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  When they were done, Leia was surprised to find that she herself felt stronger and more at peace than she had in a long time. It was by far the most intimate Force touch she had ever experienced, not because the Barabels were stronger than other Jedi, but because they shared themselves so freely and innocently. She saw now why Eelysa had taken it upon herself to train their Master—Tesar’s mother, Saba Sebatyne—even when doing so had endangered her and her mission on Barab I.

  “Leia?” Han asked. “You all right?”

  “Fine, Han.” She did not look at him as she answered, though only because he was changing her bandages and the last thing she wanted to see—even to glimpse—was the blackened, oozing mass that was her legs. “But Eelysa … we have to do something.”

  “Haven’t I been saying that?” Han grumbled.

  They had arrived at the rendezvous point almost a full day earlier, then began a monotonous waiting game that had Han ready to push their passengers out an air lock. Though Izal Waz and the Barabels were at a loss to explain the delay, they kept assuring Han they would know if the meeting were canceled. It did not help matters that when Han asked how they would know, Izal always looked to the Barabels, and the Barabels just shrugged and said they would know.

  Leia looked to Bela—or maybe it was Krasov—and said, “We need to comm your Master.” Though it was hard to envision ordering a Barabel to do anything, she spoke in the voice of command that she had used to such good effect during her tenure as the New Republic Chief of State. “Give us the transceiver address.”

  The two sisters looked from each other to Tesar, then they simply seemed to come to an agreement.

  “As you wish,” Krasov—or maybe Bela—said. “But if you use it, the rendezvous will be canceled. Master Saba has learned to be careful about Peace Brigade eavesdropperz.”

  Tesar—who was both larger and darker than the females—shrugged. “But do what you think is best. She is already going to be displeased with us.”

  “A lot of that going around,” Han said darkly.

  Tesar’s shoulders sagged. “This one apologizes for his advice. You may blast him anytime.”

  “Don’t tempt—”

  Leia laid a silencing hand on her husband’s shoulder. “I’m sure Tesar is as worried about Eelysa as we are. She is his mother’s Master.”

  The hardness that came to Han’s eyes was as surprising as it was subtle, but he nodded curtly and, without looking up, used synthflesh to secure the edge of a bactabandage. The adhesive wasn’t supposed to hurt, but it felt like fire against Leia’s inflamed skin.

  Han lowered her foot onto the footrest, then gathered up the discarded bandages and stood. “Forget trying to reach Tesar’s mother.”

  “Master Saba,” Krasov corrected.

  Han ignored her and continued, “If it stops her from coming, that only makes our situation worse.” He turned to Tesar. “How do you know your mother—Master Saba—is still coming?”

  “Because we have not felt otherwise,” Bela answered.

  Han turned to Bela. “What does that mean, ‘felt otherwise’?”

  “Your mate understandz,” Tesar replied, looking to Leia. “Through the Force.”

  “Then she must be very near,” Leia said, unsure whether to be confused or impressed. “I know of only a few Jedi who can feel what others are doing, and even then they must be near one another.”

  Krasov shook her head. “Not like hatchmates.”

  “We feel nothing has happened to her,” Bela added.

  “I see.” Leia’s head was beginning to spin from the way the conversational thread roamed from one Barabel to another. “So you’re saying you haven’t felt her die?”

  “And that’s how you know the rendezvous is still on?” Han demanded. “Because Master Saba isn’t dead yet?”

  Tesar smiled broadly. “Exactly! If Master Saba isn’t dead yet, she will be here.”

  Han’s face grew stormy—alarmingly so, at least to Leia. “That’s it.” He stared at the floor for a moment, then turned to Leia. “We’re going to Talfaglio.”

  “Talfaglio?” Leia waited for one of the Barabels to object. When none did, she asked, “Are you serious?”

  “As a hungry Hutt,” Han replied. “We can’t risk waiting around here for bacta that might be coming someday.”

  He threw the soiled bandages down the disposal chute and started to leave. Leia’s repulsor chair barely turned fast enough to keep him in view.

  “Han, wait!” Leia made a point of staying where she was; once she started moving, she would find herself following him clear into the cockpit. “Let’s think this through.”

