The Truce At Bakura
by
Kathy Tyers

CHAPTER 1

Above a dead world, one habitable moon hung suspended like a
cloud-veiled turquoise.  The eternal hand that held the chain of its
orbit had dusted its velvet backdrop with brilliant stars, and cosmic
energies danced on the wrinkles of space4ime, singing their timeless
music, neither noticing nor caring for the Empire, the Rebel Mliance, or
their brief, petlty wars.

But on that petty human scale of perspective, a fleet of starships
orbited the moon's primaW.  Carbon streaks scored the sides of several
ships.  Droids swarmed around some, performing repairs.  Metal shards
that had been critical spaceship components, and human and alien bodies,
orbited with the ships.  The battle to destroy Emperor Palpatine's
second Death Star had cost the Rebel Alliance heavily.

Luke Skywalker hustled across one cruiser's landing bay, red-eyed but
still suffused with victory after the Ewoks' celebration.  Passing a
huddle of droids, he caught a whiff of coolants and lubricants.  He
ached, a dull gnawing in all his bones from the longest day of his life.
Today-no, it was yesterday-he had met the Emperor.  Yesterday, he had
almost paid with his life for his faith in his father.  Yet a passenger
sharing his shuttle up to the cruiser from the Ewok village had already
asked if Luke really killed the Emperor -and Dath Vader single-handed.

Luke wasn't ready to announce the fact that "Darth Vader" had been
Anakin Skywalker, his father.  Still, he'd answered firmly: Vader killed
Emperor Palpatine.  Vader had flung him into the second Death Star's
core.  Luke would be explaining that for weeks, he guessed.  For now, he
merely wanted to check on his X-wing fighter.

To his surprise, it was overrun by service crew.  Behind and above it, a
magnacrane lowered Artoo-Detoo into the cylindrical droid socket behind
his cockpit.  "What's up?"

Luke asked, standing to catch his breath.

"Oh.  Sir," answered a khaki-suited crewman, disengaging a collapsible
fuel hose, "your relief pilot's going out.  Captain Antilles came back
on the first shuttle and went on patrol immediately.  He intercepted an
imperial drone shine of those antiques they used for carrying messages
back before the Clone Wars.  incoming from deep space."

Incoming.  Someone had sent a message to the Emperor.

Luke smiled.  "Guess they haven't heard yet.  Wedge wants company?  I'm
not that tired.  I could go."

The crewman didn't smile back.  "Unfortunately, Captain Antilles touched
off a self-destruct cycle while trying to release its message codes.  He
is manually blocking a critical ga

"Cancel the relief pilot," Luke exclaimed.  Wedge Antilles had been his
friend since the days of the first Death Star, where they'd flown in the
final attack together.  Without waiting to hear more, Luke spun toward
the ready-room.  A minute later, he was hopping back and pulling up one
leg of an orange pressure suit.

Crewers scattered.  He sprang up the ladder and into his inclined,
padded seat, yanked on his helmet, then touched on the ship's fusion
generator.  A familiar high-energy whine built around him.

The man who'd spoken climbed up behind him.  "But, sir, 1 think Admiral
Ackbar wanted to debrief you."

"I'll be right back." Luke closed his cockpit canopy and ran an
Alliance-record speed check of his systems and instruments.  Nothing
flagged his attention.

He switched on his comlink.  "Rogue Leader, ready for takeoff."

"Opening hatch, sir."

He punched in the drive.  An instant later, the dull ache in his body
turned to lerocious pain.  All the stars in his field of vision split
into binaries and spun around each other.

Crewers' voices babbled in his ears.  Dizzily, he reached down inside
himself for the quiet center Master Yoda had taught him to touch To
touch There.

Exhaling one trembling breath, he measured his mastery of the pain.
Stars shrank into singular gleams again.  Whatever had caused that, he'd
deal with it later.  Through the Force, he quested outward and found
Wedge's presence.  His hands moved on the X-wing's controls almost
effonlessly as he steered toward that end of the Fleet.

On his way, he got his first good look at the battle damage, the
swarming repair droids and tow vessels.  Mon Calamari Star Cruisers were
plated and shielded to withstand multiple direct hits, but he thought he
remembered several more of the huge, lumpy crafts.  Fighting for his
life, his father, and his integrity in the Emperor's throne room, he
hadn't even felt the gut-wrenching Force disturbances from all those
deaths.  He hoped he wasn't getting used to them.

"Wedge, do you copy?" Luke asked over the subspace radio.  He vectored
out among the big ships of the Fleet.

Scanners indicated that the nearest heavy transport was cautiously
moving away from something much smaller.  Four A-wings swooped along
behind Luke.  "Wedge, are you out there?"

"Sorry," he heard faintly.  "Almost out of range of my ship's pickup.
You see, I've got to ." Wedge trailed off, grunting.  "I've got to keep
these two crystals apart.  It's a self-destruct of some sort."

"Crystals?" Luke asked, to keep Wedge talking.  There was pain under
that voice.

"Electrite crystal leads.  Leftovers from the old `elegance days.  The
mechanism's trying to push them together.  Let 'em touch poof.  The
whole fusion engine."

Tumbling slowly above the blue glimmer of Endor, Luke spotted Wedge's
X-wing.  Mongside it drifted a nine-meterlong cylinder bearing Imperial
markings, fully as long as the X-wing and almost all engine, a type of
drone ship the Alliance still couldn't afford.  For some reason, the
drone gave him an eerie foreboding.  The Empire never used such antiques
any more.  Why hadn't the sender been able to use standard Imperial
channels?

Luke whistled.  "No, we don't want to blow that big of an engine." No
wonder the transport was moving away.

"Right." Wedge clung to one end of the cylin4er, wearing a pressure suit
and connected to the X-wing by a life-support tether.  He must have
blown his cockpit air and dove for the cylinder's master control the
moment he realized he'd accidentally armed it to detonate.  In a space
pilot's lightweight pressure suit and closed-face emergency helmet, he
could survive vacuum for several minutes.

"How long've you been out here, Wedge?"

"I don't know.  Doesn't matter.  The view's terrific."

Closing in, Luke reversed engines with care.  Wedge held one hand inside
a hinged panel.  His head swiveled to follow Luke's X-wing as Luke used
short, delicate engine bursts to match his momenwm with the cylinder.

"Sure could use another hand." Wedge's words sounded cocky but the tone
betrayed his strain.  That hand must be half crushed.  "What are you
doing out here?"

"Enjoying the view." Luke considered his options.  The A-wing pilots
decelerated and hung back, probably assuming Luke knew what he was
doing.  "Artoo," he called, "what's the reach on your manipulator arm?
If 1 got in close enough, could you help him?"

No-2.  76 meters short at optimum angle, appeared on his head-up
display.

Luke frowned.  Sweat trickled on his forehead.  Anything small, solid,
and disposable would help.  If he didn't hurry, his friend was dead.
Already Wedge's sense in the Force wobbled dizzily.

Luke glanced at his lightsaber.  He wasn't about to dispose of that.

Not even to save Wedge's life?  Besides, he'd be able to get it back.
Cautiously he slipped the saber into the flare ejection port's feed
tube.  He launched it out, then extended a hand toward it across ten
meters of vacuum, He sent it gliding toward Wedge.  Once near the
target, he twisted his `iTist.

The green-white blade appeared, silent in the vacuum of space.  Wedge's
wide brown eyes blinked behind his faceplate.

"On my signal," Luke said, "jump free."

"Luke, I'll lose fingers."

"Way free," Luke repeated.  "You'll lose more than fingers if you stay
there."

"What's the chance you could Jedi me a little nerve blockage?  This
hurts like crazy." Wedge's voice sounded weaker.

He pulled in his knees and braced to push off.

At moments like these, moisture farming for Uncle Owen back on Tatooine
didn't sound too bad.  "I'll try," said Luke.

"Show me the crystals.  Look at them closely."

"Ho-kay." Wedge pulled around to stare into the hatchway.  Letting the
lightsaber drift, Luke felt for Wedge's friendly presence.  He trusted
Wedge not to resist this, to let him Through Wedge's eyes, and fighting
the excruciating pain in Wedge's hand, Luke glimpsed a pair of round,
multifaceted jewelsone inside his palm, the other crushing inwarrl at
the end of a spring mechanism from the back of his hand.  Fist-sized,
they reflected pale golden sparks of saber light out the hatch onto
Wedge's orange suit.  Luke didn't think the flight glove alone would
keep them apart, or he'd've simply told Wedge to slip out of it.  Brief
depressurization didn't damage extremities much.

If Wedge jumped, Luke would have a second at most to slice one crystal
free, and only a little longer before Wedge fainted.  Wedge was tethered
and he'd be able to keep breathing, but he could lose a lot of blood.
The glimpse blurred at the edges.

Luke tweaked Wedge's pain perception.

Too much to juggle.  Luke's own aches began to ooze up from under
control.  "Got it," he grunted.

"Got what?" Wedge asked dreamily.

"The view," Luke said.  "Jump on the count of three.  Jump hard.  One."
Wedge didn't object.  Clenching his teeth, Luke eased into a closer
accord with the saber.  So long as he focused on the saber, he could
maintain control.  "Two."

Keeping up a steady count, he felt the saber, the crystals, and the
critical gap, all as parts of the universe's wholeness.

"Three." Nothing happened.  "Jump, Wedge!" Luke cried.

Weakly, Wedge launched hirrsself.  Luke swept in.  One crystal soared
free, reflecting a whirling green kaleidoscope onto the X-wing's upper
S-foil.

"Ooh," crooned Wedge's voice in his ear.  "Pretty." He spun, clutching
his right hand.

"Wedge, reel in!"

No response.  Luke bit his lip.  He stabilized the tumbling saber and
deactivated its blade.  Wedge's tether stretched taut, high above the
other X-wing.  His limbs wobbled randomly.

Luke slapped his distress beacon.  "Rogue Leader to Home One. Explosives
disarmed.  Request medical pickup.  Now!"

From behind the A-wings, hanging back out of the danger zone, a med
runner swooped into sight.

Wedge's body rose and sank with each breath as he floated upright in the
Fleet's clear tank of healing bacta fluid.  Much to Luke's relief,
they'd saved all his fingers.

Surgical droid Too-Onebee set the control board and then swiveled to
face Luke.  Slender, jointed limbs waved in front of his gleaming
midsection.  "Now you, sir.  Please step behind the scanner.

"I'm all right." Luke leaned his stool against the bulkhead.

"Just tired." Artoo-Detoo bleeped softly beside him, sound   will only
take a moment."

Luke sighed and shuffled around a man-high rectangular panel.  "Okay?"
he called out through it.  "May I go now?"

"One moment more," came the mechanical voice, then clicking sounds. "One
moment," the droid repeated.  "Have you experienced double vision
recently?"

"Well ." Luke scratched his head.  "Yes.  But just for a minute." Surely
that little spell wasn't significant.

As the diagnostic panel retracted into the bulkhead, a medical flotation
bed extended itself from the wall beside Too-Onebee.  Luke backstepped.
"What's that for?"

"You're not well, sir."

"I'm just tired."

"Sir, my diagnosis is sudden and massive calcification of your skeletal
structure, of the rare type brought on by severely conductive exposure
to electrical and other energy fields."

Energy fields.  Yesterday.  Emperor Palpatine, leeririg as blue-white
sparks leaped off his fingertips while Luke writhed on the deck.  Luke
broke a sweat, the memory was so fresh.  He'd thought he was dying.  He
was dying.

"The abrupt drop in blocel minerals is causing muscular microseizures
all over your body, sir."

