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  “There’s no reason to alert Emergency Control,” she said. “This isn’t a fire.”

  R2-D2 tweedled an objection.

  “This isn’t cooking, it’s … heating,” Mara growled. “Any suggestion otherwise will earn you a memory wipe. Clear?”

  R2-D2 trilled scornfully, then fell silent.

  Mara looked down to see the nausage in her makeshift skillet collapsing into black crumbs. Luke picked that moment to emerge from the refresher, pulling a fresh tunic over his wet hair.

  “Smells good.” He popped a morsel of blackened nausage into his mouth, somehow avoiding a sour face and nodding in approval. “Just like we used to make back home.”

  “Really?” Mara asked doubtfully. “And I always thought the reason you left Tatooine was to join the Rebellion and save the galaxy.”

  Luke maintained a deadpan expression. “No, it was the food—definitely the food.”

  He took a rubbery dustcrepe and began to chew, rolling his eyes as though he were enjoying a bowl of green thakitillo. Disarmed as always by Luke’s humble good nature, Mara laughed and leaned across the counter to kiss him.

  To everyone else on Eclipse, he might be the enigmatic Jedi Master and last best hope for an imperiled galaxy, but to her he was the gentle husband who always knew what to say, the unassuming moisture farmer who had seen value in her when she could not find it herself. Even knowing of all the things she had done in Palpatine’s service, all the lies told and the lives taken, he had accepted her first as a peer, then a friend, and finally—after it had dawned on Mara that the Force was steering them toward a very different relationship than the one envisioned by Emperor Palpatine—a lover and a spouse.

  She pulled away from her husband’s lips and smiled. “For last night.”

  Luke glanced across the room to where Ben was sleeping in his crib, watched over by an updated version of the same TDL nanny droid that had tended Anakin and the twins when they were young, and did not need to say what he was thinking. Mara took his hand and started toward the sleeping chamber.

  They had almost reached the door when R2-D2 whistled for their attention.

  Mara did not even turn around. “Not now, Artoo.”

  R2-D2 whistled again, then sent a live feed of the hangar to the sitting room vidscreen. Mara glimpsed the Shadow and Falcon sitting with a dozen other large vessels on the far side of the cavernous bay, where several support technicians were jockeying blastboats to make room for an arriving ship. The central area was packed with seventy new XJ3 X-wings that Admiral Kre’fey had quietly rotated out of his fleet onto Eclipse, while Saba Sebatyne’s motley assortment of starfighters and Kyp Durron’s battle-scarred X-wings sat untended and inaccessible on the close side of the hangar.

  The picture zoomed in on the area between the new X-wings and the older starfighters. Corran Horn stood surrounded by pilots from Kyp’s Dozen, the Wild Knights, and the Shockers. This last squadron was Eclipse’s own, made up equally of untested Jedi and space-blooded non-Jedi veterans. The three leaders, Kyp Durron, Saba Sebatyne, and the non-Jedi Rigard Matl, were all talking at once while an impatient-looking Corran Horn stood looking into the ceiling holocam.

  Luke sighed, then asked Mara, “Do you mind?”

  “I’ll mind more if we don’t win this war,” she said. “Corran might seem rigid and moralistic, but he’s not the sort who calls for help unless he needs it. Artoo, give us some sound.”

  Kyp Durron’s impatient voice came over the speaker. “… don’t see what we’re waiting for. Maybe Danni will figure out how to jam the yammosks and maybe she won’t, but in the meantime the Yuuzhan Vong have Anakin and the others.” Like most pilots who had not promised to remain at Eclipse, Kyp had not yet been informed that the strike team’s capture was a ruse. “While we train, they move deeper into Yuuzhan Vong territory.”

  “We’ll go after them when Master Skywalker says we go after them,” Corran replied. “Until then, we sit tight and wait for orders.”

  “Orders?” Kyp scoffed. “This isn’t the military, Corran. Jedi don’t wait for orders while the enemy carries their friends off for sacrifice.”

  “Perhaps not, but they don’t rush into battle ill prepared,” Rigard said. A former TIE pilot with a battle-scarred face nearly as gruesome as a Yuuzhan Vong’s, Rigard hated war with a passion, yet had somehow found himself fighting on one side or the other—and sometimes both—in every major galactic conflict since the Rebellion. “We’re waiting for more to fall in place than Danni’s research on gravitic modulation. We don’t want to lock in our cards until everything’s ready.”

