TWENTY-THREE
Jag Fel made his way to the Trickster’s docking bay on the first day after Jaina’s return. She glanced up from her work and scowled.
“Yes, I took one of your pilots. But Kyp is back and in reasonable working order. If you have any complaints, take them up with him.” She jerked a thumb in Lowbacca’s direction. The Wookiee obligingly rose, folded his massive arms, and fixed Jag with a challenging stare.
The pilot’s gaze flicked over the Wookiee and then returned to Jaina. “I came with a message from your mother.”
He quickly told the story of the attack on Han, and Leia’s decision to leave Hapes.
“Where did they go?”
“She said they would rejoin Luke Skywalker, and that you would know the location.”
“Makes sense,” Jaina said absently. “How badly was my father hurt?”
He described the injuries and repeated the medical droid’s assurances.
“My mother must have been surprised,” Jaina murmured. “She always said Dad’s skull was thicker than a Star Destroyer’s hull.”
Jag’s lips twitched. “She intimated something along that line.”
Jaina shook her head and blew out a long sigh. “Knowing my father, this might have started with some sort of misunderstanding. I’ll talk to Ta’a Chume about it.”
“Perhaps you should reconsider that,” Jag said carefully.
Jaina’s ire returned. She propped her fists on her hips. “Oh? And why’s that?”
“I don’t trust the former queen mother. Frankly, I’m rather surprised that you do.”
A sharp clatter drew their eyes to the walkway overhead. Tenel Ka stood there, her face inscrutable. After a tense and silent moment, she turned and strode out without a word.
Jag scowled. “That was unforgivably tactless of me.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. People who eavesdrop deserve whatever they hear,” Jaina observed.
“Perhaps, but I should speak to her.”
He nodded to Jaina and hurried after the Hapan princess. “Your Highness, a word,” he called after her.
She stopped and turned toward him. “My name is Tenel Ka,” she reminded him.
“Of course. I wanted to apologize for the insult to your family. It was not my intention to gossip or offend.”
The Jedi stared at him for a moment, and then turned away. “Walk with me,” she called back. Jag matched his pace to her stride. “You followed me from the docking bay, which is precisely what I hoped you would do. I observed you and Jaina together at the diplomatic dinner. It seems likely that she would assign more value to your opinion than to mine.”
His smile held considerable irony. “I haven’t noticed that. Perhaps Jaina Solo’s regard is one of those mysteries that only Jedi can perceive.”
“Of late Jaina has been … difficult,” Tenel Ka admitted. She related her recent argument with Jaina, and her concerns about Ta’a Chume’s influence on her.
In lean words, she told Jag the stories that continued to circulate about Ta’a Chume: she was probably behind the death of her first son’s betrothed, and possibly behind the subsequent death of her son.
“My grandmother might be an old woman,” she concluded, “but do not take Ta’a Chume lightly. There is always more than what you see. What concerns me is that there is probably much more to her current plans than even Jaina realizes.”
“I see,” he said slowly. “The attack on Han Solo puzzled me. Though I know Prince Isolder once courted Leia, I don’t see why Ta’a Chume would go to such extremes on her son’s behalf.”
Tenel Ka stood for a moment as if in indecision. Then she bobbed her head in a curt nod and motioned for Jag to continue to follow her.
They took a landspeeder to the palace and then made their way to the opulent chambers of the queen mother. “This is my mother’s favorite room,” Tenel Ka said, and pushed open a massive door.
For a moment Jag assumed the room was empty. There was no sound, no sense of any living presence.
“There,” the Jedi said softly, indicating a chair nearly hidden in a curtained alcove. A small, still figure slumped there, eyes staring straight ahead.
Tenel Ka led the way into the room and stooped over the chair. “We have a visitor, Mother,” she said softly.
The woman’s brown eyes flicked up to Jag and then returned to the window. She took no further notice of them, though Tenel Ka spoke about the plight of the refugees, the Consortium’s worries about a Yuuzhan Vong attack, and the attempts to rebuild the fleet. None of these concerns pierced the deep torpor surrounding Hapes’s reigning queen.
At last Tenel Ka fell silent. She leaned forward and touched her forehead to her mother’s, as if doing so could lend the older woman some of her determination, her clarity of thought. She quickly kissed her mother’s cheek and rose, striding out without glancing back at Jag.
