitting next to Chewie, went around the table, and climbed up into his mother's lap. He could tell when it was story time. "That's right, I lived there," Han said, putting on his best storytelling voice. "And it's a beautiful place. The only trouble with it is that a lot of the names sound the same, so that sometimes outsiders get a little confused by them. Corellians never do. And if I'm a Corellian, and you're my children, that makes you Corellians. So listen very carefully, and don't makeany mistakes, or you'll make me look bad. All right?" Jaina giggled, and Jacen smiled. Anakin nodded solemnly. "Well, the Corellian Sector is made up of a couple of dozen star systems, but the most important star system in the sector is the Corellian star system. And the most important planet in the Corellian star system in the Corellian Sector is Corellia, and the capital city is Coronet. The star that the planet Corellia goes around is called Corell, and that's where all the other things with the word `Corell' in them get their name. But no one ever calls the star `Corell." Everyone does what everyone does everywhere else and just calls it `the sun." Everyone always does that." "Uh-huh," Jaina said. "Good. Now, I'll tell you all about the planet Corellia in a minute, but one of the most interesting things about the Corellian star system is that it has so many inhabited planets. It's rare for a star to have even one planet that people can live on, but it's even rarer for a star to have more than one. That's one of the things that makes the Corellian System so special. It has five habitable planets. The Five Brothers, we call them. The five of them have had so much to do with each other over the generations that we never really thought of them as five different places. They were together, the way you and Jacen and Anakin are. But Corellia has the most people and the biggest cities, and so they call it the Elder Brother, or sometimes juSt the Eldest." "But why are there five habitable planets?" Jacen asked. "Does anyone know how that happened?" "Good question," Han said. "The scientists are very confused by the Corellian System. The planets' orbits are so close to each other, and are so strange, that some of the scientists think the whole star system is artificial. They think somebody built it, a long, long time ago." "Wow," said Jacen. "Someone built a whole star system?" "Well, that's one idea. Other scientists say that's crazy. They've worked out a way that it all could have happened by itself. But one thing is for sure. If the Five Brothers were put in their current orbits on purpose, it must have happened in the dimmest mists of time, even before the dawn of the Old Republic, more than a thousand generations ago. "But the next thing you need to know is that there are more than just humans in the Corellian Sector. There are the Selonians and the Drall, lots of them, and a few of all sorts of other kinds of beings. At least there used to be. We don't really know what things are like now." "Why not?" Jaina asked. "Well, it's tricky," Leia said. "We have a lot of general information about what's going on in Corellia but it's very hard to get solid detail on a lot of things. It makes a big difference. It's like if someone you knew you two twins loved each other, and that's all they knew. They wouldn't understand if they saw you fighting with each other-and then saw you playing nicely together two minutes later. We sort of know the broad outlines of what's been going on in the Corellian Sector, but we don't really know the background to it all. And we don't know what details are really important and which don't matter." "Even in the old days, you had to do a lot of guessing if you were studying Corellia," said Han. "It's always been sort of inward looking, not much worried about the outside. And don't forget that half the galaxy is still recovering from the Imperial-Alliance war. Corellia has probably taken its lumps along with everyone else. But Corellians don't like to show their dirty laundry in public. So we might find out it's the beautiful, well-run planet we hear about, the kind of place it was when I lived there. Or we might discover it's a hardscrabble sort of place, with lots of problems and lots of things not working very well." "I don't want to go to any place that's all crummy, Jacen said. "But it might do you some good if you did," Han said. "Your mother and I both feel it'll be good for you to see something of life besides the cushy deal you have on Cornscant. You should see how the other half lives. After all, it's how your parents lived, not all that long ago." "Were you guys poor and stuff?" "Well, I always was," Han said. "And your motherwell, she lost everything she ever had in the war." That was an understatement, Leia thought. The Empire had destroyed her entire planet, for no better reason than to terrify the rest of the galaxy. "Anyway," Han went on, "let me tell you about the Drall and the Selonians. An adult Drall is about as tall as you are, Jacen, but a lot heavier set. They have two short legs and two short arms in the usual places. They have short brown or black or gray fur-or sometimes red. Their bodies look a little like taller, thinner Ewoks with shorter fur, but their heads are completely different. Rounder, more, ah, intelligent looking to human eyes, with a bit more pronounced muzzle, and with their ears flat to the head instead of sticking up. They are very dignified, very sensible beings, and they expect to be treated with respect. Is that clear?" Han looked around and made sure he got a nod out of all three kids. "Good," he went on. "I won't have to warn you to take the Selonians seriously, because you'll know to do that five seconds after you see one. They are big and strong and quick, the average adult a bit taller than me. Most humans think they are a very refined-looking species. They're bipeds like humans and Drall, but they have long, slender bodies, and they can go on all fours if they want to. They probably evolved from some sort of active, nimble, swimming mammals. They have sleek, short fur and long, pointed faces with bristly whiskers. And very sharp teeth, and long tails just right for whapping you if you don't behave. They live underground mostly, and they are very good swimmers. But there's one other thing you should know about them. Chances are the only ones you'll ever see are going to be sterile females, and it's always a sterile female who's the boss. All their males, and all the females who can have children, have to stay at home, in the dens, all the time." "That doesn't sound very fair," Jaina said. "No, it doesn't-to a human," Han said. "Maybe it doesn't even sound that fair to some of the Selonians. But that's the way their society works. Lots of humans have tried to barge in and tell them to change their ways, but it just doesn't work." "Why not?" Jacen asked. Han laughed. "Oh no, you don't. Some other time. Ask me in about ten years or s(H" "When I'm old enough to understand," Jacen said, rolling his eyes. "Exactly. Anyway, there are the three main Corellian species. Every now and then a group from one world decides to move to one of the other worlds. So they pack up and off they go. Then, the next day, or a thousand years later, another group on another of the Brothers will decide to move, and off they go. "Now all that's been going on for thousands of years. Nowadays, all of the worlds are all scrambled up, with all the species on all of them. Sometimes, it's just one kind of people-humans or Selonians or Drall-in one town. Other places, like in Coronet, all three of the species live there. Not only them, but species from a hundred other star systems besides. They all came to Coronet to buy and sell and trade." Han hesitated a moment, and a look of sadness came over his face. "At least there used to be that many traders from the outside," he said. "Things have changed, because of the war, and a lot of the traders left Coronet a long time ago." "How did the war make it change?" Anakin asked. Han thought for a moment before he answered. "It was sort of like those games where you set up a whole line of little tiles and then knock over the first one in line. The first one knocks over the second, and the second knocks over the third, and soon, until they all fall over, one after another. Even before the war really got started, the navy found it harder and harder to keep enough patrol craft out in the space lanes. They kept getting called away to chase this bunch of Rebel raiders, or to show the flag in that outpost, or to deal with those crises. The more the navy wasn't there, the more the raiders and pirates showed up. The more the pirates chased the traders, the less worthwhile it was for the traders to do business. And when the traders went away, the trading went