So that was why he ached.  Until an hour ago, he hadn't had a chance to
sit still and notice.  Deflated, he stared up at Too-Onebee.  "But it's
not permanent damage, is it?  You don't have to replace bones?" He
shuddered at the thought.

"The condition will become chronic unless you rest and allow me to treat
you," answered the mechanical voice.  "The alternative is bacta
irnmersion."

Luke glanced at the tank.  Not that, again.  He'd tasted bacta on his
breath for a week afterward.  Reluctantly he pulled off his boots and
stretched out on the flotation bed.

He awakened, squirming, some time later.

Too-Onebee's metal-grate face appeared at his bedside.

"Painkiller, sir?"

Luke had always read that humans had three hones in each ear.  Now he
believed it.  He could count them.  "I feel worse, not better," he
complained.  "Didn't you do anything?"

"Treatment is complete, sir.  Now you must rest.  May I offer you a
painkiller?" he repeated patiently.

"No thanks,' Luke grunted.  As a Jedi Knight, he must learn to control
sensations, and better sooner than later.

Pain was an occupational hazard.

Artoo beeped a query.

Guessing at a translation, Luke said, "All right, Artoo.  You stand
watch.  I'll take another nap." He rolled over.  Slowly, his weight
pushed a new furrow into the bed's flexible contour.  This was the down
side of being called a hero.  It'd been worse when he lost his right
hand.

Come to think of it, the bionic hand didn't ache.

One bright spot.

It was time to re-create the ancient Jedi art of self-healing.

Yoda's sketchy lessons left much to be imagined.

"I'll leave you, sir." Too-Onebee swiveled away.  "Please attempt to
sleep.  Call if you require assistance."

One last question brought Luke's head up.  "How's Wedge?"

"Healing well, sir.  He should be ready for release within a day."

Luke shut his eyes and tried to remember Yoda's lessons.

Booted feet pounded rapidly past the open hatchway.  Already focused
deep into the Force, he felt an alarmed presence hurry up the hall.  As
carefully as he listened, he couldn't recognize the individual.  Yoda
had said fine discernmentven of strangerwouM come in time, as he learned
the deep silence of self that let a Jedi distinguish others' ripples in
the Force.

Luke rolled over, wanting to sleep.  He was ordered to sleep.

And he was still Luke Skywalker, and he had to Irnow what had alarmed
that trooper.  Cautiously he sat up and gingerly slipped down onto his
feet.  With the ache localized at one end of his body, he could diminish
it by willing his feet not to exist or something like that.  The Force
wasn't something you explained.  It was something you used when it let
you.  Not even Yoda had seen everything.

Artoo whistled an alarm.  Too-Onebee rolled toward him, limb-pipes
flailing.  "Sir, lie back down, please."

"In a minute." He poked his head out into the long corridor and shouted,
"Stop!"

The Rebel trooper spun to a halt.

"Did they decode that drone ship's message yet?"

"Still working on it, sir."

Then the war room was the place to be.  Luke backed into Artoo and
steadied himself with a hand on the little droid's blue dome.  "Sir,"
insisted the medical droid, "please lie down.  The condition will
rapidly become chronic unless you rest."

Imagining himself pain-racked for the rest of his life, and the
alternative-another spell in the sticky tank-Luke sat down on the
squishy edge of the flotation bed and fidgeted.

Then a thought struck him.  "Too-Onebee, I bet you've got-"

Large enough to hold a hundred, the flagship's war room was almost
empty.  A service droid slid along the curve of an inner bench, passing
between a light tube and glimmering white bulkheads.  Down near the
circular projection table that dorninated the war room's center, near a
single tech on duty, Mon Mothma-the woman who'd founded and who now led
the Rebel Alliance-stood with General Cdx Madine.  Mon Mothma's presence
gleamed visibly in her long white robes and invisibly through the Force,
and the bearded Madine's confidence had grown since the Battle of Endor.

They both looked in Luke's direction and frowned.  Luke smiled
halfheartedly and gripped the handrests of the repulsor chair he'd
commandeered out of the medical suite, steering it down over the steps
toward them.

"You'll never learn, will you?" General Madine's frown got flatter. "You
belong in sick bay.  This time we'll have TooOnebee knock you out."

Luke's cheek twitched.  "What about that message?  Some lmperial
commander burned a quarter million credits on that antique drone."

Mon Mothma nodded, reprimanding Luke with her placid stare.  A side
console lit, this one a smaller light projection table.  Above it
appeared a miniature hologram of Admiral Ackbar, with huge eyes bulging
at the sides of his high-domed, ruddy head.  Although the Calamarian had
commanded the Battle of Endor from a chair under the broad starry
viewport on Luke's left, Ackbar felt more comfortable on his own
cruiser.  Life support there was finetuned to Calamarian standards.
"Commander Skywalker," he wheezed.  Whiskery tendrils wobbled under his
jaw.  "You need to consider the risks you take .  more carefully."

"I will, Admiral.  When I can." Luke reclined the floating repulsor
chair and steadied it against the main light table's steel gray rim.  An
electronic whistle rang out from the hatchway behind him.  Artoo-Detoo
wasn't letting him out of photoreceptor range for thirty seconds.  The
blue-domed droid had to take the long way around.  Eclipsing tiny
blinking instrument lights, he rolled along the upper computer bank to a
drop platform.  There he downloaded himself, then rolled close to Luke's
float chair before delivering a string of rebukeprobably from
Too-Onebee.  General Madine smirked behind his beard. -.Luke hadn't
understood a single whistle, but he could -guess at this translation
too.  "All right, Artoo.  Pull in your wheels.  I'm sitting down.  This
should be interesting."

Young Lieutenant Matthews straightened up over the side console and
turned his head.  "Here it comes," he announced.

Madine and Mothma leaned toward the screen.  Luke craned his neck for a
better view.

IMPERIAL GOVERNOR WiLEK NEREUS OF THE BAKURA SYSTEM, TO HIS MOST
EXCELLENT IMPERIAL MASTER PALPATINE: GREETINGS IN HASTE.

They hadn't heard.  Months, maybe years, would pass before much of the
galaxy realized that the Emperor's reign had ended.  Luke himself was
having a hard time believing it'

BAKURA IS UNDER ATTACK BY AN ALIEN INVASION FORCE FROM OUTSIDE YOUR
DOMAIN.  ESTiMATE FIVE CRUISERS, SEVERAL DOZEN SUPPORT SHIPS, OVER 1000
SMALL FIGHTERS.

UNKNOWN TECHNOLOGY.  WE HAVE LOST HALF OUR DEFENSE FORCE AND ALL
OUTERSYSTEM OUTPOSTS.  HOLONET TRANSMISSIONS TO IMPERIAL CENTER AND
DEATH STAR TWO HAVE GONE UNANSWERED.  URGENT, REPEAT URGENT, SEND
STORMTROOPERS.

Madine reached past Lieutenant Matthews and poked a touch panel.  "More
data," he exclaimed.  "We need more of this."

The voice of an intelligence droid filtered through the comlink.  "There
are corroborative visuals if you would care to see them, sir, as well as
embedded data files coded for Imperial access."

"That's more like it.".  Madine touched the lieutenant's shoulder. "Give
me the visuals."

Over the central light table, a projection unit whirred upright.  A
scene appeared that brought up a fresh rush of paindeadening adrenaline.
Yoda would rap my knuckles, Luke observed soberly.  Eecite'nent -
adventu .  .  .  a Jedi craves not these things.  He stretched toward
Jedi calm.  A terrified world needed help.

At the center of the tableau hovered the image of an Imperial
system-patrol craft of a sort Luke had studied but never fought,
projected as a three-dimensional network of lines that gleamed reddish
orange.  He leaned closer to examine its laser emplacements, but before
he could get a good look, it silently spewed out an explosion of yellow
escape pods.  A larger orange image swung ominously into the viewfield,
dominating the scene by its bulk: far larger than the patrol craft,
stubbier than the Rebels' sleek Mon Cal cruiseroughly ovoid, but covered
with blisterlike projections.

"Run a check on that ship's design," ordered Madine.

After approximately three seconds, the intelligence droid's monotone
answered, "This design is used neither by the Alliance nor the Empire."

Luke held his breath.  The huge attack craft loomed larger over the
table.  Now he could make out half a hundred gun emplacements .  .  . or
were they beam antennae?  It held fire until six crimson TIE fighters
vectored close, then the fighters lurched simultaneously and slowed.
Fighters and escape pods began to accelerate steadily toward the alien
ship, evidently caught in a tractor beam.  The scene shrank.

Whoever recorded those visuals had left in a hurry.

"Taking prisoners," Madine murmured, clearly concerned.

Mon Mothma turned to a shoulder-high droid that had stood silently
nearby.  "Access the embedded data files.  Apply our most current
Imperial codes.  Locate this world, Bakura." Luke felt relieved that
even the Alliance's knowledgeable leader had to ask for the system's
location.

The droid rotated toward the light table and reconnected its socket arm.
The battle scene faded.  Star sparks appeared in a conformation Luke
recognized as this end of the Rim region.  "Here, Madam," the droid
announced.  One speck turned red.  "According to this file, its economy
is based on the export of repulsorlift components and an exotic fruit
candy and liqueur.  Settled by a speculative mining corporation during
the final years of the Clone Wars, and taken over by the Empire
approximately three years ago, to absorb and control its repulsorlift
production capacity."

"Subjugated recently enough to remember independence well." Mon Mothma
rested her slender hand on the edge of the light table.  "Now show
Endor.  Relative position.

Another speck gleamed blue.  Forgotten at Luke's shoulder, Artoo
whistled softly.  If Endor was a good bit out from the Core worlds,
Bakura was still farther.  "That's virtually the edge of the Rim
worlds," Luke observed.  "Even traveling in hyperspace, it would take
days to get there.  The Empire can't help them." It was strange to think
of anyone turning to the Empire for help.  Evidently the Rebels'
decisive victory at Endor doomed the Bakurans to an unknown fate,
because the nearest imperial battle group couldn't help.  Alliance
forces had scattered it.

From a speaker at his left, Leia's voice projected clearly.

"How large is the imperial force at the system?"

Leia was down on Endor's surface, in the Ewok village.

Luke hadn't known she was listening in, but he should've assumed it.  He
reached out through the Force and brushed his sister's warm presence,
sensing justifiable tension.  Leia was allegedly resting with Han Solo,
recovering from that blaster burn on her upper arm, and bel ing the
furry little Ewoks bury their dead-not watchihg for new trouble.  Luke
pursed his lips.  He'd loved Leia all along, wishing Well, that was
behind him.  The intelligence droid answered her over a suhspace radio
comlink relay, "Bakura is defended by an Imperial garrison.  The sender
of this me sage his added subtext reminding Emperor Palpatine that what
forces they have are antiquated, due to the system's remoteness."

"Evidently the Empire didn't anticipate any competition for Bakura."
Leia's voice sounded disdainful.  "But now there's no Imperial Fleet to
help there.  It will take the Imperials weeks to reassemble, and by then
this Bakura could fall to the invasion force<r it could be part of the
Alliance," she added in a brighter tone.  "If the Imperials can't help
the Bakurans, we must."

Admiral Ackbar's image planted finny hands in the vicinity of its lower
torso.  "What do you mean, Your Highness?"

Leia leaned against the wattle-and-daub wall of an Ewok tree house and
rolled her eyes toward the dome of its high, thatched roof.  Han
sprawled casually beside her seat, leaning on an elbow and twirling a
twig between his fingers.

