Star by Star Page 17

  “Now that would teach them to take hostages,” Kvarm Jia, a gray-bearded senator from Tapani sector, said. “Where can we find the Star Destroyers?”

  “Yes, where do we find three expendable Star Destroyers?” Shesh echoed, quick to turn Jia’s support on its head. “Or do you suggest sacrificing yet another world to Jedi ineptitude?”

  A pair of senators began to speak at the same time, realized they were on opposite sides of the issues, and immediately tried to talk over each other. Fey’lya called for order, only to be shouted down by senators from the anti-Jedi coalition, who were in turn shouted down by Jia’s supporters. Soon, all the senators on the balcony were bellowing at once.

  Jacen looked over at Leia and shook his head in dismay. More accustomed to the rancorous nature of republican politics, Leia occupied herself with counting heads and quickly realized the committee was split almost down the center. She borrowed Jacen’s lightsaber—she had left her own behind, hoping to emphasize that she was appearing on SELCORE’s behalf and not as a Jedi—then turned to Fey’lya.

  “If I may?” She nearly had to shout to make herself heard.

  The Bothan nodded—and stepped back. “By all means.”

  Leia ignited the blade, its brilliance and distinctive snap-hiss bringing the tumult to an instant silence. Suppressing a smile at this reminder of the continuing power of the Jedi, she thumbed the blade off.

  “Please forgive the theatrics.” Leia returned the weapon to her son. “In appearing before you, it was not my intention to cause such discord in NRMOC. That’s the last thing the Republic needs. Perhaps the committee should simply vote on Jacen’s suggestion and be done with it.”

  “Vote now?” Shesh’s eyes narrowed. “So you and your son can use your Jedi mind tricks?”

  Leia forced a tolerant smile. “Those tricks work only on the weak of will—which I can assure you no one on this committee is.”

  The joke drew a tension-draining laugh from both camps, and Jia mocked, “Unless you’re afraid of losing, Senator Shesh?”

  “It would not be I who lose, Senator Jia, it would be the New Republic,” Shesh said. “But let us vote, by all means.”

  Fey’lya went to his dais and authorized the vote, and the balcony’s droid brain announced the results almost before the last senator had keyed his voting pad. As Leia had expected, the resolution passed with a bare two-vote majority—not enough to authorize the action without the full senate’s approval, but enough for Fey’lya to use his authority under the military secrets act to bypass the security risk of a full senate vote and “declare” the necessary majority. Given the deference he had shown Leia earlier, she expected him to do just that.

  Uneasy at finding herself in debt to a Bothan, she turned to Fey’lya. “Will you declare the majority, Chief Fey’lya? This is your chance to save a million lives.”

  Fey’lya’s fur rippled again, betraying just how weak his position as chief of state had become. “A chance to save a million—or lose billions.”

  “What?” Leia was astonished at the ire in her own voice. Perhaps it was because of her fatigue, or perhaps because of her surprise at having miscalculated so badly, but she found herself struggling to hold back a string of invectives on the tip of her tongue. “Chief Fey’lya, the plan is a sound one—”

  Fey’lya raised a placating hand. “And I haven’t said no. But you must know what the loss of three Star Destroyers would mean to us. We could lose another dozen planets.” He stroked the creamy tufts on his cheek, then spoke in a deliberately thoughtful voice. “I will ask the military for a study.”

  “A study?” Jacen burst out. “The convoy will be drifting slag by the time they finish!”

  “I’m sure General Bel Iblis will expedite matters,” Fey’lya said evenly. “In the meantime, we’ll stall.”

  “Stall?” In her weakened state, Leia did not trust herself to keep a civil tone. She knew Garm Bel Iblis, who like Wedge Antilles had been reactivated at the outbreak of the war, would move as quickly as possible. But even he could push the plodding command bureaucracy along only so fast, and there was no guarantee that he would reach the conclusion she hoped for. “How can you stall the Yuuzhan Vong?”

  Fey’lya flashed a snarl she was sure he meant as reassuring. “We’ll ask Tsavong Lah for an envoy to discuss the matter.”

  “An envoy?” Jia shouted the question. “It will look like we’re asking for terms!”