away, too, and lot's of people in the Corellian Sector got poorer and poorer. "And then the war itself came," Leia said. "And the whole Corellian Sector might as well have built a wall around itself. The Emperor's Corellian government got scared," she said at last. "Not just scared of the Rebellion, but scared of everyone. They decided the safest thing to do was not to trust anyone at all. They decided they didn't want the traders. In fact, they didn't want any outsiders. The sector's government stayed more and more to themselves. They didn't trust anyone else. The government started making up all sorts of rules to keep more and more things hidden and private. It got harder and harder to get the most ordinary sort of information, harder and harder for outsiders to send messages or visit any of the Corellian planets. And the Corellian leaders stopped trusting their own people, and put more and more of the same sort of restrictions on them. And with the Imperial government propping up the Corellian Diktat-that's what they called their chief of state-the Diktat could do whatever he wanted without any fear of the people protesting." "But you guys won the war a long time ago," Jacen said. "Without the Empire, didn't the Diktat guy have to quit?" Leia smiled at that. If only the universe were that tidy, that sensible, so that the losers knew when it was time to quit, and gave up once it was over. "The Diktat never did quit," Leia said. "Not in the way you mean. There wasn't a day when the Diktat got up in front of the cameras and announced his resignation. But once there was no more Empire to provide outside support, people started to be less and less afraid. They started doing what they wanted, instead of what the rules said they should do. The more people got away with breaking the rules, the braver they got, and the more rules they broke. The security forces didn't feel brave enough to stop it all-and they didn't want to go on shooting their own people. It all just sort of collapsed. The Diktat was still there in his palace giving out orders and demanding that people be executed, but no one listened anymore, and no one obeyed his orders." "But what happened to him?" Jacen asked. "Nothing much, really," Leia said. "The New Republic didn't want to arrest him. After all, the Diktat was the legal head of government. Even if we had thrown him in jail, we would have angered a lot of the old loyalists we were trying to win over. We were still trying to decide what to do with him when he disappeared. We think he was taken off to one of the Outlier systems." "What are Outliers?" Anakin asked. "That's just the name for the star systems in the Corellian Sector that are sort of small and far away from Corell itself," Leia said. "The Outlier systems are so secretive they make Corellia look wide open. Lots of people from the sector's Imperial government ran off to them and just dropped out of sight. The Republic installed a new sector governorgeneral," Leia said, "a Frozian by the name of Micamberlecto, but when the Corellians held local elections, a lot of the old Imperial types got back into office." "But can't you just kick the bad guys out?" Jacen asked. "No," Leia said, "we can't, because, even if we don't like them, they followed the rules. The people elected them." "So this Governor-General Micamberlecto is a good guy who has a lot of bad guys working for him, and he can't do anything about it," Jacen said. Leia smiled. "That's about the size of it," she said. "So how are you and Dad planning to fix it all?" Jaina asked. That question threw Leia for a loop. It would seem that her daughter simply assumed that Leia was in charge of stomping out all wrongdoing. "Nothing directly," she said. "If we went in and threw out all the elected officials we didn't like, we'd be just as bad as the Empire. Sometimes you just have to hold your nose and accept the situation. But part of the idea of the trade summit is to make things tough for the bad guys in the future. They're the sort that do well when things are bad. They stir people up about their troubles. When things are going well, no one wants to elect that sort of rabble-rouser. We're hoping that if we can get trade going again, people won't have so many troubles for the wrong sort of candidate to exploit." Jacen made a face and shrugged. "I guess I see," he said. "But won't the guys you want to throw out figure this stuff out, too, and try to stop you?" "They sure will," Leia said. "So we'll just have to know more than they do, and think faster than they do." "Anyway, getting back to Corellia," Han said, speaking just a little too loud so as to fill up the slightly awkward pause that had suddenly appeared in the conversation. "It's a strange and wonderful place. Like nothing you've ever seen before. Nothing at all like Coruscant." And then he proceeded to tell the children all about the worlds of Corellia He told them about the glittering, wideopen city of Coronet, so unlike the oversized, overstuffed, covered-over city-planet of Coruscant. "On Coruscant, we're indoors all the time, practically," he said. "It's the capital of the galaxy, but you could live your whole life there without ever going outside to see the sky! Now, Coronet is different. It's lots of little buildings, with plenty of room in between. You can go outside all the time. The city is full of parks and plazas and palaces. And there's Treasure Ship Row, with all the vendors selling good things to eat, and the shops full of things to buy from all over the galaxyat least they used to be. Well, who knows, maybe they still are. . Leia listened to Han, every bit as swept up in his words as the children. A city full of parkland and wide-open spaces sounded good to her. She had had enough of the troglodytic life of Coruscant for a while, whether or not the children had. And if Han didn't say much about the casinos and saloons and nightclubs and less reputable establishments that clustered around Coronet's spaceport, she knew they were there as well. Even if she would never go into them herself, they were part of the legend of the place, part of Corellia's rough-and-tumble heritage of smugglers and pirates. There was a certain romance to such places. Maybe she would go into one or two of them, one night. She could get the children tucked into bed, get Chewie to watch them for the evening, dress in something the Chief of State would never wear, and then slip out with her husband, get him to show her some of the more grown-up playgrounds of Coronet. There could be no harm in taking in a show or two, or even trying her own hand at sabacc. But it seemed that Han had moved past Coronet while she was distracted, and was telling them about the other worlds. "Will we get to see Selonia and Drall?" Jacen was asking. "We sure will," Han promised. "Selonia and Drall and the Double Worlds, Talus and Tralus-maybe we can even get a look at Centerpoint Station." "What's Centerpoint Station?" Jaina asked. "Well, Talus and Tralus are called the Double Worlds because they are just the same size as each other. They orbit around each other. Centerpoint Station is in the balance point. the barycenter, between Talus and Tralus. You get quite a view from there." "I'll bet," Jacen said. "And then there's the Boiling Sea and Drall, and the Cloudland Peaks on Selonia, and the Gold Beaches on Corellia. You kids have never been swimming in a real, honest ocean, have you'? We can all go to the beach and build sand castles and go swimming in the great big ocean!" `What about sea monsters?" Anakin asked, clearly a bit dubious about the swimming part. "Well, that's why we'll go swimming on Corellia," Han said. He gave Jaina a little push and she hopped off his lap. Han Stood up, went over to Anakin, and scooped him up in his arms. "There aren't any sea monsters there. They keep all of them on Selonia, because the oceans are much bigger there." "Honest'?" Anakin asked. `Honest," Han said, quite solemn and sincere. "But I think it's time for certain little land monsters to get ready for bed, don't you'?" That was enough to elicit a round of good-natured groans from the children, but for once, getting them ready for bed and down for the night was hardly a struggle at all. All three of them were suddenly yawning, struggling to keep awake long enough to get faces washed and teeth brushed, clothes off and pajamas on. All three of them climbed willingly into their bunks, and snuggled happily into their pillows. Jacen and Jaina were already fast asleep, their breathing low and regular, by the time Han knelt down by Anakin's little bod, helped him pull the cover up over him, and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead. But sleepy as he was, Anakin was not quite ready to sleep yet. "Daddy?" he asked. "Yes, Anakin? What is it?" "Daddy-when are