She raised a handheld comlink.  "If we sent aid to Bakura," she answered
Admiral Ackbar, "it's possible that Bakura would leave the Empire out of
gratitude.  We could help free its people."

"And get that repulsorlift technology," Han mumbled to the twig.

Leia had only paused.  "That chance is worth investing a small task
force.  And you'll need a high-ranking negotiator."

Han lay back, crossed his arms behind his head, and murmured, "You step
off onto an Imperial world, and you're an entry in somebody's credit
register.  You've got a price on your head."

She frowned.

"Can we afford to send troops, given the shape we're in?

Ackbar's voice wheezed out of the comlink.  "We`ve lost twenty percent
of our forces, battling only part of the Emperor's fleet.  Any Imperial
battle group could do a better job at Bakura."

"But then the Empire would remain in control there.  We need Bakura just
like we need Endor.  Every world we can draw into the Alliance."

Surprising her, Han closed his hand on the comlink and pulled it toward
him.  "Admiral," he said, "I doubt we can afforrl not to go.  An
invasion force that big is trouble for this whole end of the galaxy. And
she's right-it's us that ought to go.  You'd just better send a ship
that can make a fast getaway, in case the lmperials get ideas."

"What about the price on your head, laser brains?" Leia whispered.

Han covered the squelch.  "You're not going without me, Highness-ness."

Luke studied Mon Mothma's expression and her sense m the Force.  "It
would have to be a small group," she said quietly, `tut one ship is not
enough.  Admiral Ackbar, you may select a few fighters to support
General Solo and Princess Leia."

Luke spread a hand.  "What are the aliens doing?  Why are they taking so
many prisoners?"

"The message doesn't say," Madine pointed out.

"Then you'd better send someone who can find out.  It could be
important."

"Not you, Commander, and it doesn't look like we can wait until you've
recovered." Madine rapped a white handrail.  "This team should leave
within a standard day."

Luke didn't want to be left behind even though he had all faith that Han
and Leia could take care of each other.

On the other hand, before he could pitch in, he must heal himself, and
General Madine had suddenly become twins.

His optic nerves were telling him to get horizontal soon, or risk a
doubly humiliating faint in the war room.  He eyed the handrail over the
double row of white benches, wondering if the repulsor chair would lift
over it.  He ached to push the thing's envelope.

Artoo chattered, sounding motherly.

Luke fingered the float chair's controls and said, "I'll head back to my
cabin.  Keep me posted."

General Madine crossed his arms over the front of his khaki uniform.

"I doubt we'll be sending you to Bakura." Mon Mothma's robes rustled as
she squared her shoulders.  "Consider your importance to the Alliance."

"She's right, Commander," wheezed the small ruddy image of Admiral
Ackbar.

"I'm not helping anyone if I'm just lying down." But he had to shake his
reckless reputation, if he wanted the respect of the Rebel Fleet.  Yoda
had commissioned him to pass on what he had learned.  To Luke's mind,
that meant rebuilding the Jedi Order as soon as he got the chance.
Anyone else could pilot a fightership.  No one else could recruit and
train new Jedi.

Frowning, he steered to the lift platform, rotated his chair, and
answered Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar as he rose.  "I can at least help
you put together the strike force."

CHAPTER 2

The higher-ups continued to confer as Luke floated toward a hatchway.
The gray-furred guard, a Gotal, ffinched as he saluted.  Luke remembered
that Gotal felt the Force as a vague buzzing in their cone-shaped
perceptor horns, and he accelerated to keep from giving the loyal Gotal
a headache.

Artoo shrieked behind him.  Out in the corridor, Luke decelerated his
float chair and let the little droid catch him.

Artoo grappled the chair's left stabilizer bar and towed it along,
spouting electronic static.

"Yes, Artoo." Luke leaned one hand on Artoo's blue dome.  Gratefully he
let himself be herded back to the medical suite.  He pictured a thousand
alien ships converging on on a world he still couldn't imagine.  He
wanted to see it in his mind's eye.

And to know why the aliens took prisoners.

Once inside the ship's clinic, he pulled off his boots and sank back
down on the flotation bed.  Its "give" underneath him felt inexpressibly
good.  After a glance at Wedge's bacta tank, he shut his eyes and
imagined he could hear all the way to the war room.

Let them worry.  He was finished, for a while.  Literally.

Artoo beeped something interrogative.  "Say again?" asked Luke.

Artoo wheeled over to the open hatch and reached out a manipulator arm.
The door slid closed.

"Oh.  Thanks." Evidently Artoo thought he'd like to Undress in privacy.

Evidently Artoo didn't know he was too tired to undress.

He pulled his legs up onto the bed.  "Artoo," he said, "get a portable
data screen from Too-Onebee.  Access those embedded data files from that
message drone.  I'll take a look while 1 rest."

Artoo's reply dropped disapprovingly in pitch as he wheeled away, but
less than a minute later he rolled back, trailing a wheeled cart.  He
steered it to Luke's bedside and extended a connector into its input
port.

"Bakura," Luke said.  "Data files."

As the computer analyzed his voiceprint to confirm his security
clearance, Luke stretched out and blinked.  He'd never so appreciated
normal, single vision.

A cloud-frosted blue world appeared on the screen.

"Bakura," said a bland, mature female voice.  "Imperial Study Survey
six-oh-seven-seven-four." Cloud cover swirled closer.  Luke's vision
dropped through it to hover over a vast range of green mountains.
Through a deep valley, two broad parallel rivers cut the mountains and
wound down to a verdant delta.  Luke imagined rich, damp smells, like on
Endor.  "Salis D'aar, capital city, is the seat of lmperial
governorship.  Bakuran contributions to Imperial security include a
modest flow of strategic metals So green.  So wet.  Luke shut his eyes.
His head sank.

He sprawled on the deck of a strange spaceship.  A huge reptilian alien,
brown-scaled with a blunt, oversize head, tromped toward him waving a
weapon.  Luke ignited his lightsaber.  Heavy with the Emperor's
fingerprints, it slid through his grip.  Teen he recognized the big
lizard's "weapon": a restraining-bolt Owner, used to control droias.
Laughing, he leaped into fighting stance.  The lizard's Owner whirred.
Luke froze in place.

"What?" Ilisbeluna ng, he looked down.  He had a droid's stiff-jointed
body.  Again the alien raised its Owner device..

Luke fought back to consciousness.  He felt a poweiftil presence in the
Force and sat up too quickly.  Invisible hammers bashed both sides of
his head.

The screen stood dark.  On the foot of his flotation bed sat Ben Kenobi,
robed as usual in unbleached homespun, shimmering under the cabin's
faint night glims.  "Obi-wan?" Luke murmured.  "what's happening at
Bakura?"

Ionized air danced around the figure.  "You are going to Bakura," it
answered.

"Is it that bad?" Luke asked bluntly, not really expecting an anser. Ben
rarely gave them.  He seemed to come mostly to reprimand Luke, like a
teacher who could not give up hounding his student after graduation (not
that Ben had stayed around to finish his training).

Obi-wan shifted on the bed, but the bed didn't shift with him.  The
manifestation wasn't literally physical.  "Emperor Palpatine achieved
first contact with the aliens attacking Bakura," said the apparition,
"during one of his Force meditations.  He offered them a deal, one that
can no longer be honored."

"What kind of deal?" Luke asked quietly.  "What danger are the Bakurans
in?"

"You must go." Ben still didn't hear Luke's questions.  "If you do not
attend to the matter-personally, Luke-Bakura -and all worlds, both
Allied and lmperial-will know a far greater disaster than you can
imagine."

Then it was as serious as they feared.  Luke shook his head.  "I need to
know more.  I cat rush in blindly, and besides, I'm-"

Shimmering air brightened and rushed inward, stirring faint air currents
as the image vanished.

Luke groaned.  Somehow he'd have to persuade the medical committee to
release him, and then convince Admiral Ackbar to give him the
assignment.  He would promise to rest and heal himself in hyperspace, if
he could figure out how.  Suddenly the notion of battle no longer
excited him at all.

He shut his eyes and sighed.  Master Yoda would be pleased.

"Artoo," he said, "call Admiral Ackbar."

Artoo burbled.

"I know it's late.  Apologize for waking him.  Tell him ." He glanced
around.  "Tell him if he doesn't care to come to the clinic lounge, we
can set something up in the war room.

"So, you see .  Luke glanced up.  The clinic lounge's door slid open.
Han and Leia paused in the hatchway, then squeezed in between General
Madine-who stood nearbyand Mon Mothma, seated on a stasis unit.

`Scuse us," Han grunted.  Too-Onebee had approved the conference,
provided Luke didn't leave the medical suite.

This crowded little lounge, spotless white like the rest of the suite,
doubled as interim storage for cold stasis units.  Mon Mothma's "seat"
held a mortally wounded Ewok, who rested in suspended animation until
the Alliance transported him to a fully equipped medical facility.

Han backed up against the bulkhead.  Leia sat down beside Mon Mothma.

"Go on." Admiral Ackbar's projected image (in miniature) shone on the
floor beside Artoo, who stood at attention maintaining the projection.
"General Obi-wan Kenobi has given you orders?"

"That's it, sir." Luke wished Leia and Han hadn't interrupted his
explanation right at the most impressive moment.

Admiral Ackbar flicked chin tendrils with a webbed hand.  "I have
studied the Kenobi offensive.  It was masterful.

I have little faith in apparitions, but General Kenobi was one of the
more powerful Jedi Knights, and Commander Skywalker's word is generally
reliable."

General Madine frowned.  "Captain Wedge Antilles should be fully
recovered by the time any battle group could reach Bakura.  I'd thought
to put him in charge of the group -no offense, General," he added,
smiling faintly at Han.

"None taken," Han drawled.  "Separate me from the Ambassador there, and
I'll resign my commission."

Luke covered a smile with one hand.  Mon Mothma had already assigned
Leia to represent the Alliance on Bakura, and to the Imperial presence
there, and even requested that she attempt to contact the aliens.
Imagine how solidly the Alliance could challenge the Empire, if our
ranks were swelled by that alien millitary force, Mon Mothma had said
cautiously.

"But Commander Skywalker is in considerably more serious condition,"
Ackbar declared.

"I won't be, by the time we can reach Bakura.

"We must plan for every contingency." Ackbar's ruddy head bobbed.  "We
must defend Endor now, and we've promised General Calrissian assistance
with liberating Cloud City-"

"I talked to Lando on the comlink," Han cut in.  "He says he's got ideas
of his own, and thanks anyway." Imperial forces had taken over Cloud
City when Lando Cairissianits baron-administrator-fied with Leia and
Chewie, chasing the bounty hunter who'd flown off with Han as his
carbon-frozen prisoner.  Lando had had to forget Cloud City while he led
the attack on Endor.  They had indeed promised him all the fighters they
could spare.

But Lando had always been a gambler.

"Then we shall send Bakura a small but strong strike force," Ackbar
declared, "to support Princess Leia in her role as chief negotiator.
Most of your fighting will probably be in space, not groundside.  Five
Corellian Gunships and a Corvette will escort our smallest
cruiser-carrier.  Commander Skywalker, will that be enough?"

Luke started.  "You're giving me command, sir?"

"I don't see that we have any choice," Mon Mothma said quietly. "General
Kenobi has spoken to you.  Your record in battle is unmatched.  Assist
Bakura for us and then rejoin the Fleet immediately."

Elated by the honor, Luke saluted her.

Early the following day, Luke examined the status boards of the newly
commissioned Rebel carrier Flurry.  "She's ready to jump," he observed.

"Ready and eager, Commander." Captain Tessa Manchisco nudged his elbow.
Fresh from the Virgillian Civil War, Captain Manchisco wore her black
hair hanging in six thick braids down the back of her cream-colored
uniform.