  Fey’lya’s ears pricked mischievously forward. “Precisely, Senator—and it will buy time.” The Bothan was quick to look back to Leia. “But rest assured, Princess. Whatever General Bel Iblis’s conclusion, we shall tell the envoy only this: that Yuuzhan Vong threats merely strengthen the ties between the New Republic and her Jedi.”

  Jia actually grinned. “A point that will be underscored when we rescue the hostages.”

  “Or even if we must let them die,” Shesh added. She nodded her approval. “I believe we have a consensus, Chief Fey’lya.”

  The consensus only angered Leia more, for she had worked with Borsk Fey’lya long enough to know that his plans served only himself; whatever he intended to say to the Yuuzhan Vong, she felt sure that he would not allow the Jedi to stand in the way of making an accommodation that would save his own position.

  “What you have, Senators,” she said icily, “is a consensus of fools.”

  “Mother?”

  Leia felt Jacen reach out to her through the Force, laving her with soothing emotions, and she realized how young he really was. The New Republic Senate was far from the unblemished body he imagined, and the good-faith compromises described in C-3PO’s civics lessons were all too rare. The senate was a power-grubbing club of people who too often saw their duty in terms of their own interests, who measured their success by how long they held office, and it made Leia ashamed to think she had played such a prominent role in its founding. She spun on her heel and would have stepped into the lift’s gate—perhaps even flipped over it—if not for a gentle telekinetic tug from her son.

  To cover for herself, she reached for the gate and said, “I have wasted all the time I care to with NRMOC.”

  Borsk Fey’lya stepped in front of her. “You really have no reason to be upset, Princess. General Bel Iblis’s integrity is beyond question.”

  “It is not Garm’s integrity I question, Chief.”

  Leia used the Force to open the gate behind Fey’lya, then brushed him aside and stepped onto the lift. Jacen came to her side, one hand ready to catch her at the first sign of weakness.

  When they reached the mezzanine and started for the exit, he asked, “Was that wise? We have enough enemies in the senate.”

  “Jacen, I’m done with the senate. Again.”

  As Leia spoke, an unexpected calmness came to her. She began to feel stronger and less weary, more at harmony with herself, and she knew her words had been more than the usual frustration with politicians. She had lost control with Fey’lya not because she was weak and tired—though she was—but because she no longer belonged in the halls of power, no longer believed in the process that placed selfish bureaucrats in positions of power over those they were sworn to serve. The Force was guiding her, telling her the New Republic had changed, the galaxy had changed, most of all she had changed. She had stepped onto a new path, and it was time that she realized it and stopped trying to follow the old one.

  Leia took Jacen’s arm and, in a more peaceful voice, said, “I’ll never appear before them or their committees again.”

  Jacen remained silent, but his distress and concern were as thick in the Force as the air over a Dagobah swamp. Leia wrapped an arm around his waist and, surprised as always at how far her nineteen-year-old son now towered above her, pulled him close.

  “Jacen, sometimes it can be dangerous to assume the best about people,” she said quietly. “Borsk is our worst enemy in the senate, and he just proved it.”

  “He did?”

  They left the committee room and st
arted down the familiar corridor. “Think,” Leia said. “The reason behind the reason. Why would Borsk want to talk to a Yuuzhan Vong envoy? What can he bargain with?”

  Jacen walked a few silent steps, then stopped when the answer finally struck him. “Us.”

  SEVEN

  Blood still streaming from a network of hastily inflicted slashes, Nom Anor presented himself to the sentry outside Tsavong Lah’s private warren aboard the Sunulok.

  “I have been summoned.” Nom Anor struggled to mask his excitement, for the warmaster rarely called subordinates to his private refuge—and never during the sleep cycle. “I was told not to concern myself with appearance.”

  The sentry nodded curtly and pressed a palm to the receptor pores in the door valve. The portal took a moment to recognize the warrior’s scent, then puckered open to reveal a small contemplation chamber lit softly by bioluminescent wall lichen. Tsavong Lah sat on the far side of the room, absorbed in conversation with a master villip. Nom Anor stomped a foot politely, then waited for permission to enter.

  Vergere came out from behind a table and waved him over. “He wants you to see this.”

