Star by Star Page 22

  “Okay,” Raynar said. “So what’s the good news?”

  “It’s a start.” Mara passed Ben to Luke, then looked to Cilghal. “You’re sure the queen is there? The ysalamiri couldn’t have come from another place?”

  It was Jacen who answered. “Not with those leaves in its stomach. If the leaves had come from somewhere else, the metal content would be far less.”

  “The ysalamiri ate on Myrkr shortly before its death,” Cilghal agreed. “And was eaten itself a short time later. I saw no sign of freezing or other preservation in the leaves.”

  The room fell eerily silent. The question before the group was as obvious as it was pressing, and the Jedi were well-enough attuned to each other to realize their next task was making a plan.

  “Let us dismiss any thought of a massive attack out of hand,” Ulaha Kore said. “Even if we could assemble a large-enough fleet—and we cannot—our probability of success is below single digits.”

  “And the mere attempt would telegraph our intentions,” Luke said. “We must think of a better way.”

  “A commando force,” Zekk said. “We sneak a small strike team in the back way—”

  “Not unless you’re better at it than Wraith Squadron,” Han interrupted. Before leaving Coruscant, he had stopped by the New Republic Defense Force medcenter to check on Wedge and found the general in a garrulous mood. “They’ve been trying to penetrate the frontier between Corellia and Vortex for six months. The Yuuzhan Vong have dovin basal interdictors everywhere; the Wraiths were pulled out of every hyperspace lane they tried. And the stretch between the Perlemian Trade Route and the Hydian Way was especially bad; they were jumped this side of the frontier.”

  “Now we know why,” Luke surmised. “The Yuuzhan Vong suspect we will discover this secret, and they’re prepared for us to take action.”

  “I think they’re counting on it,” Tahiri said. Despite her age—at just over fifteen, she was the youngest Jedi present—her comment commanded attention. Having survived a Yuuzhan Vong shaper’s attempt to turn her into a Jedi-hunting slave, she understood the Yuuzhan Vong better than anyone present. “They have a saying, ‘Let the enemy fight.’ I don’t think they’re trying to be fair.”

  “You are very right, Tahiri,” Alema said. The praise drew only an icy glare in response, but the Twi’lek pretended not to notice. She addressed herself to Luke and the senior Jedi. “On New Plympto, the Yuuzhan Vong always tried to anticipate our response and build a trap around it. You can be sure they’re looking for us now.”

  “Then we have to fool them,” Anakin said, speaking in his typical tone of teenage certainty. He turned to the younger Jedi gathered around him. “The Yuuzhan Vong want us to surrender, right? So we do—and let them ferry us across the frontier.”

  “Go on,” Luke said, deftly drawing attention back to the assembly’s more mature side. “We’re listening.”

  Anakin disengaged himself from Tahiri and stepped toward his uncle. “It’ll buy time for Talfaglio, too.”

  “That would be a plus,” Luke said. “How do we do this?”

  “You don’t,” Anakin said. “We do.”

  Han felt Lando’s hand on his arm even before he realized he was starting forward. Lando had been there when Leia finally laid into Han for nearly getting her killed at the droid demonstration. In no uncertain terms, she had told him that while she was glad to have him back, she would not tolerate overprotectiveness in a husband any more than she would in a Noghri bodyguard—who was certainly much better at it. The next time Han smothered her or one of their children with his deranged need to control, she had warned, he would find himself flying the Falcon alone. Han vowed to hear his younger son out, then stepped back and quietly thanked Lando for the reminder.

  Anakin looked back to his group. “We’ll have a traitor turn us over to the Yuuzhan Vong on the pretext of buying time for the Talfaglion hostages. We’ll set up a transfer for somewhere near Obroa-skai, let them cross the frontier, then take over the ship and fly to Myrkr.” He turned to his older sister. “I know Wedge—General Antilles—has let you fly a couple of captured Yuuzhan Vong vessels. Can you teach Zekk?”

  Jaina studied him suspiciously. “Why would I need to? You’re not doing something that crazy without me.”