She'd accepted the Bakura assignment with relish.  Her Flury, a small,
unconventional cruiser-carrier retrofitted with all the stolen Imperial
components that opportunistic Virgillians could cram on board, carried a
Virgillian bridge crew: besides Manchisco, three humans and a noseless,
redeyed Duro navigator.  Inside the Flu ny's hangar bays, Admiral
Ackbar's crews had packed twenty X-wing fighters, three A-wings, and
four cruiser-assault B-wing fighters, as many as the Alliance could
spare.

Peering out the Flurry's triangular viewport, Luke spotted two of his
Corellian Gunships.  Riding shotgun above the carrierven in zero gravity
they habitually established a "bottom" to every formationHirifted the
hottest souped-up freighter in this quadrant of the galaxy, the
Millennium Falcon.  Han, Chewbacca, Leia, and See-Threepio had boarded
the Falcon less than an hour ago.

Luke's initial elation over being given command had already faded.  It
was one thing to fly a fighter under someone else's orders, with the
Force as his ally.  Strategy was something else.  He carried
responsibility for every life and every ship.

Still, he'd been studying strategic and tactical texts.  And now-well,
to tell the truth, he was almost looking forward to it.

Whoops.  Abruptly his knuckles stung.  He heard or remembered Yoda's
soft laughter.

Frowning, he shut his eyes and relaxed.  Everything still hurt, but
he'd promised Too-Onebee that he'd rest and selfheal.  He wished he felt
better.

"Hyperdrive stations," called Manchisco.  "Commander, you might want to
strap down.

Luke glanced around the spartan hexagonal bridge: three stations besides
his command seat, an array of battle boards now darkened for transit,
and a single R2 droid socket occupied by the Virgillians' own unit.  He
buckled in, wondering what "disaster" waited at Bakura unless he dealt
with it personally.

On an outer deck of a vast battle cruiser called the Shriwirr, Dev
Sibwarra rested his slim brown hand on a prisoner's left shoulder.
"It'll be all right," he said softly.  The other human's fear beat at
his mind like a three-tailed lash.

"There's no pain.  You have a \wonderful surprise ahead of you."
Wonderful indeed, a life without hunger, cold, or selfish desire.

The prisoner, an Imperial of much lighter complexion than Dev, slumped
in the entechment chair.  He'd given up protesting, and his breath came
in gasps.  Pliable bands secured his forelimbs, neck, and kneebut only
for balance.

With his nervous system deionized at the shoulders, he couldn't
struggle.  A slender intravenous tube dripped pale blue magnetizing
solution into each of his carotid arteries while tiny servopumps hummed.
It only took a few mils of magsol to attune the tiny, fluctuating
electromagnetic fields of human brain waves to the Ssi-ruuvi entechment
apparatus.

Behind I)ev, Master Firwirrung trilled a question in Ssiruuvi.  "Is it
calmed yet?"

Dev sketched a bow to his master and switched from human speech to
Ssi-ruuvi.  "Calm enough," he sang back.

"He's almost ready."

Sleek, russet scales protected Firwirrung's two-meter length from beaked
muzzle to muscular tail tip, and a prominent black V crest marked his
forehead.  Not large for a Ssiruu, he was still growing, with only a few
age-scores where scales had begun to separate on his handsome chest.
Firwirrung swung a broad, glowing white metal catchment arc down to
cover the prisoner from midchest to nose.  Dev could just peer over it
and watch the man's pupils dilate.  At any moment

"Now," Dev announced.

Firwirrung touched a control.  His muscular tail twitched with pleasure.
The fleet's capture had been good today.

Alongside his master, Dev would work far into the night.

Before entechment, prisoners were noisy and dangerous.

Afterward, their life energies powered droids of Ssi-ruuvi choosing.

The catchment arc hummed up to pitch.  Dev backed away.  Inside that
round human skull, a magsol-drugged brain was losing control.  Though
Master Firwirrung assured him that the transfer of incorporeal energy
was painless, every prisoner screamed.

As did this one, when Firwirrung threw the catchment arc switch.  The
arc boomed out a sympathetic vibration, as brain energy leaped to an
electromagnet perfectly attuned to magsol.  Through the Force rippled an
ululation of indescribable anguish.

Dev staggered and clung to the knowledge his masters had given him: The
prisoners only thought they felt pain.

He only thought he sensed their pain.  By the time the body screamed,
all of a subject's energies had jumped to the catchment arc.  The
screaming body already was dead.

"Transferred." Firwirrung's fluting whistle carried an amused
undercurrent.  Such a paternal attitude made Dev feel awkward.  He was
inferior.  Human.  Soft and vulnerable, like a wriggling white larva
before metamorphosis.  He longed to sit for entechment, and transfer his
life energy to a powerful battle droid.  Quietly he cursed the talents
that sentenced him to go on waiting.

The catchment arc hummed louder, fully charged, more "alive" now than
the limp body on the chair.  Firwirrung faced a bulkhead stippled with
hexagonal metal scales.

"Ready down there?" His question came out as a rising labial whistle,
ending with a snap of the toothed beak, then two sibilant whistles
falling to throat-stop.  It had taken Dev years to master Ssi-ruuvi, and
countless sessions of hypnotic conditioning that also left him yearning
to please Firwirrung, head of entechment.

Entechment work never ended.  Ufe energy, like any other, could be
stored in the right kind of battery.  But brain wavelength electrical
activity, which accompanied life energy into the droid charges,
eventually set up destructive harmonics.  The droids' vital control
circuits "died" of fatal psychosis.

Still, human energies lasted longer than any other species in
entechment, whether slaved to shipboard circuits or motivating battle
droids.

Deck 16 of the huge battle cruiser finally whistled an answer.
Firwirrung pressed his three-fingered foreclaw against a button.  The
catchment arc fell silent.  The lucky human's life energy was even now
sparking in a reservoir coil behind one small pyramidal battle droid's
sensor clusters.  Now he'd be able to see at additional wavelengths and
in all directions.  He would never again need oxygen or temperature
control, nourishment or sleep.  Free from the awkward necessity of wIll,
of ever making his own decisions, his new housing would respond to all
Ssi-ruuvi orders.

Perfect obedience.  Dev bowed his head, wishing it were him.  Droid
ships suffered no sadness or pam.  A glorious metamorphosis, until one
day enemy laser fire destroyed the coil or those destructive psychotic
harmonics unlinked it from control circuits.

Firwirrung retracted catchinent arc, his, and restraints.

Dev pulled the body husk off the chair and slid it into a hexagonal deck
chute.  It thumped away into blackness.

Tail-down relaxed, Firwirrung swept away from the table.

He poured a cup of red ksaa while Dev brought down a nozzle arm and
sprayed the chair several times.  Biological byproducts flushed
harmlessly through drains in the center of the seat.

Dev raised the spray arm, locked it at standby, then waved at a switch
for the chair to warm itself dry.  "Ready," he whistled.  Eagerly he
turned to the hatchway.

Two small, young P'w'ecks brought in the next prisoner, a wrinkled human
with eight closely spaced red and blue rectangles on the breast of his
green-gray Imperial tunic, and a disarrayed shock of white hair.  He
struggled to wrench his arms out of his guards' foreclaws.  The tunic
provided pitifully little protection.  Red human blood welled through
his skin and torn sleeves.

If only he knew how unnecessary all this resistance was.

Dev stepped forward.  "It's all right." He held his paddleshaped ion
beamer-a medical instrument that could double as a safe shipboard
weapon-in the blue-and-green side stripes of his long tunic.  "It's not
what you think, not at all."

The man's eyes opened so wide that obscene white sclerae showed all
around the irises.  "What do I think?" the man demanded, his feelings a
Force-swirl of panic.  "Who are you?  What are you doing here?
Wait-you're the one  "I'm your friend." Keeping his own eyes half closed
to hide the sclerae (he had only two eyelids, unlike his masters'
three), Dev rested his right hand on the man's shoulder.

"And I'm here to help you.  Don't be afraid." Please, he added silently.
It hurts when you fear me.  And you're so lucky.  We'll be quick.  He
pressed his beamer to the back of the prisoner's neck.  Still gripping
the activator, he ran it swiftly down the man's spine.

The Imperial officer's muscles loosened.  His servant-race guards let
him fall to the tiled gray deck.  "Clumsy!" Firwirrung sprang forward on
massive hind legs, tail stiff as he railed at the smaller P'w'ecks.
Other than size and drabness, they looked almost like the masterly
Ssi-ruuk from a distance.  "Respect the prisoners," Firwirrung sang.  He
might be young for command rank duty, but he demanded deference.

Dev helped the three lift and position the smelly, perspiring human.
Fully consciouthe catchment arc would not operate otherwise-the man
wobbled off the chair.  Dev caught him by both shoulders, wrenching his
own back.

"Relax," Dev murmured.  "it's all right."

"Don't do this!" the prisoner cried.  "I have powerful friends.  They'll
pay well for my release."

"We would love to meet them.  But we won't deny you this joy." Dev let
his spirit center float over the stranger's fear, then pressed it down
like a comforting blanket.  Once the P'w'ecks had securely anchored the
restraint bands, Dev relaxed his grip and rubbed his back.  Firwirrung's
right foreclaw jabbed upward, placing one IV.  He had not sterilized the
needles.  It was unnecessary.

At last, the prisoner sat helpless and ready.  Clear liquid dripped out
of one eye and a corner of his mouth.  The servopump sent magnetizing
fluid up the IVs.

Another liberated soul, another droid ship ready to help take the human
Empire.

Trying to ignore the prisoner's wet face and enervating terror, Dev
rested a slim brown hand on his left shoulder.

"It'll be all right," he said softly.  "There's no pain.  You have a
wonderful surprise ahead of you.

At last all the day's prisoners were safely entechedxcept one female,
who slipped free of the servant P'w'ecks and dashed her head against a
bulkhead before Dev could catch her.  After several minutes' effort at
revival, Master Firwirrung's head and tail drooped.  "No use," he
whistled regretfully.  "Sad waste.  Recycle it."

Dev cleaned up.  Entechment was noble work, and he keenly felt the honor
of involvement, even if his role was merely that of a servant who could
Force calm the subjects.

He slipped his paddle-shaped beamer into the underside of an overhead
storage shelf, with its flattened topside up, then pressed its pointed
projection end into the sheath notch until it clicked.  The knurled
handle, specially made for his five-fingered hand, dangled beneath the
flat paddle and behind its rounded handguard.

Firwirrung led Dev back up spacious corridors to their quarters and
poured soothing ksaa for both of them.  Dev drank gratefully, seated in
the circular cabin's only chair.

Ssi-ruuk needed no furinture.  Hissing contentment, Firwirrung settled
his broad tail and hindquarters comfortably onto the warm gray deck.
"Are you happy, Dev?" he asked.

Liquid black eyes blinked over the ksaa mug and reflected the bitter red
tonic.

It was an offer of solace.  Whenever life saddened Dev, whenever he
missed the sense of wholeness he'd had when his mother Force linked with
him, Firwirrung took him to blue-scaled Elder Sh'tk'with for renewal
therapy.

"Very happy," Dev arsswered truthfully.  "A good day's work.  Much
kindness."

Firwirrung nodded sagely.  "Much kindness," he whistled back.  His scent
tongues flicked out of his nostrils, tastesmelling Dev's presence.
"Stretch out, Dev.  What do you see tonight in the hidden universe?"

Dev smiled weakly.  The master meant it as a compliment.

