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  Daala paused for a moment, then asked, “You’re talking about Cha Niathal?”

  “Of course,” Jag replied. “Tahiri and Admiral Niathal both changed sides. Do you really think you can put one on trial and let the other live in peace? The public will think you’re repaying Niathal for helping you become Chief of State. I hear the Senate already thinks so.”

  “And it won’t matter that they’re wrong.” Daala nodded, then pulled a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with fizzee. “Perception is everything.”

  Jag nodded. “That’s the nature of democracy.” To his surprise, Daala seemed genuinely concerned. Perhaps there was hope of dismissing the charges against Tahiri after all. “When you accepted the post, you promised to make the Galactic Alliance a just society for all beings. You can’t do that by using the courts as a political weapon.”

  Daala turned, then sipped her fizzee and asked, “So what do you recommend?”

  “Dismiss the charges against Tahiri and abolish the Jedi court,” Jagged said. “If a Jedi deserves to be charged, do it through the normal court system. If you truly want the Jedi to obey the same laws that everyone obeys, it’s the only way to make that work.”

  Daala considered this for a moment, then said, “That’s certainly one way to approach the problem. I’ll give it some thought.” She took another drink of her fizzee, then looked at her chrono. “If we’re done here, I have to be back in my office for a staff meeting in ten minutes.”

  Jag bit back the urge to press the matter by revealing what he knew about the Mandalorians. He was tempted to tell her that she was a fool if she believed that hiring Mandalorians was going to accomplish anything other than getting a bunch of people killed. But Daala had at least promised to reconsider her approach to dealing with the Jedi—and that was more than he had actually expected to achieve.

  Instead he said, “There is one other thing we need to discuss.” He reached into his tunic pocket and withdrew the parasite droid Jaina had given him, then went to the beverage cabinet and laid it on the serving counter in front of Daala. “Do you know what this is?”

  Daala picked up the droid and raised it to the light, then said, “It isn’t ours, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not that I wouldn’t love to eavesdrop on you and the Moffs, but, frankly, your sweeps have been too thorough.”

  “I’ll send my security officer your compliments,” Jagged said. “But this is ours.”

  Daala raised a puzzled brow. “And you’re showing it to me so I know what to look for?”

  Jag smiled. “We’re not bugging you,” he said. “This is how Javis Tyrr has been getting his stories from inside the Jedi Temple.”

  Daala scowled. “I know you don’t expect me to believe that you’ve been helping him.”

  “Hardly.” Jag slipped the parasite droid back into his tunic pocket. “Lecersen has.”

  Daala’s eyes lit with instant understanding. “The filthy Hutt slime! I should have realized.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Jag said. “But the past is the past. The question is, what do we do about it now?”

  Daala’s expression went blank. “We, Head of State? He’s your Moff.”

  “A Moff who’s been playing you and the Jedi against each other,” Jag pointed out. “And I’m pretty sure it’s not just Lecersen. There are a lot of Moffs who have reason to strike at you, me, and the Jedi.”

  Daala’s green eyes grew so cold they almost went blue. “Then I suggest you handle them, Fel.” She banged her glass down on the cabinet so hard that the fizzee splashed onto the CrystaClear surface. “If you like, I can put you in touch with a very good bounty hunter who would just love the job.”

  Now it was Jag’s turn to frown in confusion. “You’re going to continue this vendetta against the Jedi?” he asked. “Even knowing that it’s the Moffs who have been stirring up trouble?”

  Daala’s face turned stormy. “Let me assure you that bringing the Jedi to heel is my own idea, Head of State, and it’s anything but a vendetta. It’s high time that someone brings these vigilantes under government control and puts a stop to their incessant power struggles.”

  “Power struggles?” Jagged gasped. “Is that who you think the Jedi are fighting? Themselves?”

  “Head of State, a Sith is just a Jedi who’s gone off his meds,” Daala declared. “Why do you think Dark Lords keep popping up?”

  Jag shook his head. “Chief Daala, you are so tragically wrong,” he said. “The Sith are real, they’re out there, and the Jedi are the only ones who can turn them back.”