  Han turned in the door. “What’s to think through?” There was that hard look again—hardly unknown, but oddly out of place. “We need bacta.”

  “We do,” Leia admitted. “But how long will it take to reach Talfaglio?”

  “Ten and a half hours,” Han said confidently. “I had Izal plot the course.”

  Leia glanced toward the portable tank. “We don’t have ten hours. Eelysa will be dead in half that time.”

  “And you in twenty.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Well, I’m not taking chances.” Han turned and vanished through the door.

  Leia hastened after him, but her chair was no match for his angry stride. He was already disappearing around the curve of the corridor as she floated out of the crew quarters, and by then she finally understood the hard look in his eye.

  “Han!”

  Han stopped, but did not turn.

  “We can’t go.” Leia wondered if she still knew this man at all, if he could have been so hardened by Chewbacca’s death and the treachery of the Duros that he had truly become the selfish cynic he had fancied himself when they met. “We have to wait … and hope.”

  “We have to get you to a bacta tank.” Han turned, his eyes filled with tears he refused to shed. “If we don’t, you may not walk again.”

  “Then at least I won’t be walking on corpses.” Leia started her chair down the corridor. “Han, have you forgotten who I am? Do you think I want to walk at the cost of someone else’s life? Would you want me to?”

  Han shook his head weakly. Then tears began to escape his eyes, and he hurried up the corridor. Leia did not follow. She still understood him well enough to know when to leave him alone. He could face no more loss, and Leia was coming to comprehend—or was it fear?—that when he looked at her in the repulsor chair, he saw another loss, something else taken by the Yuuzhan Vong.

  And, Leia was astonished to realize, she saw the same thing in him. After Chewbacca’s death, he had shut himself off from his family and disappeared into the galaxy to grieve alone. She had believed he just needed room, and she had given it to him. But now she realized he had left for another reason as well, to shield her and the children from a fury he could not control. Would he have gone, she wondered, if she had tried harder to reach him, just kept pushing and weathered the storm when he finally unleashed his anger? Would he still feel like such a stranger now?

  Deciding only a fool makes the same mistake twice, Leia started up the corridor. This time, she would not let him suffer in private.

  “Ship incoming,” Izal Waz announced.

  A vast sense of relief came over Leia, and not only because she knew the bacta had arrived. She steered her chair quickly into the main hold and was overtaken by the three Barabels, the two Hara sisters rushing for the cannon turrets and Tesar for the cockpit. She paused at the engineering station to send C-3PO to watch over Eelysa, then went to her new post behind the flight deck bulkhead. Han and Izal were already sitting in their chairs. Tesar loomed behind their seats, blocking Leia’s view of almost everything.

  “The transponder’s on,” Han said. “That’s a good sign.”

  “The Star Roamer,” Izal Waz reported. “Damorian medium freighter, armed. Registered to CorDuro Shipping.”

  “Out here?” Han asked. The rendezvous was taking
place at the edge of the Corellian sector, in a never-to-be-surveyed system consisting of little more than a few asteroids, a dust ring, and the core of a collapsed star. “What’s CorDuro doing in a place like this?”

  “They are the ones we have been waiting for,” Tesar explained. “That is where we are getting our bacta tankz.”

  “From CorDuro?” Leia asked, disappointed. At the least, CorDuro Shipping was guilty of appropriating supplies intended for refugees. “Master Saba has an arrangement with them?”

  “Yes, but CorDuro does not know it yet.” Tesar turned to face her, and a pinhead of crimson brightness—the collapsed star as seen from inside its dust ring—appeared outside the cockpit. “They will learn soon.”

  “Are you guys spacesick?” Han demanded. He looked from Tesar to Izal Waz. “You can’t buy bacta tanks from CorDuro! They’re collaborators. They might even be a front for the Peace Brigade.”

  Izal Waz shared a grin with Tesar, then asked, “Does anyone have proof of that?”

  “Jacen sent a report to New Republic Intelligence,” Leia said. “But it outlined a circumstantial case. There isn’t anything solid.”