All Ssi-ruuk were Force blind.  Dev knew now that he was the only
sensitive, human or otherwise, they'd ever met.

Through him, the Ssi-ruuk had learned of the Emperor's death moments
after it happened.  Because the Force existed in all life, he'd felt the
shock wave of power ripple through spirit and space.

Months ago, His Potency the Shreeftut had responded immediately when
Emperor Palpatine offered prisoners in exchange for tiny, two-meter
droid fighters of his own.

Palpatine couldn't have known how many dozen million Ssi-ruuk lived on
Lwhekk, in their distant star cluster.  Admiral Ivpikkis captured and
questioned several Imperial citizens.  This human Empire, he learned,
stretched out for parsecs.  Its star systems lay like nesting sands,
fertile for the planting of Ssi-ruuvi life.

But then the Emperor died.  There would be no bargain.

The traitorous humans had abandoned them to get home as best they couM,
with the fleet's energy almost spent.  Admiral lvpikkis had come ahead
with the battle cruiser Shriwirr and a small advance force, only half a
dozen attack ships with supporting entechment equipment.  The main fleet
hung back, waiting for news of success or failure.

If they could take a major human world, that entechment equipment-Master
Firwirrung's domain-would give them the human Empire.  Bakura, when it
fell, would provide the technology to construct dozens of entechment
chairs.  Each enteched Bakuran would power or shield a battle droid
fighter or vitalize some critical ship component on one of the large
cruisers.  With dozens of entechment teams trained and equipped, the
Ssi-ruuvi fleet could take the humans' populous Core worlds.  There were
a dozen thousand planets to liberate.  So much kindness to accomplish.

Dev almost worshiped his masters' courage in coming so far and risking
so much for the good of the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium and the liberation of
other species.  If a Ssi-ruu died away from a consecrated home world,
his spirit roamed the galaxies alone forever.

Dev shook his head and answered, "Outside, I sense only the quiet winds
of life itself.  Aboard the Shriwir", mourning and confusion in your new
children."

Firwirrung stroked Dev's arm, his three opposable claws barely reddening
the tender scaleless skin.  Dev smiled, empathizing with his master.
Firwirrung had no clutchinates on board, and the military life meant
lonely hours and terrible risks.  "Master," Dev said, "maybeme day-might
we return to Lwhekk?"

"You and I might never go home, Dev.  But soon we will consecrate a new
home world in your galaxy.  Send for our families As Firwirrung glanced
at the sleeping pit, a whiff of acrid reptilian breath trailed across
Dev's face.

Dev didn't flinch.  He was used to that smell.  His own body odors
sickened the Ssi-ruuk, so he bathed in and drank special solvents four
times daily.  For special occasions, he shaved all his hair.  "A clutch
of your own kind," he murmured.

Firwirrung cocked his head and stared with one black eye.  "Your work
brings me closer to that clutch.  But for now, I am weary.

"I'm keeping you awake," Dev said, instantly repentant.

"Please get your rest.  I'll come along soon."

Once Firwirrung lay nested in his cluster of pillows, with his body
warmed by below-deck generators and triple eyelids sheltering the
beautiful black eyes, Dev took his evening bath and drank his
deodorizing medication.  To take his mind off the abdominal cramps that
always followed, he pulled his chair over to a long, curved
desk/counter.  He withdrew an unfinished book from the library and
loaded it into his reader.

For months, he'd been working on a project that might serve humankind
even better than he served it now (in fact, he feared that the Ssi-ruuk
would entech him into circuits to complete this work rather than into
the battle droid he hoped to earn).

He'd known how to read and write before the Ssi-ruuk adopted him, both
letters and music.  Combining those symbologies, he was devising a
system to write Ssi-ruuvi for human usage.  On the musical staff, he
noted pitches.  Symbols he'd invented signified labial, full-tongue,
half-tongue, and guttural whistles.  Letters showed vowels and
final-click blendings.  Ssi-ruu required a full line of data: The
halftongue whistle rose a perfect fifth while the mouth formed the
letter e.  Then a puckered labial whistle, down a minor third.  Ssi-ruu
was the singular form.  The plural, Ssi-ruuk, ended with a throat-click.
Ssi-ruuvi was complex but lovely, like birdsong from Dev's youth on the
outpost planet G'rho.

Dev had a good ear, but the complicated task invariably overwhelmed him
at the late hour of his free time.  As soon as the cramping and nausea
passed, he shut down his glowing reader and crawled in the dark toward
the faint fetid smell of Firwirrung's bed pit.  Too warm-blooded, he
stacked a pile of pillows to insulate him from the quarters' below-deck
heat.  Then he curled up far from his master and thought of his home.

Dev's abilities had caught his mother's attention from a very early age,
back on Chandrila.  A Jedi apprentice who hadn't completed her training,
she'd taught him a little about the Force.  He'd even communicated with
her over distances.

Then came the Empire.  There'd been a purge of Jedi candidates.  The
family fled to isolated G'rho.

Barely had they settled in when the Ssi-ruuk arrived.  Her Force sense
vanished, leaving him far from home and bereft and terrified of the
invading spaceships.  Master Firwirrung had always said that his parents
would've killed Dev if they could, rather than let the Ssi-ruuk adopt
him.  Terrifying thought-their own child!

But Dev had escaped death on both counts.  The Ssi-ruuvi scouts found
him huddling in an eroded ravine.  Fascinated by the giant lizards with
round black eyes, the undersize ten-year-old had taken their food and
affection.  They'd shipped him back to Lwhekk, where he had lived for
five years.  Eventually, he learned why they hadn't enteched him.

His uncanny mental abilities would make him an ideal scout for
approaching other human systems.  They also allowed him to calm
entechment subjects.  He wished he remembered what he'd said or done
that revealed his talent.

He'd taught the Ssi-ruuk all he knew about humankind, from mind-set and
customs to clothing (including shoes, which amused them).  Already he'd
helped them take several human outposts.  Bakura would be the key world
and they were winning!  Soon, the Bakuran Imperials would run out of
fighting ships and the Ssi-ruuk could approach Bakura's population
centers.  A dozen P'w'eck landing craft carried paralysis canisters,
ready to drop.

Over a standard hailing frequency, Dev had already announced to Bakurans
the good news of their impending release from human limitations.  Master
Firwirrung said it was only normal that they resisted.  Unlike Ssi-ruuk,
humans feared the unknown.  Entechment was a change from which there was
no returning to report.

Dev yawned mightily.  His masters would protect him from the Empire, and
some day reward him.  Firwirrung had promised to stand beside him and
lower the catchment arc hirnself.

Dreamily, Dev stroked his throat.  The lVs would go here.  And here.
Some day, some day.

He covered his head with his arms and slept.

CHAPTER 3

tar streaks shrank on Luke's triangular forward viewscreen as the Fluny
and her seven escorts dropped out of hyperspace.  Once he'd checked
deflector shields, he swung his chair to get the master computer's
insystem status report, while Captain Manchisco's communications officer
scanned standard Imperial hailing frequencies.  Luke felt better, so
long as he moved slowly.

Scanners showed eight planets, none at the spot in its orbit where
Alliance MasterNav had projected.  Now he was glad Manchisco had
overruled his impatience, planned cautiously, and dropped out of
lightspeed in the outer system.

She- shot him a meaningful look.  He touched one eyebrow in salute, then
nodded at the Duro navigator, who blinked his huge red eyes and gargled
unintelligibly.

"He says you're welcome," translated Manchisco.

Half a dozen blistered ovoids clustered around the system's third world,
surrounded on his screens by a virtual sandstorm of small fighters. They
all gleamed red for "threat," but they maneuvered crazily on the screen,
breaking formation and regrouping, approaching and fleeing.  Obviously
they weren't all on the same side.  He glanced at General Dodonna's
brainchild, the Battle Analysis Computer.  He'd agreed to bring along a
BAC prototype, and now he needed data to run it.

"Looks like a party, Junior,' came Han's voice from the speaker at his
elbow.

"I'm with you," Luke answered.  "We're hailing the Imperials now.  No
sense "Sir," interrupted the communications man.

"Hang on." Luke swiveled away from Han's speaker and got a leg cramp for
his trouble.  He was almost healed.  "Did you raise someone?"

The young, broad-shouldered Virgillian pointed at a blinking green light
on his console.  Someone had given the go-ahead to transmit.  Luke
cleared his throat.  Before they left Endor, Leia had offered a list of
things he might say.

They just weren't his style.

Besides, he wouldn't be dealing with a diplomat or a politician.  This
was an embattled commander who could spare only seconds for each
decision.  "Imperial Navy," Luke said, "this is an Alliance battle
group.  We have the white flag out for you.  Looks like you're in need.
Would you accept our help, as between fellow humans?" Sure, there were
aliens among the rebels besides Chewbacca and Manchisco's Duro
navigator.  One Gunship was crewed by seventeen Mon Calamari.  But the
human chauvinist Imperials didn't need to know yet.

The speaker crackled.  lmagining some seasoned Imperial veteran
frantically scrolling through a tutorial for standard Rebel contacting
procedures, Luke switched to an Alliance frequency.  "All fighters,
maintain defensive formation.

Shields up.  We don't know what they're going to do."

Musical fragments and garbled voices echoed across the Fluny's bridge,
and then: "Alliance battle group, this is Commander Pter Thanas of the
Imperial Navy.  Declare your purpose here." The brassy voice rang with
authority.

For three days in hyperspace, Luke had vacillated between pretending
ignorance and admitting the real situation.  Captain Manchisco raised an
eyebrow as if to ask, "Well?"

"We intercepted a message Governor Nereus sent to the Imperial Fleet,
which is, ah, mostly in airdock at the moment.  It sounded like serious
trouble.  As I said, we came to help you if possible."

Luke cut transmission and realized from spasms shooting down his calves
that he'd stood up.  Frustrated, he lowered himself onto the big chair
again.  He'd rested plenty in hyperspace.  On his intergroup channel,
the Gunships checked in.  Their pips showed blue on the black status
board.  Outside his viewscreen, they formed up in pairs.

Near his elbow, Leia's voice spoke softly from over on the Falcon.
"Luke, be subtle.  You're dealing with Imperials.

They're going to see us as hostiles and chase us away."

"They're not chasing anybody at the moment, Luke pointed out.  "They're
about to be wiped-"

"No wonder nobody picked up the standard distress transmissions," said
the dry, crisp voice of imperial Commander Thanas.  "Alliance battle
group, we would be grateful for assistance.  I am coding a status report
twenty cycles below this frequency."

"Well, all right," observed Han.

Only someone who already considered himself beaten would accept
marginally identified reinforcements.  Luke glanced at Communications
Officer Delckis, who opened the channel Thanas indicated.  Within
moments, a small percentage of the swirling dots on the status board
turned yellow-gold for the Imperials.  Luke whistled softly.  All six
ovoids and most of the sandstorm still gleamed threat red.

The BAC started spitting information.  Commander Thanas had less
firepower than the invaders, and 80 percent of it was concentrated in a
single Carrack-class cruiser.  Not a big ship, with only a fifth of the
crew that a Star Destroyer carried, but it outgunned the Flurry several
times.

"You sure you want to do this?" muttered Manchisco.

Luke touched a call button that would send Rebel pilots scrambling up
ladders.  Fueled and pulled out into the bays during the last day in
hyperspace, the fighters were launch ready.

"Reading your formation," Luke told his Imperial counterpart.  He wasn't
sure how to proceed.  Calming, he reached inside himself for a leading
from the Force.  A hunch, as others called it Thanas said, "Can youtand
by-" A weird warbling whistle drowned out the Imperial commander.