we going to get there?" CHAPTER NINE Courting Disaster One. There could be no further doubt. Luke Skywalker was gone. Phamis Gleasry, agent of the Human League, could no longer deceive himself. The Jedi Master had not been home for at least a full day. A check of Calrissian's not-all-that-well-hidden home in Dometown showed that it, too, was empty, and his ship, the Lady Luck, was no longer in its usual berth. Given that he had seen the two of them together the night before both had vanished from Coruscant, it seemed most likely that they had gone off together. Phamis knew there was nothing for it but to follow the backup plan, as dicey as it might be. He would have to use the message probe and hope against hope the Jade's Fire stayed to its shipping schedule. OtherwiseOtherwise, the Hidden Leader was not going to be pleased. And that was not a pleasant thought. In fact, it might be best to get the probe sent, and then follow Skywalker's lead. Given the Hidden Leader's temper, it might be wise to vanish. "Did you have to bring them along?" Lando asked, not for the first time. The objects of his complaint, the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO, were on the opposite side of the Lady Luck's wardroom, and neither of them seemed to be any happier to be with Lando than Lando was to be with them. Luke and Lando were sitting in the Lady Luck's wardroom table, relaxing after their meal. At least they were supposed to be relaxing. Clearly the droids were getting on Lando's nerves. Luke smiled to himself. There were other, legitimate reasons for bringing the droids along, but truth to tell, he had wanted them on this trip to twit Lando just a little, pay him back in the subtlest way possible for dragging him off on this lunatic scheme. He could never admit that to anyone but himself, of course, but still it was so. But Threepio answered before Luke even had a chance. "I assure you, Captain Calrissian, that my counterpart and I have demonstrated the highest degree of utility on any number of occasions. I might add that I in particular will doubtless be of the greatest possible use on a mission of romance. In addition to being familiar with over six million forms of communication, i have provided myself with additional programming. I have done extensive searches of data sources on Coruscant not generally available to the public. I am now well versed in the courtship rituals of two thousand and forty-seven human cultures, as well as five hundred and sixteen nonhuman cultures." "Put a lid on it," Lando said to the droid. "The day I ask your advice on how to treat a lady is the day I take a vow of chastity." This remark not only clearly took Threepio aback, it also inspired a whole series of rather rude-sounding beeps and bloops from Artoo. "That's scarcely accurate, Artoo, and I doubt it's the sort of advice that Captain Calrissian had in mind in any event." Artoo made an even ruder noise and backed away from Threepio just a bit as he swiveled his visual sensor toward Luke. "Take it easy, Artoo," Luke said. "No need to be quite that insulting." "Come on, Luke. Do we really have to put up with all this backchatter the whole trip? Can't we shut them down, or ship them home from the first port, or something?" Luke smiled and shook his head no. "Every time I've brought the two of them along, I've been glad I did, Lando. Trust me, they'll come in handy." "Well, they'd better do it fast," Lando growled. "Otherwise they're going to keep an appointment with the spareparts bin." "Come on, take- it easy. Besides, you've got another appointment to keep first," Luke reminded him. "We should be breaking out, `of hyperspace into the Leria Kerlsil system any time now. Lando glanced at the chronometer. "Another fifteen minutes or so," he said as he stood up. "We ought to go forward to the cockpit." Threepio took a step forward, as if to follow, but Lando held up his hand. "Hold it right there, golden boy," he said. "You two stay safely locked up and out of the way here in the wardroom while we're flying the ship and while we're planetside. is that clear?" "Perfectly, sir," Threepio replied, "but might I suggest that-" "Good," Lando said, cutting him off. He turned toward the hatch. "You ever been to Leria Kerlsil?" he asked. Luke shook his head as he got up to follow Lando. "No," he said. "Not too much about it in the data banks I searched either." "Well," said Lando, "we're about to find out more. The hatch slid open and they headed for the cockpit. * * * Threepio watched as the hatch slid shut behind the two humans-and was astonished to hear the click of a bolt sliding to. Captain Calrissian had locked them in. "Well!" he said. "This is not at all the refined sort of treatment I expected from Captain Calrissian, considering the circumstances. Rough-and-ready manners might be all right at a mining colony, but they certainly aren't the proper sort of thing for a gentleman searching for a wife. At least Master Luke was kind enough to come to our defense." Artoo let out a long, questioning series of bloops. "What?" asked Threepio. "No, I didn't catch the name of the place we're going. No one ever tells me anything." Artoo let out a low moan and then repeated his query a bit more slowly, with an extra flourish on the end. "Well, if you noticed them saying we're going to Leria Kerlsil, why did you bother asking me?" Artoo replied with a series of staccato bursts. "That is not true!" Threepio said. "I don't just bra about what I know. I do indeed make use of it. What point in my searching out all those obscure mating rituals in out of-the-way data sources if I didn't even think to examine the information and see-" Artoo beeped and hooped vigorously, and rocked back and forth on his roller legs. "Oh! You mean I could look up what I have concerning Leria Kerlsil. Well, why didn't you say so?" Threepio paused for a moment, and accessed his data memory. "Oh dear!" he said. "Oh my!" he said. "Artoo! Whatever are we going to do?" * * * Lando Calrissian was more than a little used to dealing with places he was not at all used to. He had long ago lost count of the planets on which he had done business of one sort or another. Now, as he set foot on Leria Kerlsil for the first time, he knew almost nothing about it-and yet he knew more about it than he knew about most worlds he had visited. He had learned long ago how to improvise, how to watch the local customs and ways of doing things, how to spot which were the trivial differences, and which differences were vital. But he had also learned about more than differences. He had learned how much all backwater worlds were the same. Or at least, how much the same were all the backwater worlds a trader might be interested in. There had to be a spaceport, and that automatically meant all the things that went along with a spaceport. Lodgings for crewmen, almost always a bar or tavern of some sort, cargo facilities, some place to change credits in and out of the local currency, and so on. In plain point of fact, Lando had seen little more than the spaceport on most of the planets he had visited. He would land, meet with the local reps for whatever he was buying or selling, keep an eye on the cargo going on and off his ship, make and receive whatever payments were required, get a bite to eat and something to drink in the bar, perhaps catch a night's sleep in the hostelry if his bankroll was up to it and the beds looked comfortable enough, and then he'd be on his way in the morning. All the spaceport bars and cargo facilities and customs clerks seemed to blur together after a while. It didn't help that so many of them looked alike. He had "been" to dozens of worlds wherein he had seen nothing of the local culture beyond the customs clerk. It wasn't always that way, of course. There had been plenty of times when he had stepped outside that imaginary bubble around the spaceport into the real life and culture of the world. Lando was determined this would beone of those times he got out and saw the world he was on. After all, if things broke the right way, he was going to end up living on this planet-at least part of the time-for years to come. It would behoove him to get a look at as much of it as he could before he agreed to anything rash. At first glance, at least, it seemed like a rather pleasant place. The sky was a crystal blue, with fluffy white clouds scudding along, riding a freshening breeze. The air smelled pure and clean. The spaceport itself was small but well maintained, with every surface well polished and gleaming, all the staff cheerful and helpful. As on so many small worlds, the spaceport had been built far outside the city limits, and then the city had grown up around it. A five-minute ride in a hovercar brought them into the center of town, and a handsome-looking center of town