  “It is locking in the cardz that worries this one.” Saba Sebatyne addressed this to the holocam, making clear that she was speaking directly to Luke. “She is thinking that when someone stickz an arm out too far, she is liable to lose a hand.”

  “Blasters!” Luke hissed, echoing a curse Mara had not heard since Jaina and Jacen were at the Jedi academy. “Kyp again.”

  “Better get down there,” Mara said, reaching across the work counter for her comlink. “I’ll let Corran know we’re coming.”

  Mara and Luke dressed and, leaving instructions with the nanny droid to comm them when Ben woke, left for the hangar bay. They had to bundle themselves in thermal cloaks, for the base’s cooling system was working too well now; the corridors were in constant danger of icing over.

  As they twined their way through the passages, Mara sensed the disharmony welling up inside Luke. Though their bond was not quite deep enough for her to read his thoughts all the time, she knew he was once again struggling with the difficulties of leadership and family. In a time when the Jedi needed him most, he was worried that Mara’s recovery—as mysterious as the disease itself—would not hold. In a time when he needed to be at her side learning to be a good father, he was struggling to hold the fractious Jedi together and find the wisest course along which to guide them.

  They rounded a corner and started down the passage toward the big emergency air lock outside the hangar bay, and Mara took his hand.

  “Skywalker, sometimes I think I should just kick you in the head.”

  Not looking all that surprised, Luke glanced over at her. “Really?”

  Mara waved a hand at the hangar ahead. “Everything you’re doing with the Jedi, it is for us.” She palmed the air lock’s control pad, and its hatch irised open. “Ben is strong in the Force. I know you’ve felt it, too.”

  Luke nodded. “I have.”

  “So the Jedi must win this war,” Mara said. “If we don’t, where will Ben be safe?”

  Luke stopped, and Mara felt the disharmony in him melting away. He motioned her into the air lock. “I hadn’t thought of it quite like that.”

  “Of course not. You’re too selfless.” She opened the door to the hangar. “But I’m not. Now, are you going to set Kyp and Saba straight—or am I?”

  She felt Luke’s smile in the back of her head.

  “I’d better do it myself. It wouldn’t be fair to let you loose on them.”

  “Fair?” Mara echoed. “What makes you think I care about fair?”

  They stepped out of the air lock and walked down a clear path to the gathering of pilots. Danni Quee had also joined the group, no doubt summoned the instant Saba learned Luke was coming. Convinced the strike team could never withstand the breaking, she had been pressing Luke to send a backup mission almost since the Wild Knights’ return from Arkania. Luke had yet to rule out the possibility, in part because he feared Saba would take her squadron and attempt the mission herself—but also because he worried Danni was right.

  Corran stepped aside, yielding his place at the head of the gathering to Luke.

  Luke allowed a note of irritation to creep into his voice and focused only on Corran. “Corran, what’s happening here? Why aren’t you analyzing the morning exercise?”

  Corran’s eyes betrayed surprise at Luke’s stern tone, but he stiffened his bearing. “Master Skywalker, our exercise came to
an early end when the Lady Luck entered the system. It should be arriving shortly.”

  Luke heard Han and Leia approaching and, with a dart of his eyes, sent Mara to intercept them. The sense of purpose he felt from her confirmed that she understood what she needed to do.

  As Mara departed, Luke continued to look at Corran. “I don’t understand.” His voice remained even but firm. “If Lando was in trouble, what are you doing here?”

  Saba Sebatyne stepped forward. “It is not Jedi Horn’s fault, Master Skywalker. This one left.”

  Luke raised his brow and waited.

  “This one wanted to hear how it went.”

  “How what went?” Kyp demanded, completely ignorant of the part Lando had played in Anakin’s “capture.”

  “Somebody had better tell me what’s going on around here before I take the Dozen and leave.”

  Luke stepped toward Kyp. “How can we tell you anything, when you are always so ready to leave us?”

  Kyp frowned, then glanced over his shoulder at his pilots. “Are you saying you can’t trust us?”

  “It isn’t a matter of trust,” Luke replied.