He followed her to the door. When it closed behind them, she leaned against it and allowed her pain-filled eyes to drift closed.
“This,” she said grimly, “is the woman who will command the defense of Hapes. Do you understand why my grandmother wishes to replace her?”
“Princess Leia will never accept such a role.”
Tenel Ka’s eyes flew open. “Is that what you think is happening?”
“What other interpretation is there?”
“I know my grandmother. She will never fully relinquish the throne. Perhaps she envisions ruling a second time, through someone younger and more tractable than either my mother or Princess Leia.”
Her meaning slowly came to Jag. To Tenel Ka’s surprise and his own, he broke out laughing. “Up to a certain point, logic suggests you’re describing Jaina Solo. But only up to a point! Tractable is not a word that comes readily to mind when her name is mentioned.”
“Fact,” the Jedi agreed. “Still, it is something to consider.”
Jag tried to envision Jaina as a ruling monarch and swiftly abandoned the attempt. “Let’s assume that she agreed to this. How would she go about gaining the throne?”
“Since no daughters were born to Ta’a Chume, Prince Isolder is the legal heir to the throne. His wife rules.”
After a moment, it occurred to Jag that he was gaping like a Mon Calamari. He shut his mouth so abruptly that his teeth clicked. “Prince Isolder would agree to this?”
“He may not have a choice,” Tenel Ka said grimly. “If she decides that this is a good path to power, she will find a way to take it.”
“Ta’a Chume has that much power?”
The Jedi regarded him somberly. “I was not speaking of my grandmother.”
Jaina faced down the stubborn Wookiee. “I don’t see what else we can do.”
Lowbacca glanced at the ready ship and grumbled an argument.
“Hapes doesn’t have the sort of people we need. This is experimental technology, and it’s vital that we get it right. There are no better techs anywhere than on Kashyyyk,” she said, naming the Wookiee homeworld.
Lowbacca harrumphed and folded his arms. Jaina’s patience began to fray. “All right, let me put it this way. Your family owes my father a life debt. He doesn’t seem willing to claim it himself, so I’m doing so in his name.”
Lowbacca growled in puzzlement. The choice Jaina put before him was an awkward one, and she knew it. Her friend was caught between honoring a life debt and bringing some of his people into the path of a Yuuzhan Vong attack. Knowing the warrior culture of the Wookiee, Jaina was confident about the outcome.
With another heartfelt groan, Lowbacca hoisted himself into the waiting Hapan ship, and set off to bring some of his clan’s best technicians into grave danger.
Kyp’s X-wing drifted quietly in space, controls darkened and only enough power flowing to supply the lifesupport systems. Even Zero-One, his astromech droid and would-be conscience, remained switched off.
He watched as two small Hapan ships darted past, headed toward the coordinates of a short hyperspace jump. Kyp waited until they had disappeared, then powered up and urged his ship to follow.
His X-wing emerged into a vicious firestorm. Several Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers surrounded the Hapan ships. Plasma bolts tore at the blackness like bloody claws.
“Two ships,” Kyp muttered. “Only two, against this!”
He jinked hard to port to avoid an incoming bolt, then wheeled around in a tight circle and closed in on one of the skips. Two of the enemy ships veered off into wild, erratic flight.
“Looks like there’s a little too much confusion on that implant, Jaina,” Kyp said as he switched on the comm to Zero-One. “Lock down target.”
ACKNOWLEDGED.
Bright blue icons leapt onto his control screen and narrowed down into tight focus. A warning sensor hummed, and the single light flashed for a one–two–three countdown. Kyp hit the button at two.
A proton torpedo dropped into the sky and hurtled toward one of the confused skips. Blue light flared past a stream of plasma, turning the golden bolt into an eerie green. Kyp threw his ship into a side roll, spinning it away from the enemy barrage.
His weapon struck dead center, and the coralskipper exploded into shards of dark coral. Kyp veered away from the blooming cluster of shrapnel and chose his next target. In moments another bright explosion blossomed against the sky.
His comm unit crackled. “Vanguard Three, is that you?”
Kyp recognized the voice of one of Jag Fel’s best Hapan recruits. “Seth! What in the blue blazes are you doing out here?”
“You don’t know?”
At that moment, Kyp did know. These weren’t scouts, sent up in pairs by Colonel Fel. These two men were sacrifices.
