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  Alema Rar blocked his way and pointed her blaster at his face, then pulled the trigger as he moved to step past. There was a loud pop of a tripping safety breaker, then she cried out and dropped the smoking pistol.

  Lando kicked the weapon aside. “You see? I’ve thought of everything.” He snatched Raynar’s blaster out of his hand, popped a retaining clip, reversed the power pack, adjusted the discharge setting, and dropped Tesar with a stun bolt. “Reversed power packs—standard safety precaution, at least when you’re turning traitor on a company of Jedi.”

  Anakin and several others popped their retaining clips, but even Jedi were not that quick. Duman Yaght’s protector caught Anakin in a leg scissors and whipped him to the floor, and Anakin found himself struggling to continue his count beneath a rain of blows.

  The rest of the Yuuzhan Vong were also attacking, forgoing their coufees to lash out at the blasters in the hands of their foes. Even Duman Yaght joined the fray, leaping up to hurl Tahiri into an escape pod hatch. Blaster and power pack flew in two directions, and she wisely let herself slump to the deck.

  The commander turned to Lando, pointed to the inner hatch. “Open it!”

  Lando stepped forward, his hand reaching for the override. By Anakin’s count, they were at twenty-five seconds. The two war droids would be searching the bottom of the shuttle for a place to anchor. Jacen sensed Anakin’s worry, and Ulaha stepped forward to block the path, a long-fingered Bith hand flicking forward as she opened herself to the Force.

  Jacen screamed first. Anakin experienced an instant of hot pain and thought his brother had been wounded, but then he heard Ulaha’s whistle and saw the Bith stumbling forward, the handle of a coufee protruding from her back. Shock shot through the strike team like a stun bolt. No one had seen the attack coming, and the sudden pain dazed them badly. Anakin took two hard blows and felt the others reeling, too, and then bodies began to fall.

  Across the deck, Ulaha lay facedown, too pained to scream, her fingernails raking the durasteel floor. Lando stood above her, dark eyes dazed with horror, but too much the gambler to show anything more. His knee flexed as though he might kneel down to pull out the coufee. Then he caught himself and stepped over the anguished Jedi and opened the inner hatch.

  Another fist crashed down on Anakin, this time summoning misty shadows of unconsciousness. He forgot his count, but it had to be thirty—or as close as they were going to get. The floor began to reverberate with heavy footfalls, the rest of the boarding party rushing onto the transfer deck. Anakin reached out with the Force and hurled a discarded blaster pistol into his attacker’s head and was rewarded with another blow, then the tip of a coufee touched his throat.

  “Done, Jeedai!” the warrior hissed. “Understand?”

  Anakin did not even dare to nod.

  Duman Yaght barked an order. A pair of Yuuzhan Vong lifted Ulaha off the floor and passed her into the air lock, the coufee still protruding from her back. A familiar hollowness came to Anakin then—the same hollowness he had felt on Sernpidal, when he had been forced to raise the Falcon’s nose and leave Chewie behind—and a cold fear rose inside him. They had barely made contact, and he had already gotten someone injured. Maybe this mission was too much for them. Maybe everyone was going to get killed just like Chewbacca—Lowie, Tahiri, even Jacen and Jaina. Maybe it would be his fault.

  Jacen reached out to him, gently laving him with the emotions of the others. There was fear, anger, guilt. Anakin could not tell who was feeling what, except for Alema Rar.

  Alema seemed to be relieved. No one had actually died yet, and she had made it this far without breaking down in terror. Things were going pretty well, it seemed to her.

  Duman Yaght’s voice sounded from somewhere beyond Anakin’s feet. “I must admit, Fitzgibbon Lane, that I now understand why you destroyed their lightsabers. Had they gotten to those … well, let us say I am happy they were disintegrated.”

  A pair of Yuuzhan Vong jerked Anakin to his feet, and he saw the commander standing with Lando as the boarding party lined the Jedi up for transfer. Anakin fixed his stare on Lando, wondering if there was not some way for the silky-tongued gambler to keep Ulaha aboard the Lady Luck.

  Lando caught Anakin staring at him and allowed his gaze to linger a moment, then turned back to Duman Yaght. “It’s all in the planning, but next time, I want some warning. If we catch them during a sleep cycle—”

  “You will have your villip,” the Yuuzhan Vong interrupted. “That is all I can promise.”