Luke drummed his fingers against the console.  When Thanas came back,
his voice still sounded smooth and controlled.  "Sorry.  Jamming.  If
you could throw a cone of ships into the gap between the Ssi-ruuk's
three central cruisers, it could inspire them to retreat.  It would buy
us time."

Ssi-ruuk.  Luke filed the aliens' name' at the back of his mind.
Something underneath consciousness finally made a suggestion. "Commander
Thanas, we're going to sweep down from solar north just spinward of
those three cruisers.

"Set course," he murmured aside.

Captain Manchisco's navigator reached for his nav computer.  "Valtis,"
the Duro gargled in Standard around thin, rubbery lips, "establish
eight-seven norrrth, six spinwarrrd." The Virgillian pilot finger-hopped
corrections onto his cornputer.  Luke felt the Flurry break dormancy.
Deck panels transferred engine vibrations to his feet and command chair.

The access hatch, which they'd left open for ventilation, slid shut.

Thanas spoke again after another minute.  "That's within our sphere of
greatest need, Alliance group.  Come in and thanks.  Just keep it away
from the gravity well."

"What do you think, kid?" Han's voice filtered through the speaker at
Luke's elbow.  "Doesn't look good."

"I've got to get to Bakura," Leia insisted over the same speaker.  "I
have to convince this Governor Nereus to declare an official truce.
Otherwise they have no reason to work with us.  You can't end-run the
entire Imperial Navy."

"Han," Luke answered, "did you read how we're going to move?"

"Oh, yeah." His friend sounded amused.  "Good luck, hero.  I'm afraid
our only trained diplomat is going to wait this one out."

"Good idea," said Luke.

"What?" Luke heard exclamation points follow Leia's question.  "What are
you talking about?"

"Excuse us." He pictured Han turning aside, trying to reasonably explain
an unpleasant truth to the more stubborn Skywalker twin.  Maybe her
brother ought to step in.

"Leia," he said, "look at the board.  Bakura is blockaded.

All communications out must be jammed-we haven't heard a peep except
some scatter from entertainment bands.

You're too valuable to risk in the battle zone."

"And you're not?" she retorted.  "I have to talk with the governor.  Our
only hope is to persuade him that we're coming in as nonaggressors."

"I agree," answered Luke, "and we could use the Falcon in a sweep, but
we're not risking you.  Be thankful you're on your own gunship."

Stony silence.  Luke called out more orders, maneuvering his carrier
group into a loose carpet formation for the tricky intersystem jump.

"All right," Leia grumbled.  "The sixth planet isn't far from this
vector.  We'll head in that direction.  If it looks safe, we'll land and
wait for a rendezvous."

"Planet Six sounds good, Leia." Luke could feel her indignation, and it
wasn't directed only at him.  She and Han must learn to resolve
disagreements.  Develop their own system.

He shut her sense out of his perception.  "Be in touch, Han.  Use
standard Alliance frequencies, but monitor the Imperial ones.

"Affirmative, Junior."

Luke watched the light freighter swing out of formation through his
viewscreen.  The blue-white arc of its engines shrank in the black
distance.  According to his status board, his fighter pilots stood by,
mounted and ready, with Wedge Antilles running squadron checks.  He
didn't belong up here Today his cold X-wing would sit in a dark hangar
bay, and Artoo in his quarters, linked through the Fluny into the Battle
Analysis Computer.  Maybe next time, he could rig Artoo to link him with
the carrier's command deck and run things from a fighter except where
could he install control and status boards?

"Calculations are in," he announced.  "Prepare to jump."

The blue picket ships' lights turned green.

Luke clutched the arms of his seat.  "Now."

Han Solo kept an eye on the Falcon's sensors as he swung the nimble
freighter aside.  Too experienced to get caught in the battle group's
jump hyperwash, he couldn't resist watching until Luke's carrier-imagine
the kid commanding a carrier grouwinked out.  Leia flinched.

Now he was back where he belonged, on board the Falcon.  Alliance repair
teams had wasted no time getting his beloved freighter back into service
after Lando rattled her around inside the second Death Star (ut no hard
feelings, Lando.  It was for a good cause).  He belonged in this
cockpit, with good old Chewie in the copilot's seat.

But even that wasn't the same.  Leia sat behind the huge Wookiee,
wearing a gray combat coverall belted around her waist, leaning forward
as if she thought she ought to be copilot instead.

Well.  He'd give Leia everything he owned, the whole galaxy if he could
swing it, but she wouldn't bump Chewie out of that chair.  Yeah, she'd
handled the Falcon just fine during a couple of emergencies.  But even a
smuggler drew the line somewhere.

Threepio occupied the other back chair, his golden head swiveling from
side to side.  "I am so thankful you reconsidered, Mistress Leia
Although my expertise will be wasted more seriously than usual out here
in the system's far reaches, our safety is of paramount importance.  May
I suggest-"

Han rolled his eyes and said mock-menacingly, "Leia?"

She hit the off switch at the back of Threepio's neck.  He froze in
position.

Han whooshed out a noisy sigh of relief.  Chewbacca added a chuckling
growl and shook his black-tipped cinnamon fur Han reached for his
control panel.  "Seven minutes to close approach."

Leia unstrapped and pushed up to stand closer to the console, pressing
her warm leg against his.  "Imperials can't be far.  Where are the
scanners?"

Han shot a hand forward and turned them on.  The sixth planet filled the
scanner displays.  Chewbacca barked several grunts and rrowps.  "Dirt
and ice," Han translated for Leia "Bakura system's got only one gas
giant and a whole flock of accreted-comet types trailing off behind
it.".  He paused.  "If the Falcon's warm at all, she'll melt herself
right to the surface."

"Look," said Leia "Settlement of some kind near the terminator."

"I see it." Han held his course toward the cluster of regular shapes.
"But there's no communication or defense satellites, and we're not
picking up any transmissions." Chewie howled agreement.

Quickly, the domes swung into view.  Han pulled them in on high
resolution and spotted a double line of shattered walls between jagged
new craters.

"What a mess," Leia said.

"Ten to one our mysterious aliens have already hit this place."

"Good." Leia flicked dust off Han's chair.  Startled, he twisted around.
"That means they probably won't be back," she explained.

"Checked it off the list," Han agreed.

"And they're out for bigger game now.  I only hope Luke's careful."

"He will be.  Okay Chewie, this looks like a nice quiet neighborhood.
We're hidden better if we land blend in with the rocks, you know.  Let's
get low and kill speed.

Only enough to fight gravity.  We're going in cold."

He didn't tell her how hard that would be.  His sensors registered under
0.2 G on this ice ball, and no atmosphere to heat up incoming craft, but
shedding temp was no simple job.  Core heat was still up from the
hyperspace jump, and friction was no small factor: even in the dead cold
of outersystem space, they had already hit billions of ions and atoms.
Han touched a control he rarely used, setting dorsal radiators on full.
He wished he had chillers for the landing struts, but if wishes were
fishes, Calamarians would be giving the orders at Alliance HQ.

Just beyond the terminator, he spotted a crater bottom long and broad
enough to hold the Falcon snugly.  He shut down the radiators, brought
her low, and let her hover.

Now, no braking rockets About to ease down, he spotted a dark shining
pool spreading out on the crater bottom below him.

Not water ice, then, but ammonia or some other smelly volatile that
melted at such a supercold temp that even hover jets puddled it.

Now what?

Chewie whuffied a suggestion.

"Yeah," he answered.  "Synchronous orbit.  Good idea."

"We're not going to land after all?" Leia relaxed into her high-backed
seat as the Falcon swooped over the ruins and gained altitude.

Chewbacca howled, pointing out a small problem.

"It works well enough," Han said.

"What works well enough?" Leia demanded.

Han frowned at Chewie.  Thanks a lot, pal.  "The Falcon's star tracker.
For maintaining orbits on autopilot.  It's slaved into a circuit that
doesn't normally cover those things."

"Why?"

Han laughed shortly.  "You don't make this many modifications on one
freighter without slicing a few circuits.  The tracker works well
enough-buthewie, make sure we don't drift off course.  So long as we
stay close, no one'll spot us." Han jabbed a sensor.  "Looks like
Brother Luke's moving in on the Imperials' side.  I suppose you want to
stick around and watch."

Leia frowned.  "With this scanner board, it's impossible to tell who's
on which side.  Anyway, I'm uncomfortable with the whole situation."

"Oh." Was that scanner-board comment another insult?

"Oh," he added cheerfully.  Maybe they'd finally have a quiet hour.
Their soalled vacation after the big Ewok party had been worthless; Leia
was bone tired.  But during the jump, with all hands busy and Threepio
bustling everywhere, he'd quietly had Chewie make a few modifications in
the Falcon's main hold that weren't in Cracken's Field Guide.

He only hoped Chewie had gotten it right.  The big Wookiee was a master
mechanic, but his aesthetic sense wasn't, well, human.

Han Solo hadn't exactly joined this picnic for the war effort.

Leia groped behind Threepio's neck and switched him back on, then
followed Han aft.  Once the Battle of Endor wound down, they'd talked
for hours.  Beneath that smuggler's cynical mask, this man hid ideals
like hers.  They'd simply been squashed harder.  And she'd dreaded being
alone ever since Luke gave her the terrible news: Darth Vader was her
No.

Her mind dodged its own defenses and thrust again: As she'd watched
Alderaan blasted from space aboard the Death Star, she'd thought she'd
been watching her family die.  In truth, her father had stood No!  She
would never accept him as her father.  Not even if Luke did.

She ducked to miss a dangling hose.  If she had to find a hiding place
and pull her head in for a few hours, the time had better count for
something.  She'd already wasted too many days recuperating.  She rubbed
her right arm.  Not even synthfiesh completely countered the itch of a
healing blaster burn.  As she'd told Han, it wasn't bad just He stopped
near the entry ramp.  She leaned against a bulkhead and stared up at
him.  "What's left to fix?" The Falcon was Han's first love.  The sooner
she accepted that, the less often he'd get his back up.  Besides, it was
foolish to feel jealous of a spaceship.

Han slid his hands off his hips and let them hang along his black pants'
side stripes.  "Things will probably stay quiet for a few hours.
Chewie's on watch, too."

Abruptly Leia realized that was no combat glimmer in his eyes.  "I
thought something needed repairing." She tossed down the challenge.
"Come on, isn't there some new modification that needs field testing?"

"Yeah.  Back here, in the big cargo bay." He strode along the curving
corridor, slapped the locking panel, and stepped down into the Falcon's
aft hold.  He palmed open a bulkhead hatch into the closed starboard
compartment.

"Shield generators, back here."

The cargo bay smelled stuffy.  She stepped down behind Han.  "What are
you smuggling this time?"

"Something I picked up on Endor."

"We picked up on Endor," she corrected him.  Crates piled and braced
with more crates walled off the back of the compartment.  Han slid a
crate aside and uncovered a locker she thought might be a refrigeration
unit.  He reached in, groped, and pulled out a glass bottle.

Straight-faced, she took it.  Primitive glass sealed with a plug of tree
bark, it looked less than sanitary.  "What is it?"

"A present from that Ewok medicine mm.  You remember.  The one who made
us honorary members of the tribe?"

"Yes." Leia lounged against the stack of cargo crates and handed back
the bottle.  "You didn't answer my question."

Han yanked on the plug.  "Berry wine of some sort," he grunted.  The
plug popped free.  "Goldenrod hard to ignore.

about split a resistor translating, but the gist of what the fzzzy gu,,y
said was, `To ignite the heart that's beginning to warm.