“Fall back. I’ll cover you.”
“Cover us, but try not to blow up every skip. I sure don’t want to do this again.”
A quick, syncopated cluster of plasma bolts erupted from two of the skips, converging on the Hapan fighter. The small vessel disappeared in a burst of white fire.
Kyp muttered an oath and swung away to protect the final ship. Despite Seth’s request, he took out three more of the Yuuzhan Vong skips before following the battered Hapan fighter back to its base.
In the docking bay, Kyp swung out of the X-wing and sent a furious mental summons for his “apprentice.”
“You don’t have to shout,” a calm female voice announced.
Jaina strode into the docking bay. Bypassing Kyp, she went up to the surviving pilot. “Did you get any?”
The man glanced at Kyp. “One. Maybe.”
She nodded and turned away. Kyp seized her arm, and the two Jedi locked angry stares. “They’re gathering data,” she said at last. “Important data.”
“How many pilots have you sent up? How many returned?”
“Most likely a higher percentage than those from your command,” she shot back.
“People die in war. I accept that, and so do the pilots who fly with me. But I never deliberately threw their lives away. How good is your tracking data?”
“Getting better.”
“So you had a good idea of how many skips were patrolling that sector. And you sent up two men.”
“We don’t have enough of the implants yet, or the delivery weapons, to justify sending up more,” Jaina argued. “You would have made the same decision.”
“Which brings us to the next issue. These pilots apparently think I ordered this mission.”
Jaina merely shrugged. “You used my name and influence when it suited you. I’m here to learn from the master.”
A tall, slender woman moved toward them, and a nod from her brought guards hurrying to disperse the small crowd of pilots and mechanics that had gathered on the perimeter.
“Difficult times call for hard decisions, young man,” Ta’a Chume said sternly. “Selecting a leader is a difficult thing, and should never be done lightly. Once done, however, a constant second-guessing of a leader is worse than having none at all.”
Kyp blinked and then turned to Jaina. “Who is this?”
“The former queen of Hapes,” she said curtly. “Ta’a Chume, this is Kyp Durron, Jedi Master. He’s training me.”
For some reason the woman found this amusing. “If you have anything worthwhile to impart, I suggest you stop whining and get to it.”
Ta’a Chume turned to Jaina. “I will be offworld for a day or so. We will speak again upon my return.”
She glided off, and Kyp drew Jaina aside. “You said you were here to learn. Listen carefully, and see if you can wrap your mind around this: from now on, anything you do will be cleared through me. You will not assume that my actions, past or present, justify yours.”
“Oh, please,” Jaina scoffed. “Next thing I know you’ll be telling me, ‘Do as I say, and not as I do.’ ”
“That’s the general idea.”
Her sneer faded. “You’re serious.”
“As a thermal detonator. Start filling me in.”
Jaina nodded. “A quick recap. A yammosk communicates with smaller ships through some sort of telepathy. The daughter ships move, shield, and navigate through gravitic fluctuations. These are both created and received by the dovin basal. Each of these creatures has a genetic imprint, a distinct and unique voice that’s formed by its gravitic signals. When the dovin basal picks up information, they know what ship originated it. You with me so far?”
“Danni Quee discovered how to jam a yammosk signal: we took that one step farther.” She described the process Lowbacca had used to isolate and define the pattern of the captured ship’s signature.
“The pattern is very subtle. Right now we can disrupt it, using the coral implants.”
“Yes, I just saw that demonstrated,” Kyp noted.
“We’ve learned a lot from the skips we’ve managed to mess up. What we’re doing now is trying to get the skip so confused that it loses contact with the yammosk altogether.”
“I’d say you’re there.”
“Next step, then. All skips seem to fly and shield in pretty much the same way. It’s the navigation that depends upon unique information. Lowbacca has been working on a small mechanical device, a repulsor, that could mimic the Trickster’s gravitic code. This would overlay another ship’s ‘voice,’ letting us create decoys that will lure the Vong into traps. The Yuuzhan Vong are looking for the Trickster. We’re going to make sure they find and destroy her—not once, but several times.”
He stared at her for a moment, then let out a long, slow whistle. “It’s good. I’m in.”
Her answering smile reminded him of a predatory tusk-cat. “Lead on, Master Durron.”