it was. Waist-high trees with pale blue bark and small round purple leaves lined the neatly kept avenues. Wheeled vehicles moved quietly and sedately over the well-paved roads. The houses and shops were of modest size, but clearly it was a city of house-proud folk. Everything was tidy and clean, everything handsome and well made. "Not bad," Lando said as the two of them walked along. "Not bad at all. I could see this as a very nice little base of operations." Luke laughed. "You're getting a bit ahead of yourself," he said. "Wouldn't it be better to wait until you had met the lady in question?" "We will, we will," Lando said. "The appointment's not for another half an hour. I don't want to get there too early and seem eager." "What will you do if she seems eager?" Luke asked. Lando looked over at his friend and winked. "Then I'll raise the ante, of course. That's how the game is played." At that, both of them laughed, and turned a corner to get a look at another street in the pleasant capital city of Leria Kerlsil. * * * "Hurry! Hurry! Burn it open if you have to, you miserable bucket of bolts," Threepio shouted at Artoo. The little astromech unit was struggling to get the wardroom hatch open. His datalink probe was plugged into a wall socket, and he was trying to find a circuit link that would allow him to operate the lock from inside. "Captain Calrissian could be in great danger. Hurry! Don't bother with all your fancy data slicing! It's not going to work." Artoo replied with a testy-sounding series of buzzes and clicks-and then the door slid halfway open, just far enough for the two of them to get out of the wardroom. "Oh, good work, Artoo," Threepio cried. "I knew that you could do it. Oh, why couldn't Captain Calrissian or Master Luke be carrying a comlink so we could warn them. It could be too late already. We must get to a city dataport and find out if my information is correct. Hurry! Hurry!" * * * dataport and don't give me any more nonsense. As I was about to say, if I am right-which is not so rare an occurrence, thank you very much-we might well need all the evidence we can find to convince Captain Calrissian of the situation. Hurry! Hurry!" * * * Luke Skywalker walked along beside his friend, enjoying the pleasant morning-but also starting to realize that something was not quite right. His Jedi senses were trying to tell him something, but he was not quite sure what. Luke glanced up and down the quiet street. There were fewer houses out this way, and they were larger and grander than the ones in the center of town. There were only a few passersby on the sidewalk, and they merely glanced over at the pair of strangers with the mildest of curiosity. No threat from that quarter, clearly enough. And yet there was something. Luke realized that his hand had drifted toward the handle of his lightsaber. He was more spooked than he realized. He glanced over at Lando, but it was obvious that his friend was quite unconcerned. Plainly there was nothing on his mind more stressful than his usual cheerfully larcenous schemes. So what was it? For a half a moment he considered the possibility of grabbing Lando by the arm and urging him to turn back. But no. Even a Jedi Master needed more than a vague notion of something not quite right. * * * The two droids finally found a public city dataport in an obscure corner of the main terminal building of the spaceport. "Plug in! Plug in!" Threepio cried, urging on Artoo. "Everything, everything you can find on Karia Ver Seryan. I only hope I'm wrong-" Artoo beeped and blurped rapidly in a high register. "What do you mean, why should this time be different?" he demanded, swatting Artoo on the dome. "Plug into the Lando and Luke managed to time their walk rather well, getting to Karia Ver Seryan's house just a minute or two before the appointed time. Her house was hard to miss in that quiet, tree-lined street. It was, by far, the largest in the neighborhood. Nearly all the other homes were made out of a sort of dark yellow brick, with here or there one built from bluish-gray wood. But Ver Seryan's house was built of well-mortared dark gray stone. It was five stories tall, although all the other nearby buildings were two or three stories at most. It stood on a piece of land at least four times as large as any of the other houses. The grounds were surrounded by a high fence made up of elaborately decorated black iron bars, set into the ground, twelve centimeters apart. It looked more like a fortress than a home. Luke noticed that the houses on either side of Ver Seryan's house were empty and abandoned, their grounds overgrown with brambles, in stark contrast to the elaborate gardens and private menageries on display everywhere else. At first glance, the gardens surrounding Ver Seryan's house seemed a tribute to ostentation for its own sake. There were paths and stone seats, and exotic plants from a dozen foreign worlds. A decorative artificial stream completely circled the house, no doubt set in motion by some sort of pumping system. A path led from the front gate over a diminutive footbridge to the front door. There was a widening in the brook on the right side of the house, and in the middle of it stood a complicated threetiered fountain. Its jets of water played high into the air in an intricate and ever-shifting pattern. However, despite the distraction of the fountain, it did not escape Luke's attention that, if the bridge were raised, as it seemed it could be, the decorative ciscular brook would stand in good service as a moat. And there, in the middle of all the elaborate landscaping, was the house itself, and the house seemed to have nothing in common with its own grounds. There was nothing pretty or ornamental about it. It was built to be big and strong, and that was that. Despite the attempt to disguise the fact with fancy plants and whimsical fountains, it was plain to see Ver Seryan's house was a fortress, designed to keep people out. Luke looked up at the place, feeling even less happy about the circumstances. What sort of woman needed a home that could protect her against a mob? It was plainly a mob that the owner of this house was worried about. Moats and iron fences were not the sort of precautions that would hold back a determined burglar, or an organized assault with modern weapons. No. It was the sort of setup designed to slow down and discourage a crowd in an ugly mood, and hold a disorganized, emotional mob at bay. Nor was there any way Luke could tell himself that it was all decorative, some sort of holdover from an architectural tradition. The proof was there, in front of his eyes, on the wall of the house, just to the right of the door. There was some sort of creeping plant growing up over them, but it would take more than a few leaves and tendrils to hide blaster burns that big. "Looks like she's pretty well off," Lando said. Luke was about to say something, but thought better of it. There was just too much of a difference between his viewpoint and Lando's. Where Luke saw a defense system, Lando saw evidence of cash flow. Who was to say which of them was right? Maybe everything Luke had noticed involved the previous owner, or some spot of bother brought on by the war against the Empire. But he could not convince himself. Something was not right. Luke reached out with the Force and tried to get a sense of the place, a feel for the mood of the people. Now the feeling that had bothered him before came back, clearer and more intensely. Luke could feel the way it centered around this point, this house. Now that he knew what to look for, he sought out the minds of whatever people his Force sense could locate in the general vicinity of Ver Seryan's house. Every mind he could find held at least some trace of the feeling. It was not uppermost in their thoughts, but it was there, and it got stronger the closer people were to the house. Not hatred, or anger. It was a muted, subtle kind of fear, something closer to the state of mind of someone trying to avoid touching a plant with thorns, someone aware they were sitting a trifle too close to a campfire, someone wary of getting any closer to a potential dangerous animal. In the back of every mind there was the sense that it was unwise to get too close to the house of Karia Ver Seryan. Luke refocused his Force sense in a new direction, and got another surprise. He could sense only one sentient living mind in the house. It had to be Ver Seryan. But it was abundanfly clear from the first brush with her mind that there was nothing malevolent there. She did not regard herself as dangerous, but as quite the opposite. In her he sensed an almost cloying benevolence, someone almost overeager to do good for anyone and everyone, whether they liked it or not. There was more than a whisper of greed in her mind as well, but