  “At least we agree on those first two points. The Sith are real, and they’re definitely out there.” Daala checked her chrono again, then started for the door. “But if we really want to protect ourselves from the Sith, it’s the Jedi we need to watch. History has proven that.”

  SHE CALLED HERSELF ABELOTH, AND SHE LIVED IN A CAVE ON THE SIDE of a volcano because she said the plants there were not so voracious. But Abeloth loved the water. Every morning, she would take the search party down to the crimson river, and the entire group would swim and splash for hours. Then, once they were exhausted, they would crawl out of the water and bask on the beach, alongside the huge drendek lizards that had come down to take the sun on their green, outstretched wings. And while the party was resting, no one needed to worry about eel vines snaking out of the river to snare unmoving ankles, or a hedge of smogbrush filling the air with a cloud of poison pollen, or even a swarm of thirsty fangballs tumbling up from behind. When Abeloth was near, the plants never attacked.

  Vestara knew she should have been alarmed by that, but she wasn’t. The truth was, she was too grateful for any respite to be suspicious of it. The search party’s Sith discipline remained strong enough that they felt compelled to split up and spend at least a few hours a day trying to find Ship, and the sheer terror of those patrols was so wearying that no one cared why they were safe when they were with Abeloth. When you saw a mat of dead leaves suddenly chomp off the foot that had just stepped on it, or heard a companion scream because a beautiful white flower had just squirted acid into her eyes, all you really wanted was to be back in the cave with Abeloth.

  It was still before high sun when Vestara felt Lady Rhea’s Force summons. She glanced over to find Ahri still lying on his back with closed eyes. The azure tint that had come to his lavender skin beneath the blue sun only made him all the more gorgeous, and Vestara was grateful to Lady Rhea for suggesting that she spend more time with him. In addition to being easy to look at, he was her best friend, and his Master was so pleased by their obvious closeness that he had finally stopped beating poor Ahri. It did not even bother Vestara that Xal clearly hoped their friendship would prove useful in spying on Lady Rhea; as long as he believed something valuable might come of the relationship, he was unlikely to seek revenge for the embarrassment Vestara had caused him on the approach to this strange planet.

  Without opening his eyes, Ahri said, “She’s early today. Are we going farther out?”

  “Not that I know of,” Vestara answered. Lady Rhea had warned her to start expecting such innocent-sounding questions; Xal would want to determine how willing Vestara was to discuss her Master’s plans with Ahri. “Lady Rhea still thinks Ship is hiding on the other side of the cave ridge.”

  Ahri opened his eyes and propped himself on an elbow. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’d better hurry.” Vestara knew he was asking if she could still feel Ship, but Lady Rhea had instructed her to keep secret the unhappy truth—that she had not felt a hint of Ship in the Force since the day he had led them to Abeloth’s cave. She snatched Ahri’s tunic out of the sand and threw it at him. “If we’re the last ones there again, we’ll end up out on a flank.”

  Ahri was instantly on his feet, using the Force to catch the shirt and lower it over his upraised arms. Vestara also dressed with the aid of the Force, and in less than a minute they were joining the rest of the search party. Lady Rhea was already stand
ing on the large boulder she used as a speaking dais. Fortunately, a lot of people had been caught off-guard by the early summons and were still straggling in, so she barely seemed to notice as Ahri and Vestara took their places.

  But Master Xal, standing on the riverbank behind the boulder, studied the pair with a narrow-eyed smirk that suggested he believed their relationship had advanced further than was the case. Happy to buy Ahri another beating-free week by letting Xal believe what he wished, Vestara forced a blush and let her gaze slide down toward the foot of the boulder, where Abeloth stood looking out on the gathering Sith as though she were the one in charge of the search party.

  Abeloth looked lovely and more or less human, but today her hair was brown and long instead of honey-colored and shoulder-length, as it had been when Vestara and Ahri had found her in her cave. Her nose was also a bit longer and straighter than usual, and her eyes were a bit more silver than gray, with a definite upward slant at the outer corners. Abeloth’s face changed like that, seeming to take hints from the appearance of anyone with whom she spent time. And somehow it only served to make her more enchanting, as though each new detail deepened the luster of her beauty.