So that's what he was up to.  "Hey, we're at war.

"We'll always be at war.  When are you going to live?"

Leia felt her cheeks heat.  She'd rather talk, argue, even fight with
Han than hide out and sip .  .  berry wine?

with a battle going on.  As Bail Organa would've pointed out, this man
wasn't even appropriate company for someone of her upbringing.  He
wanted to solve all his problems with a blaster.  She was a princess by
adoption, if not by birth.

Again the black-masked shadow fell across her thoughts: Vader.  She had
hated him so righteously.

Cloudy purple wine sloshed into stoneware.  Probably not a
palace-quality vintage.  "Let's not .  she began, then she trailed off.
She'd already decided she couldn't do Luke any good hanging around the
subspace radio.

"Hey." Han handed her one cup.  "What are you thinking?

What are you afraid of?"

"Tho much." She touched the rim of her cup to his.  The pottery clinked
softly.

"You?  Afraid?"

Leia had to smile.  It didn't make sense to be anything but brave and
headlong.  She sipped, then sniffed her cup and wrinkled her nose. "it's
too sweet."

"I don't think they make anything else." Han set his cup on a pallet.
"Look over here." He took her hand and tugged her around the
freestanding divider of crates.  She set her cup beside his.  "I-" He
stopped.

Leia looked down into a nest of self-inflating pillows.

"Chewie-" Han growled He dropped her hand.  "I guess that's a little
blatant.  I never should've trusted a Wookiee."

Leia laughed.  "Chewie set this up?"

"Wait till I tell that big wet-nosed furball-"

Still laughing, she braced herself against a bulkhead and shoved him
over backward.  He caught her hand and went down flailing.

CHAPTER 4

hewbacca hoped he'd gotten it right.  Han's aesthetic sense wasn't,
well, civilized.  But his inten   were sterling.  Leia ought to be able
to figure that out.  She seemed like a genteel female.

Threepio prattled behind him.  Chewbacca fiddled with communications
gear, checking occasionally on Luke's battle.  He'd lost track of which
blip in all that mayhem was the Flur'y.

"And this is a rather precarious hiding place," Threepio added.  "Planet
Six is rightly denied the dignity of a proper name.  Why, it's little
more than a large boulder of ice.  Not even a settlement, just the
remains of a military outpost." Abruptly he paused.  "What was that,
Chewbacca?  Tune back a few kilobits."

Chewie shrugged and suggested that Threepio butt out.

"I shall not butt out,' you ill-mannered fleabag," the droid squeaked.
"The nerve of some creatures, discounting my expertise.  I distinctly
heard something back there."

Out here in the fringes of the system'?  Chewie considered tearing off a
metal arm.  It would serve Threepio right.  But he'd just have to
resolder all those connections again.

"I detected something that was not a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Tune back a few kilobits."

Well, it was possible.  Pressing his headset to one ear, Chewie hit the
low-band scanner and had it repeat its sweep of near space.  Something
buzzed briefly, a signal too weak to key scanner-pause.  Chewie spun a
control to amplify.

Several seconds of fine tuning brought up a low electronic hum.

Threepio cocked his golden head and posed authoritatively.  "That's very
strange, Chewbacca.  It sounds like some kind of command code for
communicating between droids.

But what would active droids be doing in this vicinity?

Perhaps it is a mechanical survivor from that abandoned Imperial outpost
below or machinery still in operation.  I suggest that you turn on the
comlink and alert General Solo or Princess Leia."

Han had hinted that he'd better not be disturbed for anything short of
catastrophic pressure loss.  Chewie told Threepio as much.

"Well, I shall not relax until I have ascertained that signal's origin.
We have, after all, entered a war zone.  We could be in considerable
danger.  Wait-" Threepio leaned to the other side.  "This is no code
used in any Alliance or Imperial system."

The invaders?  Without hesitating, Chewie swatted the comlink.

It beeped from Han's shirt pocket.  "General Solo!"

bleated Threepio's singsong voice.  "General Solo!"

Leia wriggled in Han's arms.  "I knew it," he muttered.

Just when Leia'd been on the verge of relaxing.  He pulled out the
comlink.  "What?" he sneered.

"Sir, I am picking up a transmission from near space.  A droid control
unit of some kind seems to be in operation very close by.  I am not
certain, but its source appears to be coming closer."

"Uh, oh," Leia said softly against his shoulder.  She pushed up to her
feet.

"Okay, Chewie, we'll be right there." Han made sure it sounded more like
a threat than a promise.

Looking amused, Leia poured her syrupy wine back into the bottle and
recorked it.  Before sprinting up the corridor, she spread her hands and
mournfully quoted Han's words back to `him: "It's not my fault!"

Han had just swung into the cockpit when an electronic shriek rang out
from the main console.  "What's that?" Leia asked.

Great.  Just great.  Chewie was already powering up.  "Not good,
sweetheart," Han clipped.  "We just got probed."

"By what?" Leia dropped into the seat behind him.

"Well?" Han tossed the question over his shoulder to Threepio.

"Sir," began Threepio, "I have not yet ascertained-"

"Okay," Leia interrupted, "shut up.  There!" She pointed dead center on
the viewscreen.  Look!  What are they?"

From behind the dead icy bulk of Planet 6, eight or nine small shapes
appeared in midstarfield, headed directly for the Falcon.

"I'm not sticking around to find out," Han growled.

"Chewie, charge the main guns."

Chewbacca barked agreement full voice.

"We know the aliens take prisoners," Leia muttered.  "I don't want to
open negotiations from that position."

"You won't.  C'mon, Chewie.  You and me for the quad guns.  We'll see
what they're made of.  Leia, take us someplace.  Suddenly I don't trust
Planet Six."

Leia slid into the pilot's seat.  Hadn't he just vowed that she'd never
take the Falcon away from him and Chewie?

Yeah.  But this was different.  As he rounded the bend, he heard
Threepio's voice fade out: "The Millennium Falcon is better configured
for running away than for engaging enemy fighters.

Han climbed up the turret and clambered into his seat, then squeezed off
a ranging burst.  "They're closing fast," he told Leia via the pickup
mike on his headset.  "Is Goldenrod getting any data?  What are they?"

Threepio's answer began, "Well, General Sol" By then, Leia'd answered,
"Deep-space droids.  That's all he knows."

The droids swooped into close range.  Three soared over the freighter's
asymmetrical dish, firing energy bursts toward its main engine. "Analyze
those bearns, Goldenrod," Han shouted as he fired.  "Are they laser
cannons or what?"

Chewbacca snarled over his headphones.  "Yeah," Han answered, "for ships
of that size!"

"What?" Leia cried.  "What, for ships of that-"

"Strong shields." Han poured firepower into a single droid, holding it
steady in his sights for as long as it'd take to implode a full-size TIE
fighter.  The thing finally blew.

The Falcon rocked as another droid fired.  Han relaxed into the gunner's
power chair.  This was just the old game.

Another droid swooped along the freighter's rim, right at the edge of
his sighting capability.  "Smart droids," he muttered.

"They learn fast."

Abruptly the starfield tilted, lining up the droid for a long, clean
burst.  "Better?" asked Leia's voice in his ears.

"Much." The thing finally exploded.  Two more came in, still aiming for
the engines, not the gunners' stations or the cockpit.  They want
prisoners, all flght.  So where was Big Mama, the boss ship?  Or were
these babies programmed to attack on their own?

As if she'd read his thoughts, Leia murmured, "What do you bet they're
left over from the alien attack on this outpost?" Han finally overloaded
the upper one's shields.  A wave of debris sent its buddy spinning out
of sight.

"Safe bet," he said tightly.

Silence.

`That everybody, Chewie?"

Affirmative roar.

Breathing heavily, he scrambled back down to the cockpit.  "Where are we
headed?" he asked Leia She stroked a control rod.  "In system.  There
may be more of those out here.  I don't know about you, but I'd feel
safer with the rest of our battle group." As she stepped out of the
captain's chair, the engine pitch fell off with a groan.  Cabin lights
darkened.  "Now what?" Leia demanded.  "I never know what to expect from
this overmodified bucket."

Or its overconfident captain?  Go ahead, Princess, say it.  Han whacked
a console.  Ready lights blinked and the engines came back up.  He swung
into his seat with a flourish.

"We're gone."

Leia crossed her arms and looked defiant.  "For all the protection I've
gotten, we might as well be doing Luke some good."

"Well, strap down, sweetheart.  We're going to hustle."

Motionless but for his eyes, Luke glanced from viewscreen to BAC unit.
Commander Thanas's Imperial ships were falling back.

Not because Luke was coming in.  Evidently his battle group had dropped
back out of hyperspace at the moment when the Ssi-ruuk meant to press
their advantage to Bakura's surface.  That meant the aliens had thinned
their outer arc to push forward.  One light cruiser was practically
undefended, creating an area Luke's small force ought to be able to take
easily.

"Deickis, give me squadron leaders."

His headset hissed.  He adjusted it, pressing small hard components into
his ears.  "Okay, let's get their attention."

He touched a BAC panel to transmit its evaluation into their targeting
computers and highlight the solitary cruiser.  "Gold Leader, Rogue One,
that's yours."

"Got it, Fluny." Wedge Antilles sounded confident and experienced.
"Rogue Group, lock S-foils in attack position."

Luke felt vulnerable, riding a target as obvious as this carrier.  "Red
Leader, split your squadron.  Red One through Four, hold an escape cone
open behind Rogue and Gold groups.  We'll draw them away from the
planet." Every byte of data his ships' sensors could feed into the BAC
would help it analyze alien ships' capabilities.

He shook his head.  The yellow-gold pips on his screen were Imperial
fighterand he was defending them.

"Red Five and the rest, stay with the Flurry," Luke finished.

Sitting beside him on the elevated captain's chair, Captain Manchisco
swiveled away from the master computer.  Three black braids swung on
each side of her head.  "Why, thank you, Commander." Her sense in the
Force teased him.  Eager for battle, she felt confident of her ship, her
crew, and herself.

Gold and Rogue squadrons soared in, confounding the aliens' rear guard
with a full-speed sweep.  Luke stretched out with his feelings, barely
aware of his body.  Sensed through the Force, pilots swarmed like
hive-minded insects.

He tried reaching for alien presences, but couldn't find any.

Unfamiliar minds were always difficult to touch.

As Wedge closed on a tiny enemy fighter-the BAC showed it a bare two
meters across he braced himself.

Something that small might be just a remote, a drone.  Or the aliens
could be elfin-size.  -  Wedge scored.  Something weak and inexplicably
putrid shrieked in momentary anguish, then fizzled away and died.

uke choked down his gag reflex.  Had he felt two presences cry out?  He
drummed his fingers.  The enemy fighters weren't true drone ships then,
but piloted.  Sort of.  Something had died.

Almost before he finished that thought, another string of alien fighters
winked out behind Gold Leader.  This time, he deliberately opened
himself.  The cascading spiral of twisted misery `was as faint as a
whimper but human.

Luke couldn't imagine human pilots on alien fighter ships of that size.
Particularly not in pairs.

The BAC bleeped.  Blinking away disquiet, Luke stared at the alien
cruiser's red circle.  it flashed: vulnerable.

"Fluny to Rogue One.  Go for that cruiser.  Now."

"I'm on it," Wedge crowed, barely audible over a weird two-tone whistle.
X-wings soared past Luke's viewscreen.

Abruptly several more squadrons of tiny sparkling pyramids swarmed out
of one end of the alien cruiser.  "Abort, Wedge," Luke cried.  "They've
launched another wave."

"Yeah, I noticed." The whistle grew louder: jamming.