  Tesar sissed, then said, “There will be soon.”

  As Leia puzzled over the Barabel’s remark, the CorDuro freighter slowed and entered an unconcealed orbit in the dust ring. A few minutes later, the proximity alarm sounded. Han silenced it and frowned at his display, but Izal merely activated the Falcon’s data recorders.

  “I’m getting nothing but mass readings.” Han buckled his crash webbing. “That new ship’s Yuuzhan Vong!”

  Tesar sissed again, then looked back at Leia. “Not long now, this one thinkz.”

  He moved aside to give her a better view of the displays. Leia smiled her thanks and started to palm her hold-out blaster—this could still be a trap—then decided against it and left the weapon in her sleeve. The Barabels’ insistence on total comm silence had prevented her from confirming even a small part of their story with Luke, but the feelings they had shared in the crew quarters had contained no hint of deception.

  Han and Izal Waz quickly identified the Yuuzhan Vong vessel as a corvette-analog picket ship, then they all waited while the Star Roamer maneuvered into docking range.

  “The Yuuzhan Vong want to know about bacta,” Tesar explained. “Before Master Eelysa was injured, she told Master Saba about this rendezvous.”

  “And Master Saba decided you need a set of your own bacta tanks,” Han finished.

  Tesar bared his fangs in a smile. “It seemed fair.”

  “What if something goes wrong?” The worry in Han’s voice was so foreign to the Han Solo that Leia remembered that she thought for a moment someone else was speaking. “Eelysa’s the one who will pay the price.”

  “And Leia, too, you’re thinking,” Izal Waz said.

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” Han admitted.

  Tesar covered Han’s shoulder with a black-scaled claw. “Han Solo, you worry too much. What could go wrong?”

  Leia had to smile. “At least Jacen will feel better,” she said, trying to take Han’s mind off all the things that could go wrong. “His report was going nowhere without solid …”

  Leia let the sentence trail off, for her thoughts were whirling through her mind like hawk-bats above a thermal exhaust vent. Why would someone contract an assassin to kill her? Why bribe a CorSec guard to steal her datapad? Why send an entire combat flotilla to prevent her from returning home?

  “Proof!” she gasped. “Someone thinks I have proof.”

  “Proof?” Han turned in the pilot’s seat. “Of CorSec’s collaboration?”

  Leia nodded. “That’s what they’re afraid of.”

  “It makes sense,” Han said. “Hard to be sure, though.”

  “What else have I been doing over the last year?” Leia asked. “And no one was trying to kill me before Jacen’s report—at least no one on our side.”

  “CorDuro’s not exactly on our side either, dear.”

  Han opened a tactical feed to the navicomputer display so Leia could watch events unfold from her seat behind the bulkhead. A minute or so after the corvette and freighter had merged into a single blip, Izal Waz opened a subspace channel and announced the coordinates of the rendezvous.

  “I thought we had to maintain comm silence,” Han said.

  “Close enough,” Tesar said.

  A few seconds later, a nervous voice came from the Star Roamer. “Who was that?” When no one answered, it said again, “Unidentified transmitter, respond and explain yourself.”

  They did not, of course. A minute later, the electronics began to hiss and spit as the freighter went to active sensors and probed in their direction. Leia felt confident the Falcon would remain hidden. The asteroid they sat upon was only a few times larger than the ship itself, but Han had set them down beside a ten-meter pressure ridge where standard sensors would find it impossible to distinguish the ship’s silhouette.

  The hissing faded away, and another minute passed. The tactical display went briefly blank as the asteroid’s rotation hid the two ships from view, then it turned to static as the sensors pointed toward the tiny sun. When the static cleared, the Roamer and the Yuuzhan Vong corvette were separate blips again.

  Tesar hissed in frustration. “They will get—”

  He was interrupted by the shriek of proximity alarms. A new handful of blips appeared on the display, streaking in from five sides, already firing laser bolts and even a couple of long-range proton torpedoes. The Yuuzhan Vong turned to meet the assault, as Yuuzhan Vong ships nearly always did. The Roamer ran in the only direction left to it, toward the Falcon.