  Irritated to find his rival there, Nom Anor rounded the table to look over the warmaster’s shoulder. The villip had assumed the visage of a human female with high cheeks and sharp features. Nom Anor’s annoyance immediately vanished, for he knew the woman well. He had been the one who turned her to the Yuuzhan Vong cause.

  “… see you have put the vornskrs I sent to good use,” Viqi Shesh was saying. “Four Jedi have died already. Your voxyn are proving most effective.”

  “Voxyn? How do you know their names?”

  Shesh’s eyes widened slightly, though subtly enough that the warmaster might not have noticed her surprise. “That’s what the Jedi call them. I don’t know how they came by the name—they’re becoming very tight-lipped about the matter.”

  “Are they?” Tsavong Lah turned thoughtful. “Interesting.”

  Vergere astonished Nom Anor by touching the warmaster’s arm. “Your agent is here.”

  Tsavong Lah did not strike her or chastise her in any manner. He merely told Shesh to wait and turned to “his agent,” as Vergere had so dismissively called Nom Anor, and studied the bloodstains seeping through his websilk tunic.

  “My summons interrupted your devotions.” His tone was apologetic and sincere. “Perhaps something can be done about that.”

  Tsavong Lah surprised Nom Anor yet again by rising and fetching—himself—a thorn seat from the far corner. He put it in front of Shesh’s villip and motioned his guest to sit. The lack of a blood crust suggested the chair’s last feeding had been less than sating, but it would have been an insult to hesitate. Nom Anor sat down and, as the hungry thorns sank into his back and buttocks, consoled himself with the thought that the warmaster believed he enjoyed such indulgences.

  “I am honored.”

  Tsavong Lah was already returning to the villip. “Viqi, I have an old friend of yours here.”

  “Really?” Shesh replied. She would not have seen Nom Anor enter the room. Her villip would be of the type linked directly to the warmaster and able to relay only his image and words. “Who’s there?”

  “I am certain you recall Pedric Cuf,” Tsavong Lah said, using the alias by which Shesh knew Nom Anor.

  The smile that came to the villip’s lips was less than sincere, for Viqi had seized the first opportunity to bypass Nom Anor and offer her services directly to the warmaster. “What a delight.”

  “Viqi, repeat what happened today.” Tsavong Lah gave Nom Anor no chance to reply to her greeting. “Pedric Cuf needs to hear all.”

  Viqi obediently recounted what had happened in the committee room earlier, emphasizing Jacen’s plan to ambush the Talfaglio blockade. She lingered a little too long on how cleverly she had manipulated Borsk Fey’lya into asking for a military study, buying the Yuuzhan Vong time to prepare a counterambush.

  “You may have as much as two weeks,” Shesh finished. “I will keep you informed.”

  “You did well,” Tsavong Lah said, though Nom Anor knew they already had a fleet lying in wait for just such a purpose. “But tell Pedric Cuf about the envoy, Viqi.”

  If she understood that Tsavong Lah was slighting her by consistently speaking only half her name, Viqi Shesh showed no sign. “There was some concern about the time required for a study, but I persuaded Borsk to ask for an envoy.” Her villip smiled. “He has no real interest in talking to you, but I convinced him the request might save the refugees long enough for the military to complete its study.”

  “Very clever,” Tsavong Lah said. “You buy us time, but make them think they are the ones who stall. You are truly gifted, Viqi. On the day of our victory, your reward will be beyond imagining. Is there anything you need now?”

  “Only the usual funds,” she replied.

  “You will have them and more,” the warmaster promised. “Through the customary channels.”

  Tsavong Lah broke the connection by stroking the villip, then turned to Nom Anor as the creature reverted into an inert blob.

  “That one angers me,” he growled. “She takes me for a fool.”

  “Humans often cast themselves in the best light,” Nom Anor said, unsure whether the warmaster’s displeasure extended to him as Shesh’s recruiter. “They seem unable to see the shadows they also cast.”

  “A pity for you then, Nom Anor,” Tsavong Lah said.

  Nom Anor sat forward, stifling a cry as the chair’s thorns tore free of his back. “Me, Warmaster?”

  Tsavong Lah nodded. “Tell me, do you believe what she says about the Bothan? That he has no interest in talking to us?”