nothing that could account for the cautious, careful, fear that surrounded her. If that degree of greed was all it took to inspire fear, Lando should have caused a worldwide panic the moment he set foot on the planet. Still, it was a truism that no person ever regards himself or herself as evil. Even the emperor believed himself to be in the right, even as he crushed the Old Republic and established his tyranny throughout the galaxy. Just because Ver Seryan regarded herself as good, it did not mean she was. But even so, something here did not fit. "Come on, Luke," said Lando, breaking into his thoughts. "You going to spend the whole day staring at her house? I don't want to keep the lady waiting." Luke put his hand on his friend's arm. "Lando," he said. "Be careful, all right?" "In a negotiation? What else have I ever been? Come on. Lando pushed on the gate and it swung open. He led the way into the grounds of the house, and Luke followed a step or two behind and more than a little reluctantly. The two of them went up the path, crossed the little bridge, and went up the stairs to the solid-looking steel doors of the house. Lando waited for Luke to catch up and pressed the annunciator disk as soon as Luke joined him. After a delay brief enough that Luke assumed they had been watched from inside the house, the door swung open to reveal a strikingly lovely young woman. Luke was about to ask if Ver Seryan was at home when he recalled that he had only sensed one human being in the house. This had to be her-though this woman was nothing like he'd expected. "Welcome to you both," the woman said. "I am Karia Ver Seryan. Welcome to you, Lando Calrissian. I received your communication and am eager to speak further with you. We may well be able to come to an arrangement of mutual interest." She turned to Luke. "And of course, welcome to you, most high Jedi Master. Your exploits are legend, and it is the greatest of honors to welcome you into my humble abode. Please, gentles both, do come in." Lando winked at Luke when Van Seryan was not looking. Obviously, it was Luke's reputation that had opened this door. Lando lost no further time in stepping through it, with Luke following behind. Luke was not quite sure what he had expected of the interior, but it was certainly not what he saw. The dark solidity of the exterior was nowhere in evidence. Inside, all was softness and light. The interior walls were white stone, and they were decorated with elaborate and costly hangings and paintings from across the galaxy. The ground floor seemed to be one vast room. A grand staircase led UP the back wall from left to right, the line of stairs broken by landings a third and two thirds of the way up. Doorways led out of each landing, presumably to living quarters. Folding screens and freestanding shelves and display cases broke the space up into a number of cozy-looking sitting areas. Comfortable-looking couches and chairs and luxurious carpets were arranged invitingly. It looked to be the sort of room made for a splendid paity, not for sheltering one lone woman. But if the room was unexpected, it was far less so than their hostess. Working from the scanty information Lando had been able to gather, Luke had been imagining Karia Ver Seryan as a frumpy, indolent sort of woman who had married for money, and then let herself go completely once her husband was safely dead. From the way Lando had spoken, it was clear that he had expected much the same. But the reality of Karia Ver Seryan could not have been further from that image. She was tall, slender, and darkskinned, with eyes of the most startling deep violet. Her hair was the color of late sunset, and she moved with a remarkably artless grace. She was dressed in a simple, elegant, black dress of modest cut that did more to accentuate her figure than any more revealing dress could have possibly done, and a single large diamond hung around her neck on a platinum chain. One look at Lando, and it was obvious that the size of bankroll he would take to get him to marry her had just shrunk rather precipitously. "Your home is lovely," he said, "but not remotely as lovely as its owner." Ver Seryan smiled prettily and gave a very slight bow of acknowledgment. "Thank you, kind sir. It is difficult for me to hire servants, as you might imagine. I will not disguise from you the problems of maintaining my home with nothing but droid labor. I do freely admit that I would be most happy to have a man about the place-to serve as a handyman, if nothing else." "I can assure you that I would be most interested in the position," said Lando, in a tone of voice that left no doubt of his sincerity. "Come," she said. "Do sit yourselves down, and make yourself as you would be at home. Lando grinned so broadly it seemed as if he was about to sprain a few muscles. He stepped forward, took Ver Seryan's hand in his, and bent low to kiss it. "I will gladly come and sit," he said, "but I assure you that I could not make myself any more at home than I am at this moment." * * * "Oh, my!" Threepio cried out as they swerved to avoid a slower-moving ground car. "Friend driver, please do be careful!" "Careful or fast, take your choice," the driver growled, without looking back, and pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator Artoo and Threepio sat in the back of a speeding hovercar, rushing for Ver Seryan's home. Artoo seemed to be taking it all in stride, perhaps even enjoying the ride, but Threepio had found the whole affair most upsetting already. He felt certain that his circuits were already overheating from the stress. There are some spaceports where it is merely difficult for a droid to hire a hover car, and others where it is all but impossible. Leria Kersil's spaceport, unfortunately, fell into the second category. The automated cabs flatly refused them, their programming refusing to take orders from mere machines. That had left the droids with no other option but to try their luck with the human-operated cabs. Even that would have been absolutely out of the question if Artoo had not been carrying a modest supply of Coruscant credits in one of his concealed compartments. Master Luke had put the money there some years ago, against just the sort of emergency they now faced. But even with ready cash in hand, it had been difficult to find a driver willing to drive droids around the city. The only one they did find, the disreputable-looking fellow who was now breaking every traffic law in the city, had seemed to make some sort of mental estimate of the market value of their desperation, and then demanded an astronomical price. Threepio, well versed in the art of haggling, had attempted to talk the man's price down, but Artoo had spoiled everything, as usual. He had deliberately rammed himself into Threepio's leg in order to silence him. Then Artoo had simply offered all of the cash they had to the driver. Granted, it had worked, and they were in a hurry, but even so, there were times when Artoo's overbearing ways were most provoking. The cab veered hard to the left as the driver took a corner at speed. Threepio just managed to hold on for dear life. Artoo, propped up next to him on the backseat, toppled over again, and immediately bleeped and blooped for Threepio to help him up. "I should let you stay down there this time," Threepio said, rather petulantly, even as he helped Artoo up. "You've been even more insufferable than usual this time out." The driver took another curve rather violently, but this time Artoo kept his balance. He let out a triumphant burble and extended a work clamp to brace himself into one corner of the seat. "Oh dear!" said Threepio. "I only hope we're in time after all this. According to my information, the process is quite irrevocable." * * * Lando Calrissian could not have been happier. He should have thought of this getting-married business years ago. Here he was, first try out of the box and, as best as he could tell, well on his way to a very satisfactory arrangement. Even after only a few minutes of small talk he was sure of that. Karia and he were getting along wonderfully. She was not only rich, she was young, charming, and beautiful. Clearly, there had been some errors in his information, but expecting an old battle-ax and discovering a young goddess was the sort of mistake he could deal with. Luke was the only fly in the ointment. He was being polite enough, but not exactly charming. He seemed distracted, distant. If they had been sitting around a table, he would have kicked Luke in the shin and tried to snap him out of it. As it was, Lando, Karia, and Luke were seated facing each other in three extremely comfortable armchairs, the fantastically luxuriant rug under their feet would be enough to buy and sell Dometown three times over, and Karia was giving him a smile that would