  A look of distress came to Anakin’s face. “But you’re only on temporary leave. The Rogues could call you back anytime.”

  “Sure they could.” Jaina rolled her eyes; then her face grew hard in the same way Leia’s did when she would abide no argument. “If you go, I go.”

  “Me, too,” Tahiri said.

  Anakin frowned. “You? You’re too—”

  “If you say young, I’ll kick you where you really don’t want to be kicked,” Tahiri interrupted. “Nobody here knows the Yuuzhan Vong from the inside like I do. Can anyone else—except you, maybe—be sure they’d know a shaper laboratory? Can anyone else understand the language?”

  “Good point,” Jaina said. “We’ll need her help to run the ship.”

  Anakin frowned at his sister. “Can you fly a Yuuzhan Vong ship or not? If Wedge just had you put on the cognition hood or something—”

  “I’ve flown—and so has Tahiri, unless you’ve forgotten,” Jaina said. She was referring to Anakin’s narrow escape in the Yag’Dhul system a few months before, when, along with Corran Horn and Tahiri, he escaped an almost certain death by capturing a Yuuzhan Vong scouting ship. “Most of the piloting stuff is symbolic, but who knows about the rest? There’s more to this than flying.”

  “And what happens when they start hailing us?” Tahiri asked. “You’ll need to know what they’re saying—and how to answer.”

  She glanced around the room expectantly. When no one responded, Han bit his tongue and waited for his brother-in-law to shoot down the plan.

  Luke was very patient. Han counted the seconds, determined to heed his wife’s warning, yet just as determined to keep his family safe. All of it.

  Han made it to five seconds before his brother-in-law’s silence grew unbearable. “What are you waiting for, Luke?” Han shook off Lando’s hand and stepped into the Jedi circle. “Tell him why this isn’t going to work.”

  Anakin’s blue eyes darkened to angry amethyst. “Why don’t you tell me, Dad?”

  “All right, I will.” He spun toward his son. “It won’t work because …” Han was so angry he found it difficult to think of a reason. “Because you can’t be certain you’ll escape.”

  “Actually, I think I can—at least reasonably certain.” Despite the indignation in his eyes, Anakin’s voice remained calm. “I went behind Yuuzhan Vong lines to rescue Tahiri, and I have this.” He touched his lambent-modulated lightsaber. “But most of all, I know how they think.”

  “We know how they think,” Tahiri corrected.

  “You know how they think?” Han stormed. “They aren’t going to be thinking thud bugs at you.”

  Leia took his arm. “Han—”

  He shook her off. “And I’ll give you another reason. You can’t do it because it’s crazy.” He shook a finger in his son’s face and was vaguely surprised to realize he was shaking it at the height of his own nose. “Because you’re not going, that’s why.”

  “Han!” Leia pulled him away. “This isn’t your decision.”

  Han turned to scowl. “It sure isn’t Anakin’s!”

  When he turned back to Anakin, he was surprised to find his son glaring at him, more hurt than angry, yet unyielding and completely sure of himself. It was so teenage, so classically rebellious. But there was also a stoniness that even Han could not miss, a hardness born of battles already lost and won, tempered by the anguish of fallen comrades and missing friends. At seventeen, Anakin was as much a man as Han had been at thirty, had probably seen as much combat and spilled more blood than Han had in the Rebellion. And he was still so young.

  “Han, the decision is Luke’s,” Leia said. “Not Anakin’s, not yours.”

  She interposed herself
between father and son, then gently turned Han away, leaving him to wonder where he had been when his son, when all his children, had grown into adults. The answer, of course, was lost—lost and wallowing in his grief as the object of that grief would never have wanted.

  But the old Han Solo was back now, and the old Han Solo was not about to let the Yuuzhan Vong—or anyone else—take his family from him. He turned to Luke.

  “This isn’t a mission, it’s a sacrifice. You can’t send him in there—not Anakin, not any of them.”

  Luke studied the floor for a moment, then turned to Anakin. “It feels right, Anakin, but I’ll lead the strike team. You stay here.”