  “No more than I believe she persuaded him to ask for an envoy,” Nom Anor said. “Borsk Fey’lya wants to talk, and Viqi Shesh fears he has something to make us listen. She hopes to protect her own position.”

  “Our thinking is the same on this, Nom Anor,” the warmaster said. “All the more reason I must command you to return to the infidels.”

  “Him?” Vergere asked.

  Nom Anor glared fire at the feathery pet. “Who else? Perhaps you were thinking of yourself?”

  Vergere lowered her arms. “My objection praises you, Nom Anor. You have caused the New Republic too much damage. Borsk Fey’lya could not talk to you if he wanted to. The senate would vote him out of office.”

  “Truly?” Tsavong Lah smiled slyly, then turned to Nom Anor and gestured at the thorn chair. “Take that with you, my servant. Consider it a gift.”

  EIGHT

  The door opened to an unfamiliar soughing sound, and Cilghal’s skin went dry. The voxyn were dead.

  The Millennium Falcon had pulled away from the Sweet Surprise with its emergency hatch still open and the aft hold exposed to cold space. It was true the creatures had sealed themselves into scale cocoons and survived the resulting decompression. They had even endured the vacuum—for a time—by dropping into deep hibernation. But the cold had killed them, eventually. Han had kept the hold in a sealed vacuum and near absolute zero the entire trip, and by the time they arrived on Eclipse, the voxyn were frozen solid. She had probed their molecular structures with the Force and found every cell in their bodies burst. She had confirmed her findings via ultrasonic probe and thermal scan, then performed a dozen different bioscans on their space-frozen carcasses to search out any lingering sign of life. Just to be certain, she had done it all again, and only after confirming her results had she cut their claws out of the Falcon’s durasteel deck. They had to be dead.

  Still, Cilghal was not taking chances—not with creatures that spat flesh-eating acid and stunned their prey with sonic blasts, creatures whose blood became a neurotoxin in most kinds of air, whose toe pads harbored a hundred deadly retroviruses. She was too fatigued to analyze the situation, too prone to mistakes lately to gamble with the lives of everyone on Eclipse. Cilghal backed quietly out the door, then slipped the comlink from her pocket and raised it to her li
ps.

  A plaintive Wookiee groan rolled out of the room, and she grew aware of a strange heaviness in the Force. With a start, she realized the sound she had heard was crying.

  Human crying.

  Cilghal peered through the door and saw a line of young Jedi standing on the other side of the room, looking through a transparisteel observation panel into the frozen tissue locker. At one end of the group stood Anakin, tall, lanky, and broad-shouldered in the way of human males as they crossed from adolescence into adulthood, recognizable even from behind by his sandy-brown tousled mane. Beside him, as always, stood Tahiri, small and svelte with short-cropped blond hair, feet customarily bare, her EV footwear in one hand and Anakin’s arm in the other. The Wookiee groan had come from the opposite end of the line, where russet-furred Lowbacca stood with Jaina Solo’s slender form wrapped into his hairy arm. Next to them stood Zekk and Tenel Ka, Zekk a wiry young man with shaggy black hair hanging over his collar, Tenel Ka a tall and willowy beauty with rust-colored hair and an arm amputated just above the elbow. And more or less in the center was the one Cilghal had heard crying, blond-haired Raynar Thul, standing alone with his fists pressed against the transparisteel, his shoulders rising and falling as he sobbed.

  Cilghal remained outside, trying to decide whether collecting yet another tissue sample justified the intrusion. The young Jedi Knights were a close-knit group, having spent many of their formative years studying at Luke’s Jedi academy on Yavin 4. Together, they had fought off Imperial kidnappers, Dark Jedi, ruthless crime organizations, and more hazards than the Mon Calamari healer could name. Whatever was grieving them, it did not seem right to trespass on their gathering now.

  She started to back away, but her presence had not gone unnoticed. Tenel Ka turned and fixed a pair of red-rimmed eyes on her.

  “Do not mind us,” she said. “We are not here to disturb your work.”

  Feeling the companions’ anguish through the Force but unsure of what to do about it, Cilghal entered the room and went to the closet where she kept the cryosuit she would need to collect her samples.