have melted the door of any bank vault. Some bit of Lando's hindbrain was delivering a line of charming small talk on automatic pilot, letting Lando relax and admire Karia without having to worry too much. All else was right with the world. He could tolerate Luke being a bit out of it. But, it would seem, Karia had something on her mind. She smiled appreciatively at whatever charming compliment had just come out of his mouth, but then she leaned forward on the arm of her chair, and her face took on a more earnest expression. "I am glad of all this pleasant talk," she said, "but the folk who come to me ofttimes have but little time to spare. I find that I prefer coming to the point most quickly. Would that be suitable to you?" Lando smiled, just a trifle uncertainly, and nodded. "Absolutely." "That is good," said Karia. "It is plain that you have made inquiries concerning me, else you would not have come. Is there anything that you must know now that you do not? Have you any questions?" Lando spoke again, a bit more puzzled this time, but still determined to play the gallant suitor. "There is, ah, much about you that I would know, and hope I will come to know, but nothing that I must know immediately." "Excellent," she said. "I shall conceal nothing. When I received the first communication from yourself, I made inquiries of my own. I must needs confess that, in normal times, I would not consider your suit. But times are not as they often are. Although my time of rest is over, my life with my previous husband was-taxing. I am not as refreshed as I might wish. Though your wealth is not as great as it might be, nonetheless it is substantial, and growing. I am impressed by your work on Dometown. I believe that given sufficient backing, you could accomplish much in a short space of yours. On your honor, do you think likewise?" "I do indeed," Lando said, as fervently as he could. "Yes," said Karia. "I see that you do. You are young still, and energetic. One thing I have not been able to learn from my investigations-it would seem that you are in quite good health. Is this the case?" "Why, yes-yes, of course," Lando said, clearly taken aback. "Lots of good years left in me." Karia leaned back in her chair. "And yet you are here. Most interesting. Not unheard of, and yet most interesting. There is the saying that the candle that burns shortest burns brightest. There are those who would disapprove, but none come here except by free choice. You realize that the process, the marriage, is quite irrevocable? It is quite impossible to turn back?" Lando was very definitely starting to feel that he was in over his head. "I, ah, wasn't contemplating the idea of marrying you and then divorcing in bopes of a settlement, if that is what you mean. When I marry, I intend to stay married." Karia grinned and laughed. "There would be no hope of a settlement in any event, of course, so that is to the good." Apparently she had a great deal of confidence in her lawyers. That was definitely a point to bear in mind. "No, no," Lando said. "Until death do us part, and all that." Karia's face became serious once again. "And all that," she echoed. She looked Lando hard in the face for a long moment, clearly trying to reach a decision. "I like you," she said. "Even if you are young, and healthy, I like you. Life is for taking risks, and I am for life. Your wealth is not great now, but it may well become so. I will have you, if you will have me. Luke sat forward in his chair, and looked from Lando to Karia. "That's awfully quick," he said. "Do you truly wish to make such a decision so quickly?" "As I have said, those who come to me rarely have much time to spend in hesitation." She smiled, and spoke again. "Perhaps, just this once, I would wish for myself the luxury of setting the pace myself." She turned back to Lando. "What say you, gentle sir? Will you? Or will you not?" "Well, I, ah-any man would be honored to accept you, my dear Lady Karia. But surely we must agree to terms before we complete the-ah-marriage agreement." "Well and wisely put, gentle sir," she said. "I spoke too quickly. Let me present the offer i would give you. Marry me, and live with me. I will fully Support you in all ways for five years, longer than is normal." "You'll Support me?" Lando asked. He could hear the capital "S" in "Support." "Support me in what way?" Karia smiled, as if it were a silly question. "In all ways. I will care for your health, provide for you financially, clothe you, feed you, and shelter you." "And in return?" Lando asked. "And in return you will live well. It is the law on our world that by marrying me, I will become your sole their." "And I will become yours?" he asked. Karia smiled again. "Yes, that is so." "I'm not quite clear here. What will happen after five years?" Lando asked. "You will cease to support me? Will we then no longer be married?" "As you said, we shall be married until death do us part." "But I'll have to fend for myself, eh? Well, that certainly seems fair enough," Lando said. "But let me make something clear. I don't want or intend just to live off you. I want to work. i want to make things, build things, run things. I want to find grand projects that deserve to happen and make them happen." "Yes, of course. That is your gift. You must pursue it. You are pursuing it, and are willing to sacrifice all for it. You seek a source of investment capital, and that I shall be for you. I will not be so imprudent as to give you all of what I have, but I assure you that this' `-she gestured to indicate the incredibly opulent house and grounds-' `is but the least of what is mine. You will have the finances to do what you seek to do. Will that be satisfactory?" "Yes! Of course! Absolutely," Lando said. No one had ever offered him terms like these before. He would have to be insane to turn them down, or give her a chance to change her mind. Karia stood up. "Then let us perform the ceremony," she said. Lando and Luke both got up as well, guided half by reflex, and surprised. "What, now?" Lando asked. "Certainly," Karia said. "What point could there be in waiting longer? We both know what we want, and each of us knows the other can provide it. Life is short, and delay is death." "Lando, wait a second!" Luke said. "There's something wrong here. I don't know what it is, but there is something wrong. Karia's mood changed abruptly. "Does the great Jedi Master question my veracity?" she asked, with steel in her voice. "Come, look into my soul, and see if deception lurks there. I have nothing to fear." "There is no need," Luke said. "I do not doubt your intentions are all they should be. I do not think you intend to deceive. But even so, there is something wrong. I beg that you give my friend time-if only an hour-to pause and reflect." Karia's eyes flashed with anger. "In another hour, another suitor may come. In another hour, I might not like your friend so much as I do now. No. He knows all he needs to know, and he knows why he came here. It is now or never." Lando grabbed Luke by the arm and pulled him close. "Luke, back off," he whispered. "She's right. This is what I was after. Don't mess this up for me." Luke looked Lando straight in the eye. "Lando," he said in a low voice. "I tell you that something's missing here. Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Lando felt a knot at the pit of his stomach, and suddenly he realized he was scared. Very scared. Of what, he did not know. But if he were a man who ran away from what scared him, the second Death Star might still be in the sky. Courage was for when you were scared. "No, I'm not sure," he whispered back. "But as the lady said, life is risk. If here and now is my one chance, then I take my chance now. He turned back toward their hostess, smoothed his hair down, and straightened his tunic. "This ceremony," he said in as steady a voice as he could manage. "Exactly what does it involve?" Karia gestured toward a five-sided red canopy that stood at the south side of the great room. "There," she said. "We stand under the canopy, activate a recording device, repeat a brief oath in front of a witness, perform the blood kiss, and the deed is done." "Blood kiss?" Lando asked, a bit anxiously. Karia smiled. "A most lurid name for a most gentle ritual. It is nothing. A pinprick on your right forefinger. A spot of blood. I kiss it. You do the same to me, and that is all. We will be wed." "And that's legally binding?" Lando said. "We'll be married in the eyes of the law, and of society?" Karia laughed again. "Oh yes, indeed. It is most certainly a binding ceremony. We shall be well and truly wedded, one to the other." Lando took a deep breath and stepped forward. He extended his left hand toward his bride, and she put her hand on his. "Then here is our witness, and now is the time." "Lando! No!" Luke