  Anakin’s face fell—and with it Han’s heart, but that did not stop him from feeling relieved. Luke had done this sort of thing before. Han had been there helping, and, despite the queasy look on Mara’s face, he knew Luke would come back—especially if Han went along to keep him out of trouble. He looked over to Mara to reassure her and saw that no reassurance was needed. Mara’s jaw was set and her eyes were hard, but there was a calmness in her expression that Han found difficult to understand—a knowledge of the danger and all it might cost her, and yet a stoic acceptance of fact. Somebody had to kill the voxyn, and if it had to be Luke, then it had to be.

  Anakin studied his uncle for moment, then managed a curt nod and stepped back into his group. He refused to meet his father’s eye. For a time Han thought Anakin would leave the chamber, but his son had grown into a man in so many more ways than he realized. Seeming to sense how his reaction would dictate that of his large circle of friends, Anakin remained with the group, ready to offer Luke his full support.

  After a tense moment of silence, Tenel Ka stepped forward, her usual Dathomir warrior’s dress now covered by the ubiquitous vacuum emergency suit still necessary everywhere on Eclipse. “Master Skywalker, forgive me for speaking so candidly, but have you lost your mind?”

  The young woman’s customary bluntness filled the room with uneasy chuckles.

  Even Luke smiled. “I don’t think so, why?”

  “Because you must know that Anakin’s plan would never work for you,” she said. “It depends on the Yuuzhan Vong taking us for granted, and that would never happen with any Jedi Master. Even if they did not kill you on the spot, they would take every precaution to render you helpless.”

  “She has a point,” Ganner said. “The leader has to be someone they won’t be too worried about—and someone they’ll believe could be duped by a traitor.” He flashed a white smile beneath his mustache. “Someone like me.”

  Even Han could sense the reluctance of the other Jedi.

  When no one volunteered to join the handsome Jedi Knight, Jacen said, “Maybe none of us should be going.”

  This drew a frown from both of his siblings, and Anakin said, “Jacen, this is no time to stand around debating good and evil. Either we kill those things, or those things kill the Jedi.”

  “And if we destroy the queen, the Yuuzhan Vong will retaliate against New Republic citizens even more severely,” Jacen replied. “Do we want that on our heads?”

  “Jacen, the blood is not on our hands,” Alema said, lekku trembling angrily. “It is on theirs.”

  “A convenient position, but will it save more lives than it costs?” Ulaha asked. “As Jedi, that must be our only concern.”

  And they were off, voices rising and gestures growing sharp as they argued the same point they had been contesting since the destruction of the Nebula Chaser. Alema spoke most forcefully against Jacen, no doubt because she could not bear the burden of New Plympto’s destruction and her sister’s death. Ulaha and Jacen led the argument for Jedi responsibility; they were supported by a surprisingly large number, including Streen, Cilghal, and, most astonishingly, the Barabel hatchmates.

  In the end, the debate grew so heated that C-3PO had to be summoned to take a crying Ben to his nursery, and Luke was forced to call repeatedly for quiet. Finally, he used the Force to project his voice directly into the mind of everyone present, and a silence as tense as it was embarrassed fell over the room.

  Luke glanced over the Jedi calmly, then spoke in barely a whisper. “It comes down to a simple question: How do we fight a brutal, evil enemy without growing brutal and evil ourselves?”

  “This is so,” Tenel Ka confirmed.

  Luke looked at her for a moment, then shook his head wearily. “I wish I had the answer, but the Force has refused to guide me in this—as it has all of you, I think.” He waited a moment, and when no one denied this, continued, “What has grown clear to me is that the time has come for us to choose one path. I assume there is no one among us who believes we should actually surrender to the Yuuzhan Vong?”

  Though Jacen alarmed Han by briefly looking as though he might disagree, he remained as silent as the rest of the Jedi.

  Luke nodded. “As I thought. So, do we destroy the voxyn and risk more retaliation? Or do we accept our losses in the hope that doing so will save the New Republic many more lives than it costs us?”