  Han and Izal began a warm start-up, while Leia occupied herself trying to guess whether they would intercept the freighter before it jumped to hyperspace. Identifiers began to appear beneath the blips on the tactical display, revealing a motley assortment of old T-65 X-wings, even older Y-wings, and a pair of Skipray blastboats. Some of the newcomers’ transponder codes were already blinking to show damage, and the Yuuzhan Vong had not even fired.

  “That’s the saddest pirate band I’ve seen in some time,” Leia said. “Who did Master Saba hire for this assignment?”

  “No one. That is our squadron, the Wild Knightz.” Tesar smiled proudly. “I fly a very fine Y-wing.”

  Any need to apologize was forestalled by a proximity alarm. Another vessel, this one a fast-freight tagged the Jolly Man, emerged from hyperspace to block the Roamer’s line of escape. The CorDuro ship continued on course and began to fire, lacing the darkness outside with tiny needles of light. A trio of ancient Z-95 Headhunters dropped out of the Jolly Man’s belly and moved to meet it. The Roamer started to turn away—then suddenly changed its mind and ran toward the tiny sun.

  “He’s going down the gravity well! On a white dwarf!” Han engaged the ion drives—still a little cold—and launched the Falcon. “He must be crazy.”

  “No,” Tesar said. “He is frightened.”

  The reason grew apparent an instant later, when a blip in hot pursuit emerged from behind an asteroid. A tag naming the vessel the Sureshot appeared, along with a legend identifying it as a CEC YT-1300 stock light freighter—the same ship as the Falcon.

  “She’s not as fast as the Falcon,” Izal Waz said proudly. “But … well, she still flies.”

  The Roamer quickly started to pull away from the Sureshot, but its abrupt change of direction had given the Jolly Man’s Headhunters time to catch up. They took a few passes, taking out the energy shields and forcing the captain to waste time maneuvering or have a hole burned through his bridge. Finally, the Sureshot activated its tractor beam and caught hold of the target.

  The Roamer stopped maneuvering and continued to accelerate, firing at the Sureshot and dragging the smaller freighter after it. The Headhunters took care of the cannon fire in two passes, but they could not target the drive nacelles without getting caught in the tractor beam. The Sureshot turned ninety degrees in an att
empt to change vector, but the course did not vary noticeably. Its engines could not match the combination of the larger freighter’s power and the white dwarf’s gravity.

  “Smart,” Leia said. “He’s giving the Sureshot a choice—release or be dragged into the sun.”

  “Tesar,” Han said, “how long before they reach the point of no return?”

  Tesar had already done the calculations. “Ten minutes,” he said. “We will reach tractor range in five.”

  Han opened a comm channel. “Hold tight, Sureshot. Help’s on the way.”

  “Just don’t be all day about it,” came the reply.

  Leia spent the next few minutes scarcely breathing as the Falcon closed. The Headhunters continued to harry the Roamer, though it was just harassment and everyone knew it. On Leia’s recommendation, they opened a channel to the captain and promised to broker a lenient sentence in return for cooperating with New Republic Intelligence. The captain responded by promising not to drag the Sureshot into the sun in return for shutting off the tractor beam, then closed the channel. Izal Waz suggested offering the crew freedom in exchange for the bacta tanks, but Leia overruled that idea. If the captain knew what they were really after, there was a good chance he would destroy the tanks out of vindictiveness.

  So they waited and watched on the tactical display as the other two flights of Wild Knights used the Yuuzhan Vong picket ship for target practice. Though the vessel was hurling an amazing amount of plasma and magma into space, the ancient starfighters always seemed to be where the enemy attacks weren’t, or to angle their shields at just the right time, or to take the Yuuzhan Vong gunners by surprise. The corvette analog disintegrated bit by bit, slowly at first, then more rapidly, and finally it simply flew apart and became indistinguishable from the dust ring.

  Han whistled. “Where were they when the Yuuzhan Vong attacked Ithor? The New Republic could use a few more pilots like those.”

  “This one does not think Master Luke would have approved,” Tesar said. “We are given to understand he does not want the Jedi to hunt as soldierz.”