protested, and made as if to step toward him. Lando held up his right hand toward Luke, palm out. "This is what I want, Luke," he said. "This is what you promised to help me get, on the oath of a Jedi Master. I say to you that now is the time for you to honor that oath. You shall be our witness." Lando could see the conflict in his friend's face, the fear for him struggling with the promise Luke had made. "Very well," Luke said at last. "On the oath of a Jedi Master, let us perform the ritual." * * * The cab driver had made one wrong turn, and corrected it with a U-turn of remarkable violence. Now, at last, they were in front of the Ver Seryan house. Threepio suddenly realized that Artoo could not get out of the hovercar without assistance, and yet was blocking the door. "Driver!" Threepio cried out, tapping on the scuffed clear plastic barrier that divided the front seat from the back. "I'm afraid I must ask your help again to get my counterpart back out of the cruiser." The driver turned around and glared at Threepio most unpleasantly. "Come on, you crazy tin box. It was tough enough getting him into the cab back at the spaceport." "True enough," Threepio said. "But the sooner my counterpart is out of your vehicle, the sooner you can be on your way." It had not escaped Threepio's notice that their driver clearly did not like the idea of getting this close to the Ver Seryan place. In any event, the argument convinced the driver. He popped open the door to the driving compartment, got out, opened the rear door, slapped one meaty hand on either side of Artoo, and pulled him out of the cab with a single mighty heave. He dumped Artoo unceremoniously on the grass by the side of the road. Threepio was barely able to get out of the cab before the driver was back behind the controls and driving off at high speed, using the acceleration of his start to slam the passenger door shut. "Well!" said Threepio. "I can't say that I am sorry to see the last of him! Come along, Artoo, we must hurry." Artoo managed to right himself, but it was plain to see that he was going to have some difficulty navigating his way up to the house. Artoo swiveled his visual sensor toward Threepio and whistled frantically. "Oh! My goodness, Artoo, you are quite right. Under the circumstances, I certainly should not wait for you. Threepio turned toward the house, and made his ungainly way toward it, moving as fast as his somewhat ill-coordinated locomotion system would carry him. it would be most vexing if they were too late, after all the trouble they had been through. No doubt Master Luke might well be upset. It would be a great inconvenience to everyone if it turned out Captain Calrissian was doomed to mortal peril. * * They stood under the red five-sided canopy near the south wall, and low, haunting music played from some hidden source. A single red candle stood on a low five-sided table at the exact center of the canopy, and burned with a strange blue flame. Lando stood on the east side of the low table, and Karia on the west. Luke stood, watching, just outside the canopy, on its north side, with the length of the great room at his back. He did not like this. He did not like it one little bit. But he had sworn an oath, and he saw no way out. He watched as the wedding ceremony began. Karia lifted her hands, and offered them, palm down, to Lando, one hand on either side of the candle. Lando placed his hands over hers, close enough to the candle that the blue flame cast its light on his skin. "Left hand in right, right hand in left," she began. "East to west, west to east. Sunrise facing sunset as dusk faces dawn," Karia said. Life, shorter than a moment. Life, longer than memory. Each side touching each. Two shall be one, and one shall be all." She nodded to him, indicating that he should repeat the words. "Left hand in right, right hand in left," Lando said. "East to west, west to east," he said, speaking the words slowly and carefully. "Sunrise facing sunset, as dusk faces dawn. Life, shorter than a moment. Life, longer than memory. Each side touching each. Two shall be one, and one shall be all." She nodded, and moved her left hand away from his right. She reached down onto the table, and picked up an instrument with an elaborately carved handle, resembling a ceremonial dagger. But this dagger had no blade. Instead, it had a ten-centimeter needle, its point so sharp it was hard to see. She stuck the needle's point into the candle's flame, which flared from bright blue to glowing, ruddy red. Her right hand was still under Lando's left. Now she turned Lando's left hand over so that it was palm up. She held Lando's forefinger between her thumb and forefinger, raised the needle dagger andThere was a sudden, violent pounding at the door, so loud that both Karia and Lando jerked back in surprise. The door annunciator bonged loudly, over and over, and the pounding on the door redoubled. "Hold it!" Luke said, his hand suddenly close to his lightsaber. Whatever that was at the door might provide a way to stall. He reached out with his Force power and found that he could not sense a living mind there. A droid then, of some sort. Whatever. It didn't matter. It might be nothing more than the grocer's droid demanding that Karia pay her bill, but Luke didn't care. It bought him time, and he was going to use it. "The ceremony stops!" he said. "I don't know who or what that is at the door, but the ceremony stops until we find out. Neither of you move." Karia seemed about to protest, but Luke could see her eyes move toward his lightsaber. She nodded agreement andkept silent. Lando nodded as well. "Go," he said. Luke turned around and hurried toward the door. He unclipped his lightsaber, just to be on the safe side. He threw back the bolt and pulled the door open-and was astonished to find Threepio rushing into the house. "Threepio! What in space are you"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Threepio cried out as he burst into the room. He stepped inside, paused a moment as he looked around, and then spotted Lando and Karia under the canopy. He hurried toward them, gesticulating frantically. Luke followed behind the droid, utterly baffled. "Go no further, Captain Calrissian!" Threepio shouted. "Stop! Stop!" "What are you talking about?" Lando said. "Threepio, this is no time for you to barge in. When you made that racket at the door, I thought you were going to be someone important. Now get out of here." "But you must stop, I tell you!" Threepio turned toward Luke. "Master Luke, please tell me. Have they gotten to the ceremony of the blood kiss yet?" "No. They were just about to do it"' Luke said. "Then thank heavens I am in time. You must stop, Captain Calrissian. The woman is a life-witch!" "She's a what?" Lando asked. "A life-witch!" Threepio said, pointed at Karia. "The honorific `Ver' before her last name signifies that she is a life-witch." "That is a term that I do not like to hear," said Karia. "We call ourselves life-bearers, for that is truly what we do." She looked at Lando. "But did you not know? Were you not aware? How could you seek me out and not know?" "What's a life-witch?" Lando asked. "And are you one?" "I am a life-bearer," Karia said. "Call it by whatever name you wish," said the droid, in tones that were even more frantic than usual. "But it is true. True! We checked the records before we came over here, Artoo and I. He'd be in here showing them to you, but he's having trouble getting up the steps." Threepio turned toward Karia. "Go ahead," he said. "Tell them. We have the records. Tell them how many times you have been married." "It is my gift, the gift of the life-bearers," Karia said, ignoring Threepio and addressing Lando with an unnerving calm. "We are found only here, on this world, born now and again by random chance. Even here we are rare. Ours is a special gift and skill. By linking close, we can keep the old, the sick, the dying, alive for a time. The blood kiss bonds my body chemistry to my husband's. I can link to his life essence, and so sustain him. The sick and the dying are relieved of pain, and can live, for a time, in vigor and health. That is the Support I spoke of. But we cannot provide Support forever. We can hold back pain, and forestall death, but only for a time. Then we must withdraw Support, or die ourselves. And a life force that has come to rely on Support cannot long survive on its own. It dies. "You mean after five years of Supporting me-" "I would withdraw Support and you would die," Karia said. "I thought that you knew this." She shrugged. "You would not be the first young and healthy man to exchange a long and uncertain life for a short one of comfort and security. And no, before you can ask, no, I could not marry without providing Support. We must have a time of recovery between