  “What are you asking for?” Ganner demanded. “A vote?”

  “Your opinion,” Luke clarified. “Whatever I decide, I want to know that everyone has been heard.”

  Ganner considered this for a moment, then nodded. “All right, I say we go after the queen.”

  “Accept our losses,” the first Barabel, Tesar Sebatyne, rasped.

  His female hatchmates echoed his sentiment, and Luke started around the circle. Though Han felt in his heart that they should go after the queen, he could not help giving a silent cheer every time someone supported accepting their losses. Tenel Ka had been right about a Jedi Master not being able to lead the strike team, which meant that Anakin—and no doubt Jaina, too—would be trusting their lives to a plan almost as foolhardy as trying to break Leia out of the Death Star’s detention center. If the Jedi opted for accepting their losses, at least he and Leia would be close by in the Falcon to keep an eye on their children—until a pack of voxyn caught them. Sooner or later, somebody was going to have to destroy that queen. Han just did not see why it had to be his children.

  By the time the question came around to Leia’s end of the circle, opinion was divided almost evenly, with a slight edge toward destroying the voxyn.

  Lando leaned close to Han. “You can breathe easy, old buddy. Leia and Mara will want to go after the queen, but Cilghal and Streen are against it.”

  Though Han knew no gambler in the galaxy could read faces as well as Lando Calrissian, he did not feel as relieved as he might have. The way Leia looked at him made clear enough how she felt about Anakin’s injured pride, but there was more to it than her anger. Han was being selfish and she knew it—and she knew what his selfishness might cost the Jedi in the end.

  “Han?”

  Caught by surprise, Han looked from Leia to her brother.

  “Yeah?”

  “Your opinion?”

  “Mine?”

  “You’re part of this,” Luke said. “You have a say.”

  Han glanced back to Leia and, seeing the silent plea in her eyes, wondered how she could be so strong.

  “Okay, give me a minute.”

  He closed his eyes and, wishing someone could teach him one of those Jedi relaxation techniques, tried to calm himself with a few deep breaths. It didn’t help, not really. He knew why his son wanted to lead this mission, why Anakin had fought in every major Jedi battle since the invasion began, why he had charged off alone to rescue Tahiri.

  Chewbacca.

  No matter how much Anakin claimed otherwise, it all came down to Chewbacca.

  “Dad,” Anakin said. “Just do what you think’s right.”

  “I didn’t need to hear that—I really didn’t.” Han opened his eyes and found his son standing in front of him. He started to take the boy by his shoulders, but realized how ridiculous he would look spreading his arms so wide and clasped a forearm instead. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  �
�I know.” The hurt in Anakin’s face was instantly replaced by an alarming brashness. “But I’m going to.”

  With the uneasy feeling that he had seen the same cocky look in the mirror thirty years before, Han turned and found Leia staring at him openmouthed.

  He shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin. “Kids. What can you do?”

  “I take it you favor destroying the queen,” Luke said.

  He finished the polling, which came out exactly as Lando had predicted—except that, with Han behind the mission, Luke decided to go after the voxyn queen.

  “I expect everyone present to support this decision,” he said. “We’ll do what we can to protect the innocent, but we will be sending a strike team to Myrkr.”

  Jacen turned to his brother. “Then let me be the first to volunteer.”

  “You?” No one looked more surprised than Anakin. “But you’re against it.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Jacen said. “Nobody is as good with animals as I am. If you have to track down the queen or something, you’re going to need me.”

  “When he’s right, he’s right, Little Brother,” Jaina said, stepping to her twin’s side. “And I believe we’ve already agreed that I’m coming.”

  “Like I had a choice.” Anakin smiled, then turned to the other young Jedi around him. “Anyone who wants to volunteer, see me later—after we’ve put together some kind of plan.”

  Han felt like his knees would buckle. All three of them were going, all of his children on the same crazy mission—and he wouldn’t be there to protect them, couldn’t even consider going along because he wasn’t a Jedi.