  Anakin’s guards pushed him into the air lock. He stumbled on the threshold, but kept his gaze turned over his shoulder. He knew there was no safe way for Lando to retrieve Ulaha, but Lando Calrissian had a way of doing the impossible. Lando had spent his youth outwitting Imperial agents and swindling the deadliest criminals in the galaxy, and he had been rescuing the Solo children and their parents for longer than Anakin had been alive. Surely, Lando Calrissian could outwit one ambitious Yuuzhan Vong.

  Lando met Anakin’s gaze again. A haunted and fearful look came to his eyes, then Duman Yaght said something that required a laugh, and Lando had to turn his back.

  EIGHTEEN

  Instead of taking the sanibuffed corridor to the Errant Venture’s parade deck, where two dozen eager academy students stood waiting to display their Force skills, Luke and his companions followed a freshly preened Booster Terrik into a lift tube and ascended directly to the bridge. The Star Destroyer could orbit Eclipse only so long before it risked exposing the base’s location, so the last thing anyone in the group wanted was to spend time watching the HoloNet. Unfortunately, they had just received word that Nom Anor was about to address the senate regarding the Talfaglion hostages, and that Borsk Fey’lya himself had asked both Wedge Antilles and Garm Bel Iblis to attend. There could be no doubt that something major was about to happen, and that it would be of great importance to the Jedi.

  Booster led them along the back of the bridge into the ship’s comm center, where an old Imperial holoprojector sat at the far end of a conference table littered with datapads, science projects, and flimsiplast dye-paintings. In addition to Luke and Booster, there were Corran and Mirax Horn, Han and Leia, R2-D2 and C-3PO, and, fussing discontentedly in Mara’s arms, Ben. Tionne and Kam Solusar were on the parade deck with their students, explaining that Master Skywalker was looking forward to seeing them very much and would be along soon.

  Luke had not yet heard how Corran and Mirax had escaped from the voxyn on Corellia. Their story had been interrupted by news of Nom Anor’s address, but they claimed it was nothing too exciting, save that they would need to find some way of quietly reimbursing Corellian Transport Services for a badly corroded hovertaxi.

  Ben grew more disgruntled as the group gathered around the transceiver pad. He was normally the most imperturbable of babies—but there were times when he simply could not be consoled. Now, as R2-D2 tuned the ancient transceiver to the senate holoband, Ben broke into a fit of wailing. Luke felt Mara reaching out through the Force to calm him. When that did not help, he did so himself. Ben only cried harder. Mara sighed heavily and turned to take the baby into the next room.

  Leia intercepted her. “Let me. I really don’t need to see this.”

  Mara nodded and passed Ben over.

  The infant calmed almost instantly.

  Luke and Mara exchanged surprised glances, both feeling a little distressed that they had not been able to comfort their son themselves, but knowing there was more to it than that.

  “I was thinking about Anakin,” Leia said, her eyes fixed on Ben’s face. “I was watching Mara and wishing there had been more time for me to hold him when he was this age.”

  Luke smiled and turned back to the holopad, where the cam was zooming in on a figure in the Grand Convocation Chamber.

  To Viqi Shesh’s eye, Nom Anor looked too certain of himself. Though Fey’lya had denied him the privilege of appearing in warrior’s garb, the executor carried himself tall and haughtily, al
l but deaf to the taunts of the jeering senators, his one eye fixed on the high councilors’ dais. He wore a shimmering robe of living glistaweb, nearly as proof against blaster bolts as vonduun crab armor, but far more innocuous—at least to those who did not know the secret of its charge-neutralizing fibers.

  Nom Anor stepped to the center of the speaker’s platform and waited for silence. It would be a long wait, Viqi knew. After Fey’lya’s public declarations of support for the Jedi, the Jedi-lovers were content to wait for the Bothan’s signal before they stopped heckling. Never one to miss a chance to bully an enemy, Fey’lya did not give Nom Anor a chance to correct his mistake. He leaned forward, peering down from behind his chief of state’s console, and spoke into the microphone.

  “You asked for this audience.” Fey’lya’s amplified voice reverberated through the chamber, quieting the hecklers. “Have you come to explain the Talfaglion hostages?”