husbands, but our life forces are likewise shaped by what we do. A life-bearer who does not provide Support for a time will soon sicken and die." Lando opened his mouth and shut it again. "Your friend Chantu Solk was a more typical case. When he came to me, he had but a few months to live, months of pain and failing health. I gave him three years of health and comfort and companionship, and in return I became his their, taking on his wealth only when he had no further use for it. Does that not seem a fair exchange?" Lando looked back and forth from Karia to Threepio and back to Karia before he found his voice again and managed to gasp out a single, strangled question. "How many husband?" he asked. She drew herself up to her full height, folded her arms, and spoke with a calm, low dignity. "I shall conceal nothing" she said. "The life-bearer can bear no children of her own. We are sterile. But our compensation is long life, and time enough to do our work. I have had the honor to survive forty-nine husbands thus far." Forty-nine husbands?" Lando repeated in horrified astonishment. Luke looked at Karia, amared. How old was this woman? Was she a woman, a human, at all? Karia Ver Seryan turned to Lando and smiled. "But all this I thought you knew. In my eyes, and heart, nothing has changed. I shall have you if you shall have me. All that remains is the kiss of joining, the touch of my blood mingled with yours. Yes, there have been forty-nine. But should you still wish to undergo the ceremony, and the marriage, it shall be your happy death" five years from today, that will bring it to an even fifty. CHAPTER TEN Showtime Something was happening to Star Number TD-10036EM-I 271, something that went against all experience, all patterns of stellar mechanics. Strange forces reached out for it, huge and unseen hands manipulated its interior, forcing the internal heat and pressure up to levels that such a star never experienced. The surface of TD- 10036-EM- 1271 began to roil more and more violently. Powerful seismic waves started to pulse through the supercompressed matter at the star's core. Its outer layers began to expand as a result of the increased heat and pressure. It changed in color from yellow to white to blue white to pulsating blue white glaring up into the ultravioletAnd then, quite impossibly, TD- 10036-EM- 1271 exploded. The shock-wave shell of energy rushed out into space in all directions, an incredible blast of light and heat that would be plainly visible to the naked eye from a half-dozen inha ited systemsnce the light from the explosion reached those stars, years or decades later. But the event did not go unobserved. By something more than chance, an automated probe droid was on hand to witness the explosion. It carefully recorded every detail of the supernova, noting the time, the place, and making a scan of the background stars to confirm the coordinates. Then it powered down its detection systems and switched on its navicomputer. It headed out of the Th-lOO3EM1271 system, out toward where it could safely drop into hyperspace. It dropped out of normal space, and rushed into the dark between the stars. It had an appointment to keep. An appointment on Corellia * * * Han Solo had gone to sleep happy indeed. After tucking the children in, he had gone to be by himself and shut his own eyes, thinking nostalgic thoughts about his old homeworld. He had felt full of love and pride in his children, felt glad that everyone was safe and secure aboard the good old Millennium Falcon. But all that good feeling vanished as he slept. Han was tormented by dreams that night, fearsome dreams of all the most nightmarish moments of his old adventures, the monsters that had tried to kill him or eat him, the crash landing he should not have survived, the deadly traps he had been caught in and, by all rights, should not have escaped. Han was not the sort of person who had nightmares very often, but when he did have them, they struck hard, and deeand the dangers he had faced in real life were ample fodder for a lifetime of bad dreams. But the real dangers he had faced in the past paled in comparison with the imaginary terror Han faced in his dreams that night. Again and again, he found himself trapped in the same few horrifying moments. A something, a faceless, secret, hidden, deadly something was stalking Han and his family, tracking them across a lurid, distorted jungle landscape full of the shrieks and cries of the hunter and the hunted, the air pungent with the stench of dead things putrefying in the steambath heat. But even as the heat and the stench and the sound hit Han smack in the face, he would find himself suddenly running, running for his life, his family just ahead of him, Chewie just behind. The children were screaming in terror as they fled, and Leia was in the lead, slashing a path through the vegetation with her lightsaber. Han knew he shouldn't waste time or energy trying to seethe something, but he could not help himself. He turned, looked back over his shoulder, and tripped over a vine in the path. He went sprawling, and landed faceup, looking straight up atHis eyes snapped open, and Han realized that he was awake, safe in his bed, on his ship, with Leia by his side and all safe, all well. He sat up and swung his feet out of bed and sat there for a moment, trying to steady himself. He realized that he was covered in a cold sweat. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He got up, moving carefully in the darkness of the tiny cabin, and made his way out to the passageway, out to the refresher stall. He turned on the light, squinted in the sudden brightness, ran some water, and splashed it on his face. Why had the dream frightened him so much? It didn't take much reflection for him to come up with an answer. His family. The dream was not about Han being in danger, but about his family being in danger. Here he was, about to bring his wife and children to Corellia, where New Republic Intelligence thought there was enough danger that their agents disappeared, but not so much that it would be any problem to have Han and his family serve as decoys. Corellia, where even in the good times, pirates had been part of everyday life. What in the universe had he been thinking of, bringing Leia and the kids to such a place? "Ah, give it up," Han said to the face in the nrirror. Leia would have gone anyway, to attend the trade summit, and Han knew full well just how determined she was to keep her family with her. There had been too many separations over the years for Leia-or Han-to put up with yet another. Even Chewbacca would have insisted on goingespecially if he felt the kids were in any danger. In short, thele really hadn't been anything he could have done to stop them all from going. Not without convincing everyone that the danger was a lot greter than it seemed to be. And yet. And yet. That NRI agent had known more than she was tellingr perhaps telling more than she knew. Something wasn't right. Han was certain of that. He checked the time and sighed. He was supposed to be getting up in an hour anyway. No real sense in going back to sleep. Might as well head up to the cockpit and start getting ready for their arrival in the Corellian System, a few hours from now. He headed back to the cabin, and dressed as quietly as he could. Leaa muttered in her sleep and rolled over, but did not awaken. Good. Han stepped back into the corridor and made his way forward to the cockpit. He was not particularly surprised to see Chewbacca there already, in the copilot's chair, doing systems checkouts. "Hey, Chewie," Han said, slapping his old friend on the shoulder. "You couldn't sleep either, huh?" Chewie let out a low growl and got on with his work. Han sat down in the pilot's chair. He flicked on a few of the control systems, glanced at a readout or two, but then he dropped his hands away from the control panels, leaned back in his chair, folded one leg over the other, and proceeded to get lost in thought. His knowledge of Corellian politics was at least twenty years out of date, but it might be enough to make some educated guesses. Who was stirring up the trouble? Humans? The Drall? The Selonians? And of course it could not be laid out that simply. All three of the races had their own factions, and the three races were, after all, on all five planets, making for a dizzying number of potential alliances and enemies for any given faction. And who could tell what groups had faded away or sprung to life in that time? But Han realized that he didn't need to worry about any of that. He knew better. The Drall were too careful, too sensible, to start trouble they could not finish, and the Selonians ~iould see it all as beneath their notice, to say nothing of unrefined, to go knocking off NRI agents. Besides, the NRI had a well