  He let the statement hang and continued to study Kyp as Han and Leia came up behind him. Neither spoke, and they both fixed silent gazes on Kyp.

  Finally, Kyp looked from Luke to Saba. “Saba knows what this is all about,” he complained. “And she isn’t promising to stay.”

  “Saba has a right to know. Her son is with Anakin,” Luke said. “So are her apprentices.”

  Kyp considered this for a moment, then turned to Saba. “We don’t have to take this, you know. We can go after them ourselves.”

  Han shook his head. “No, kid, you can’t.” He pointed at the blast doors. “You can take the Dozen and leave if you like, but you can’t go after Anakin and the twins—not if friendship means anything to you.”

  A look of stunned confusion came over Kyp. “Those are your kids, Han. You should want us to go after them!”

  “I want them back alive,” Han said. “And that’s not going to happen if you go after them.”

  “Depending on what Lando Calrissian has to report,” Saba corrected. “If he has learned through his villip that the breaking worked—”

  “There won’t be a backup mission,” Luke said. He saw Han stiffen and felt Leia’s dismay through the Force, but Mara had prepared them well enough that they betrayed no other sign of concern. “The strike team must succeed or fail on its own. Even if we could reach them, we’ll be too busy with other things.”

  “Strike team?” Kyp looked to Han for enlightenment. “What other things?”

  “Sorry, Kyp. You’ll have to ask Luke.” Ever the gambler, Han sweetened the pot. “There’s too much at risk for me to talk out of turn.”

  Kyp looked back to Luke. “Have you figured out what that feint at Arkania was about? Are we finally going to take the war to the Yuuzhan Vong?”

  Luke fought to keep a deadpan face. “I don’t know that ‘we’ are going to do anything.” As he spoke, the Lady Luck appeared outside the hangar door and hovered on the other side of the magnetic containment field while the technicians moved the last vessel, Tendra Risant Calrissian’s Gentleman Caller, out of the way. “If you want to be part of this, I need your promise.”

  Kyp looked wary. “What kind of promise?”

  “An oath of allegiance. What kind do you think?” Han asked, his tone almost angry. “You promise to obey Luke and do what he says as long as he’ll have you. If you won’t do that, pack your bags and get out now.” Han paused, and his tone grew a little more gentle. “It’s time you started acting like a Jedi Knight.”

  Kyp’s eyes flared at the admonition. Luke thought for a moment Han had overplayed his hand, but, as usual, the Corellian knew how far to press a bet. Kyp’s gaze slowly softened, and something fatherly in Han seemed to get through to him.

  He turned to his pilots. “What do you think? Do we throw in with the Jedi and pretend like we’re in a real space navy?”

  “You know what we want,” an insectoid Verpine pilot buzzed—one whose name Luke was ashamed to realize he did not know. “As long as we fight Yuuzhan Vong.”

  Kyp looked to the rest of his squadron. When they voiced similar sentiments, he turned and nodded to Han. “Okay, we promise.”

  “Not me, kid.” Han quietly pointed to Luke. “He’s the boss around here.”

  Kyp’s face reddened, but he swallowed his pride and turned to Luke. “You have our oath, Master Skywalker. We’ll stay as long as you’ll have us.”

  “And follow orders?” This from Corran Horn.

  Kyp made a sour face. “If we have to.”

  “You do.” Luke saw the Lady Luck drifting into the docking bay and turned to Saba Sebatyne. “How about the Wild Knights?”

  “Of course, if the Jedi truly intend to carry the war to the invaders,” Saba said. “So you have determined the warmaster’s purpose in feinting at Arkania?”

  “We’re still working on that,” Luke said. “But we are going to carry the war to the Yuuzhan Vong. I would never have risked your son and apprentices if we weren’t.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  A groggy Wookiee groan reverberated through the frigid hold of the Exquisite Death. Cautiously, Anakin craned his neck around. Lowbacca and many others remained hidden behind a small grove of ysalamiri-laden trees the Yuuzhan Vong had marched into the hold, but he could see Jaina and Eryl opposite him and Jovan and the Barabels on the wall adjacent. Still secured to the floor with their hands between their knees, they were all fidgeting, trying to relieve the strain on their back and legs. The Barabels seemed especially uncomfortable, with their thick tails stretched straight behind them and secured at the tip with blorash jelly.