  So enraptured by her radiance was Vestara that she did not realize Lady Rhea had begun speaking until Ahri nudged her.

  “Why’s she so flamed?” he whispered. “It’s not like we haven’t been looking.”

  Vestara covered her distraction by patting the air to quiet him. “Shhh.”

  Ahri frowned in confusion, then seemed to notice her gaze sliding away from Abeloth and rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Focus,” he hissed. “You’re about to get yourself put on point.”

  Given her consistent failure to locate Ship in the Force, Vestara knew that was all too likely already. She nodded and returned her attention to the top of the boulder.

  “…have failed,” Lady Rhea was saying. Although her angry gaze was hardly focused on Vestara alone, it did not exclude her, either. “Gather your things. We meet the shuttle in two hours.”

  The news hit Vestara like a body blow. She was the one who had guided the mission after Ship, and if they returned to Kesh without the wayward vessel, the failure would reflect as badly on her as Lady Rhea. But it was Abeloth’s voice, not Vestara’s, that cracked the stunned silence that followed. “Without Ship?”

  Lady Rhea’s tone softened—as did everyone’s when they spoke to Abeloth. “The Crusader is running low on fuel and stores. If we stay much longer, we won’t be leaving at all.”

  The explanation only seemed to alarm Abeloth all the more. “But you can’t leave without Ship.” She turned to face the body of the search party, as though a handful of mere Sabers could overrule a Sith Lord. “Lord Vol will be disappointed in you.”

  Lady Rhea seemed as surprised by the reaction as Vestara. Her eyes grew confused for a moment, then her expression hardened as she finally seemed to gather her thoughts. “Didn’t you tell us you had been marooned here for thirty years, Abeloth?”

  Abeloth nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Then I would think you’d be dying to get back to civilization.”

  “And I am.” Abeloth continued to look at the rest of the search party. “But I’m only thinking of you, my friends. Your Circle of Lords will not look kindly on this failure.”

  “I’ll handle them.” Lady Rhea glared down on Abeloth with a look of quiet appraisal, then asked, “You haven’t changed your mind about wanting to return to Kesh with us, have you?”

  “Not at all,” Abeloth said. Lady Rhea’s expression grew noticeably softer as the castaway turned to face her again. “I’m as eager as you are to leave this place.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Lady Rhea’s smile managed to retain some of its predatory edge, and Vestara could almost read the thoughts flashing through her Master’s mind: Abeloth would make up for Ship’s loss.

  Enthralled as they were, every Sith in the search party knew that Abeloth was no ordinary woman—if she was a woman at all. Sometimes it seemed to Vestara that Abeloth was no more than a swirling halo of Force energy that presented itself as a woman because its true form could not be comprehended by their mortal minds. But other times, Abeloth seemed exactly what she claimed to be: a lonely castaway so desperate for companionship that she refused to be alone, a woman driven so near to madness by her long isolation that she had assumed she was hallucinating when Vestara and Ahri entered her cave to rescue Xal.

  Of course, there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense about either possibility. First, Abeloth had never explained exactly how she had imprisoned Xal—a Sith Master—in a cocoon. She claimed to have no idea why Vestara had sensed Ship on the ridge near her home, yet accepted as perfectly logical the fact that it had been Ship that had led them to her in the first place. And when Vestara had inquired about the tentacle-thing she had glimpsed on the cave ceiling, Abeloth’s only reply had been that they had nothing to fear from any animal on this planet.

  As Vestara was considering all this—and waiting for the strange contest of wills between Abeloth and Lady Rhea to be resolved—she felt the touch of a familiar presence.

  You should never have come, Ship said inside her mind. Now you can never leave.

  Vestara swung her gaze down the river, then gasped aloud when she saw a familiar winged-ball silhouette hovering in the distance, just above the water.

  “Vestara?” Ahri asked, turning toward her. “What is it?”