  Nom Anor’s now-empty eye socket twitched. “Hardly. You understand the situation. I have come to inform you the warmaster has extended the deadline for the Jedi surrender.”

  The chamber burst into an astonished rustle. Viqi was as shocked as everyone else, for the warmaster was not the type to yield to Fey’lya’s empty threats. Perhaps Nom Anor was playing some game of his own. Now that Fey’lya had thrown his support behind the Jedi, perhaps the executor believed he could strike a deal with the appeasers. Such a plan would have to be stopped and quickly, or it might be Nom Anor instead of her who replaced Fey’lya when Tsavong Lah’s killers finally attacked. She did not understand what was taking the assassins so long. Most of the opportunities she had listed for them were already past, and so far she had not heard of even a suspicious loiterer near the chief of state.

  Not waiting for the commotion to fade, Viqi activated her own microphone. “How do you explain this sudden attack of conscience, Mr. Ambassador?”

  Nom Anor’s expression remained far too smug. “The warmaster has come to realize it may be difficult for the New Republic to comply with his orders on short notice.” He paused and turned away from the high councilors’ dais to look directly into the galleries. “Last night, a concerned citizen turned over seventeen young Jedi—”

  The convocation chamber burst into such an uproar that it was impossible to hear the rest of Nom Anor’s statement. Viqi fell back in her chair, as stunned as the others in the room, and began to wonder how such a thing could happen. No bounty hunter in the galaxy could just fly out and collect seventeen Jedi—she doubted that even a company of bounty hunters could do it.

  To restore order, Fey’lya was forced to darken the chamber, and even then he had to wait several minutes before he could make himself heard enough to order the sergeant at arms to have the security droids remove any senator who continued to yell. When light was finally restored, the Bothan’s ears were flattened, and a long ridge of hair was standing along the back of his neck.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  Viqi was inclined to agree, as was most of the senate. A rising murmur threatened to crest into another uproar, until the security droids brought the noise under control by issuing stern warnings about decibel levels.

  Nom Anor sneered. “I have a list.” He made a show of consulting a sheet of what looked like the shed skin of a snake, then said, “The leader is Ganner Rhysode. His assistants seem to be Tesar Sebatyne and a Wookiee named Lowbacca.”

  A plaintive howl echoed down from the Wookiee gallery, and a security droid was slapped out of the air by a hairy claw.

  “The Bith Jedi Ulaha Kore was wounded resisting capture, and I certainly recognize the Solo name.”

  “Solo?” Wedge Antilles gasped. Along with Garm Bel Iblis, he was standing behind Fey’lya’s seat for some reason Viqi did not yet understand. “You have a Solo?”

  The chamber fell so quiet that the next question, from General Bel Iblis, would have carried to the top gallery even without being picked up by Fey’lya’s microphone. “Which one? Anakin or the twins?”

  The smug look vanished from Nom Anor’s face. “Twins?” He quickly forced a sneer, but, to Viqi, the expression looked more sick than snide. “We have the three young ones.”

  The two generals glanced at each other with fallen faces, and Fey’lya’s ears drooped, but only Viqi seemed to perceive Nom Anor’s subtle shift of attitude. She did not know what significance twins had to the Yuuzhan Vong, but it seemed clear enough to her that there was one—and that, with a little help from her, Nom Anor would look like a fool to Tsavong Lah for not realizing it.

  Viqi leaned forward and glared at the Yuuzhan Vong as though challenging his claim. “Jacen and Jaina are twins, Mr. Ambassador.” She leaned back, then added with a disdainful smirk, “It’s common knowledge. They’re twins, just like their mother and Luke Skywalker.”

  Nom Anor’s good eye narrowed, and he glared at her in open anger. “It does not matter what they are.” He forced himself to look back to Fey’lya. “What I came here to say, what the warmaster wishes me to say, is that he is not unreasonable. He will spare the Talfaglion hostages as long as the New Republic continues to turn over its Jedi.”

  Fey’lya rose from his seat. “Never!”

  Nom Anor ignored him and turned to the gallery. “A like number every …”

  His microphone suddenly went dead, preventing his last three words from reaching the senate gallery.