  Anakin glanced over at Zekk and his brother and raised his brow. Zekk nodded eagerly, but Jacen closed his eyes and looked away. Unable to imagine what was troubling his moody brother—and not sure he cared—Anakin lowered his chin toward his left armpit.

  “Activate escape,” he whispered.

  There was a hot tingle as the subcutaneous implant relayed the message, then a heavy foot scuffed the floor behind him. Anakin ducked and caught the expected strike on his much-bruised shoulder.

  “Quiet, Jeedai,” the guard said. “Another word, and I fill your mouth with blorash jelly.”

  Uncertain how long the war droids would need—or even whether they were still attached to the ship—Anakin fixed his gaze on the floor. The guard hovered another thirty seconds, then shuffled off.

  Many minutes later, a series of distant thuds sounded forward in the ship. From the next hold back came a much louder whumpf, then the muffled roar of explosive decompression and the clatter and shriek of equipment and creatures tumbling into the void. In the back of the Jedi’s hold, the door membranes bowed dangerously outward, but held long enough to turn opaque and stiffen into durasteel-like panels.

  The subaltern barked something in Yuuzhan Vong. When no response came from his shoulder villip, he sent two guards forward to investigate, assigned eight more to watch the Jedi prisoners, and took the last two to the rear of the hold. Anakin knew that by now, 2-1S would be standing guard as 2-4S sealed the breach, using emergency patching foam to mate the open equipment pod to the Death’s exterior hull. He watched the guards carefully, alert for any hint of an order coming through their shoulder villips.

  The subaltern pressed his face close to the door as though to breathe on it, but then a cannon bolt came blasting through the opaque membrane and sprayed black gore everywhere. Anakin’s ears popped as the hold pressures equalized, and the subaltern’s two escorts were reduced to so much smoking flesh by a series of strobelike weapon flashes.

  The rest of the Yuuzhan Vong reached for thud bugs and amphistaffs. Some turned to assault the strike team and fell to a flurry of screaming green bolts as 2-1S crashed into the hold. A coat of icy rime was forming on his space-cold armor, and his photo-receptors were fogging over; Anakin feared t
he droid would be forced to stand idle while his surface temperature stabilized. Instead, 2-1S activated a thermal defogger and cut down two more enemies as they dived for cover. He raised his other arm and began knocking ysalamiri from their trees with an optional electroray discharger.

  Anakin’s guard yelled something about Jeedai and spun to attack Anakin and was cut in half by a torrent of rapid-fire blaster bolts. The stream swept down the wall, chopping through an ysalamiri tree to dismember a Yuuzhan Vong whirling on Jacen. As 2-1S did all this, he was advancing into the hold, taking thud bugs in the chest and scorching two warriors near Jaina with electrorays. It could not have escaped anyone’s notice that the droid was protecting the three Solos—a programming adjustment Lando had neglected to mention—but the others had no cause to complain.

  YVH 2-4S entered the hold on the heels of 2-1S, one arm firing a blaster cannon, the other minirockets. He shot through the elbows of a Yuuzhan Vong attempting to behead Jovan Drark, then chased another away from Tekli with a self-guiding minirocket.

  Only Tesar had to defend himself, ripping his tail free of the blorash jelly and, leaving the tip behind, sweeping his attacker off his feet. The Yuuzhan Vong landed hard, but leveled his amphistaff at Tesar’s midsection—only to have his arms pinned to the floor by Bela’s tail, also tipless. Krasov finished the fight by smashing her tail—tipless, as well—across his windpipe.

  “Surprise!” Tesar rasped.

  This launched the three Barabels into a bewildering fit of laughter. Tesar used the raw end of his tipless tail to flip open the dead Yuuzhan Vong’s waist pouch and began flicking beetles at the blorash jelly binding nearby Jedi to the floor.

  Anakin looked across the hold to 2-1S. “Secure the doors,” he ordered.

  A beetle landed beside Anakin’s ankle, then several more between him and Jacen, and soon they were free. He assigned one group to retrieve weapons and equipment from the pod, another to dispose of the ysalamiri, and the rest of the Jedi to evaluate the group’s medical condition and tend to Ulaha. Only then did he join 2-1S at the forward door, where the droid was peering through the translucent membrane down a long access corridor.