  “It’s—” Vestara started to point, then saw Abeloth watching and realized that the castaway was eavesdropping. Besides, Lady Rhea would not appreciate being drawn into another futile Ship-chase when she had already given the order to leave. Vestara dropped her gaze. “Nothing.”

  “What was nothing?” Abeloth’s voice was a cold blade cutting through Vestara’s lie. “You saw something downriver?”

  “I thought so.” Vestara sneaked a glance down the river and, much to her relief, saw that the tiny silhouette had already vanished. “But I was—”

  Vestara was interrupted by the chime of Lady Rhea’s comlink. She turned and saw her Master pulling the wand from her belt, at the same time raising her free hand for silence. Lady Rhea had barely thumbed the activation switch before Baad Walusari’s excited voice began to sound from the tiny speaker.

  “A thousand meters at bearing one sixty from you,” the Keshiri said. “Ship just crossed the river and seems to be headed for the shuttle clearing.”

  Lady Rhea’s eyes widened in shock. “Ship is letting you track it?”

  “When it’s above the canopy, we have a heat signature,” Walusari explained. “When it’s in the jungle, we have a damage path. As long as Ship is moving, we can track it.”

  “Good. Keep me updated.” Lady Rhea clicked off her comlink and turned to Vestara. “See if you can force it to return to us.”

  Without awaiting Vestara’s acknowledgment, Lady Rhea drew her weapons and began to issue orders. By the time Vestara had located Ship in the Force again, the search party was deployed across a thousand-meter front and Force-running across the river. Abeloth fell in behind Lady Rhea, crossing the water as easily as the Sith Lord herself, and Vestara took advantage of her presence to concentrate on Ship instead of plants.

  Vestara pressed down on Ship’s presence with all the willpower she could summon, commanding him to return to the river and await her order. Ship wanted to obey—she could feel that much, even with her attention divided between trying to track the wayward vessel and using the Force to keep her feet bouncing across the water.

  But there was something defeated and lost in Ship’s spirit, like an uvak with severed wing tendons. He was … afraid, crushed beneath a will strong beyond Vestara’s ability to imagine. To obey her was to defy it, a power that had reached across space and time to summon Ship for no other reason than it was lonely.

  Vestara could see how hopeless it was to think she had the strength of will to break the grasp of such a being. Stil
l, she continued to cling to Ship’s presence, if only because that would help her locate the meditation sphere if Walusari and the Crusader lost his trail. Once they caught up, Lady Rhea would be the one demanding Ship’s obedience.

  And that thought was what nearly got Vestara killed.

  She was almost across the river when a whirlpool opened ahead and swallowed Lady Rhea whole. With her attention focused on Ship instead of the dangers of the situation, Vestara was taken completely by surprise, and she found herself stepping into the same swirling pit before Abeloth caught her arm.

  “Siphon reed,” she said, pushing Vestara away from the whirlpool. “Keep going or it will get you, too.”

  Most apprentices in Vestara’s situation would probably have done exactly as Abeloth instructed, reasoning that it was a lot easier to get a new Master than a new life. Ahri would certainly have been happy to leave his Master to be digested by almost any plant on the planet. But if Lady Rhea were gone, Xal would become the mission’s new commander, and that meant a death just as certain as being swallowed by the siphon reed—though probably far slower and more humiliating.

  So Vestara jerked her arm from Abeloth’s grasp, then ignited her lightsaber and let herself sink beneath the river’s surface. The water was so full of crimson silt that she was blinded almost instantly. Filmy ribbons of wet cellulose wrapped themselves around her legs, squeezing her calves so tightly that her feet and ankles began to swell. She bent her knees and, unsure whether she was pulling the weeds up to her or herself down to them, drew her parang and began to slash at the plants.

  At the same time, Vestara reached out in the Force and felt Lady Rhea to the right and a little bit below her. She lashed out with her lightsaber, water hissing and bubbling as the heat of her crimson blade turned it to steam. She felt the weapon slice through something the size of her own waist. She brought the blade back in the other direction and found another of the giant stalks, then quickly began to whirl, cutting away half a dozen more before the area seemed clear.