  Viqi keyed her own microphone. “A like number every ten standard days. You have the right to know, whether the chief of state wants you to or not.”

  Her words instantly had an inflammatory effect, causing such a heated exchange that the security droids actually began to chase a handful of senators toward the exits with sting bolts. Fey’lya pressed a button on his console and rose, his voice now reverberating from both the chamber’s public-address system and the individual conferencing consoles.

  “What the chief of state wants you to know, whether Councilor Shesh wishes it or not, is how the Yuuzhan Vong conduct their diplomacy.”

  Mif Kumas, the senate’s sergeant at arms, appeared at the edge of the chamber floor, his big Calibop wings fluttering madly as he struggled to keep pace with the three big defense droids used to deal with serious matters in the senate. Fey’lya glanced in Viqi’s direction just long enough to bare his fangs, and she suddenly knew the chief of state remained alive not because of Tsavong Lah’s tardiness in ordering the kill, but because the assassins had failed. Blood running cold, she calmly stood and turned to leave the high councilors’ dais.

  Fey’lya touched his control board, and his voice sounded from her conferencing console. “Going somewhere, Councilor?”

  Viqi lifted her chin and met his violet eyes as steadily as she was able. “I have a personal need.”

  He smiled wickedly. “Stay. This won’t take long, and I’m sure you will find it most … enlightening.”

  Faced with the prospect of being publicly stunned into submission by Kumas’s protection droids or maintaining at least a plausible pretense of her innocence, she returned to her seat and tried to pretend she did not feel the thoughtful gazes of the two generals boring into her.

  “I will trust you to make this fast.”

  “Of course. A quick kill is safest.” Fey’lya touched a key, once again feeding his microphone into the public-address system, then turned back to Nom Anor. “Recently, a squad of Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators made an attempt on my life.”

  A half-doubtful murmur filled the chamber, and Viqi’s stomach grew so qualmish she feared her “personal need” would soon become legitimate.

  Fey’lya raised his hands. “There are certainly some who will view this as a cynical ploy to garner political advantage, but I assure you that is not the case.” He glared down at Nom Anor, who had finally noticed the droids and Calibop approaching behind him. “My only desire is to make certain the appeasers in this body understand who they are dealing with. To that end, I have brought two men to substantiate this attack, a pair of gen
erals whose honesty is beyond reproach and who—as many of you know—bear me no particular good faith.”

  He motioned the generals forward, and Wedge Antilles leaned to the microphone. “It was a well-planned attack.”

  General Bel Iblis was next. “Unfortunately, we were engaged in classified work and the details must remain secret, but it happened as Chief Fey’lya says. There can be no doubt.”

  The doubtful murmur quickly assumed a tone of outrage, and Viqi’s stomach growled so loudly that her microphone picked up the sound. Fey’lya turned to her expectantly.

  “Senator Shesh?” he asked. “Do you have anything to say?”

  Viqi glared vibroblades at him. She checked the protection droids and found them hovering beside Nom Anor less than five meters away; only the certain knowledge that they would stun her before she could shoot kept her from palming her stealth blaster.

  “What should I say, Borsk? I’m sorry?”

  Fey’lya smiled triumphantly. “An apology is hardly necessary, Senator Shesh. You were only trying to save Kuat.” He glanced in Nom Anor’s direction. “As long as you see your mistake now.”

  “My mistake?” Viqi gasped, beginning to comprehend that her secret remained secret.

  Perhaps her contact had been killed in the attack, or perhaps Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators were trained to withstand even modern interrogation techniques. It hardly mattered. Fey’lya thought he had defeated her challenge—her political challenge.

  Now he wanted to draw her back into the fold and consolidate his support, and he still had no idea what game they were really playing. No idea at all.

  Viqi smiled and inclined her head. “I do see my mistake.” She turned to glare at Nom Anor. “You just can’t trust the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  “Oh my,” C-3PO said to no one in particular. “Did you notice the interest Nom Anor showed when he discovered that Jaina and Jacen were twins?”

  Neither Luke nor anyone else answered the droid, for their attention remained riveted on the holopad, where Borsk Fey’lya was gleefully informing Nom Anor of his arrest. It troubled Luke that the Yuuzhan Vong did not bother protesting his innocence. He merely glared at the Bothan as though they both knew the truth.