Wedge didn't sound concerned.  "BAC can't make up its mind, huh?"
X-wings scattered in pairs, drawing out pyramidal ships to engage them.

He belonged out there.  His best skills were useless on a bridge deck.

The BAC bleeped again, calling Luke's attention to a string of symbols.
It had counted and plotted ships' positions, evaluating known and
observed firepower, shield strength, speed, and other factors.  The
Imperials' retreat was transforming into a counterattack on the far
underfiank of the aliens' front.  Pter Thanas was evidently a
first-class strategist.  Luke turned to his communications officer.  A
vaguely ominous stirring in the Force raised prickles at the back of his
neck.

He bent closer to the BAC.  Wedge was leading a sweep out and back
toward that light cruiser.  That looked good.

The Imperials' position had just strengthened by fifteen percentage
points.  That looked excellent.

No, wait.

An alien gunship, far smaller than the cruiser but no doubt heavily
armed, had left the main battle.  It was closing on Wedge's squadron
from six o'clock low, behind the light cruiser's cover, an angle and a
proximity Wedge couldn't hope to see and evade.  He guessed the
gunship's captain had been waiting for Wedge and his boys to turn their
backs.  "Rogue One," snapped Luke, "Wedge, watch behind you.  Big guns
below." As an afterthought, he added, "Red Five and your group.  Get out
there and shoot those fighters off Wedge's tail."

"What was that?" He could barely hear Wedge for the jamming.  X-wings
scattered.  Two vectored right into the picket ship's range.  Luke's
viewscreen flashed.

Two blasts of painfully familiar human anguish wrenched Luke's spine and
stomach as Alliance pilots died.  Not Wedge, he confirmed hastily, but
they'd been people.  Someone else's friends.  Thevil be missed. Mourned.

He regathered his wits and tried to shield himself better.

He couldn't grieve yet.  Flashing red on the BAC screen, the picket ship
was still tailing Wedge's X-wing tightly.

Behind Luke, Captain Manchisco cleared her throat.

`Scuse me, Commander, but you're leaving the Flurry wide open t"

He was turning his head when the BAC board framed a crimson full alert:
The Fluny itself was about to come under attack.  Alien fighters whizzed
past the viewscreen, reflecting crzzy flashes of light.  "Sure enough,"
Luke said.  "Tbey saw it too.  Crew's yours.

Manchisco's black eyes brightened.  She spun away and barked out a
string of orders to her shipmates.  The Duro gargled a question, waving
long, knobby hands over his nav controls.  Manchisco gargled back.  The
Fluny carried everything from gunners to shield operators.  Luke
concentrated on Wedge's danger and closed out his own.

Miniature alien fighters had almost surrounded Wedge and his squadron,
trapping them inside an escape-proof globe of energy shields and
firepower.  Luke fought down panic and funneled his emotional energy
into the Force around and inside him.

He stretched out his own point of presence toward the tiny alien ship
dead ahead of Wedge's X-wing.  Touching it, he clearly sensed two
almost-human presences on board the small fighter.  Shutting out the
nauseating sense of twistedness, Luke brushed each presence.  One
controlled shields; the other, all remaining shipboard functions.  Luke
focused on the second, driving Force energy into its center.  Though
weak and faint, it resisted with tortured strength.  Its misery goaded
him toward despair: No one deserved to live free, its whole being
declared.  By its reckoning, Luke could do nothing for Wedge-and nothing
to save himself-and nothing to save either human aboard the alien
fighter.  All were doomed.

Luke struggled to see through the stranger's vision.  The entire sphere
of space opened around him.  It overloaded his senses.  He had to narrow
his field of view to find Wedge's X-wing.  On either side of his
projected presence, another pyramid hovered apparently motionless,
flying in formation.  From the center of each triangular face, a
scanner' sensor cluster peered back like a compound eye.  Laser cannon
bristled at each corner.

Fear, anger, aggression: the dark side are they.  Yoda had taught him
that his methods were as critical as his motives.

If he used dark power, even in self-defense, the cost to his soul might
be disastrous.

He relaxed into the Force.  Clinging to control for the sake of his soul
and his sanity, he amplified the pitiful will.  Its sense of humanity
peaked, hopeless victory for a tortured spirit.  It had lived,
once-free.  With all the intensity of the doomed, it longed to go on
living.

Luke planted a suggestion in reply.  But a good death is better than
ltfr enslaved to hatred, and peace is better than anguish.

With suddenness that startled him, the alien ship altered course
directly for one of its squadron mates.  It accelerated to ram.  Luke
wrenched free of the other human's will and sat gasping and swallowing.
He wiped drenched hair off his face.

A whoop in Luke's headphones pierced his brain.  It took him a second to
refocus his mind on the carrier's battle bridge, another second to
refocus his eyes and steady his stomach.

Wedge's X-wing shot out of danger through the gap created by two alien
ships' destruction.

"Sir," clipped Captain Manchisco.  Luke shook himself back to a
localized awareness.  "Are you all right?"

"I will be.  Give me a minute."

"We may not have a minute, sir." The BAC still blinked red.  The Fluny
rocked under heavy bombardment.  Manchisco's gunners had picked off a
swarm of tiny fighters, but behind them came more-and three more alien
picket ships.  At one corner of the board, six red triangles flashed a
shield erosion warning.  He had the aliens' attention, all right.
Despair melted out of him.

"Engineering can't give us any more power," she said.

"Got any more tricks up your sleeve sir?"

in other words, could the famous Jedi help them out of this pickle?  Her
sense was still cocky, but she, too, was peaking on adrenaline.

Her navigator gargled at her.  "No,' she ordered, sounding alarmed.
"Stay on your station." He ran a long hand over his leathery gray head.

"All squadrons," Luke called.  "Flurry needs reinforcements.

The ship rocked again.  Bridge lights blinked.  "That's it," announced a
crewer from his sideboard.  "Shields are gone.

Now we'll see how strong the hull is."

Two-meter pyramids swirled past the viewscreen.  Luke clenched a fist.
He whirled with ideas, every one useless.

Something shimmered midbattle, the asymmetrical dish of a freighter
dropping out of hyperspace amid the swarm of alien fighters.  A picket
ship strayed into its line of fire.  No more picket ship.

"Figured you needed some help," said a familiar voice in his ears.

"Thanks, Han," he murmured.  "Nice of you to drop by."

Fighter after enemy fighter fled past the Flurry for open space.  Red
warning lights turned amber.  "How many d'you owe me now, Junior?"

"Several," he answered.  Maybe he owed Leia.  She might be learning to
sense Force leadings too.

The swirl of battle gradually slowed.  Numbers and figures shifted on
the BAC, but Luke ignored them.  Later, he might use that information to
brief his pilots on alien ship capabilities.  But for now, he stared out
the light-splashed viewscreen and considered the situation.  Surrender
to the Force was reflective but not mindless.

"Red Squadron," ordered Luke, "ease into position beneath that cruiser.
Come across its bow.  Turn it insystem."

He rubbed a fingernail with his thumb and waited for the huge ship to
turn, caught himself, and gripped his thigh with that hand.  Slowly, the
red enemy pip began to rotate on his board.  It eased forward, as blind
as he'd guessed to Red Squadron's presence.  Just a little farther, and
Red Squadron could

"Red Leader?" Luke transmitted.

"Going in now," squeaked a young voice.

Luke had to clench his other hand against the edge of the board.  Next
time he'd let Ackbar send someone else to command.  This was ridiculous.
He hated command.  First chance he got, he'd resign his commission.

Through the Force, he felt the cruiser's destruction.  Milliseconds
later brilliance lit his viewscreen.  "Yes!" crowed Wedge's voice. "Good
job, Red Leader!"

Luke imagined his youngest squadron leader grinning behind a
blast-darkened canopy.  "Well done," Luke echoed.

"But don't close your eyes yet.  There's still plenty out there."

"Right, Flurry." The cluster of blue X-wing pips did a four-way split
swing, gathering data through each ship's scanners to add to the fleet's
battle boards.  Nice try, Dodonna, he thought at the BAC's inventor. Its
sophisticated circuitry was as useful-and as limited-as the fighters'
targeting computers.

"Sir," came Lieutenant Delckis's soft voice beside him.

"Drink of water?"

"Thanks." Luke grasped a flat-bottomed drink bulb.  A new pattern on the
BAC intrigued him.  Somebody on the other side had just given an
important order, because red pips were disengaging all across the
screen.  "Squad leaders, they're getting ready to jump.  Stay out of
their way, but pick off any that attack you." He had grown in the Force:
Already his first choice was to intimidate, not to kill, particularly a
battle group that might be turned against the crumbling Empire.  He
switched channels.  "Do you see that, Commander Thanas?"

No answer, but imperial Commander Thanas was busy too.  Luke watched
with relief as cluster after cluster vanished.  "That's it," he said
softly.  "We're done, for now.  Get the outer-system scanners up,
Deickis.  It's my guess they're not going far."

"Yes, sir."

Luke sipped bland, recycled water down his parched throat.  He'd been
breathing hard.  Better control next time, he promised himself.

"Sir," said Deickis, "you were right.  They're already coming up, barely
outsystem."

"Mm-hmm." He liked being right, but he did wish they'd simply gone home.

He stretched.  What next?  He set the drink bulb on the BAC.  It made a
better table than strategy counselor.  "Code a message to Admiral
Ackbar, Deickis.  We need more ships.

Include BAC recordings for that battle.  They'll show him what we're up
against.  Can you have it off in half an hour?"

"Easily, sir."

Thank the Force for contraband imperial transceivers.

"Do it." Next: refuel and rest.  "Squad Leaders, this is Flurry.

Good work.  Come on home."

Manchisco exhaled, shook her braids, and whacked the Duro's shoulder.

Blue Alliance glitter-dots converged on the Flurry.  Luke's radio
crackled.  "Alliance Commander, this is Commander Thanas.  Do you have
holonet capability?"

"Yes, but it's slow.  Give us five minutes.

Lieu tenant Deickis was already twisting levers and diverting power into
recently patched-in components.  Luke slid his chair into pick-up range.
"Tell me when you're ready."

"Ready," Delckis said at last.  "Two-way."

Over an instrument panel appeared the image of a man who looked about
fifty, narrow faced with thinning brown hair cut almost short enough to
hide its curl.  "Thanks," said Commander Thanas, "and congratulations."

"They haven't gone far."

"I see that.  We'll be on watch.  You, ah, might want to move out of the
battle zone.  Those alien ships leave very hot debris."

"Hot?" Luke eyed a hull temp readout.

"Ssi-ruuvi drones burn heavy fusionables."

New tem: Ssi-ruuvi.  More important, if the aliens meant to invade
Bakura, why scatter the system with radioactive cinders?

And why did Thanas go to all the trouble of using holonet for this minor
exchange?  Luke wondered as Thanas's image faded.  Either Commander
Thanas wanted to see his counterpart or-knowing the Rebels had ho lone
t-Thanas might suspect they'd stolen other Imperial equipment.

Luke stared at the yellow-gold "allies" dots.  "Analyze that," he
directed the BAC.  The reading came up quickly, and he moved his drink
bulb to see it all.  The Imperial cruiser drifted, manifestly crippled.
Thanas's remaining forces had withdrawn from battle and established a
defense web around that ship and Bakura.

He guessed he wouldn't trust Imperials who claimed to want to help him,
either.  Making people trust each other would be Leia's job.

"Thanks again, Falcon," he said on their private channel.

"Didn't things work out, at the sixth planet?"

"We'll tell you about it sometime," Leia's voice answered out of the
speaker at his elbow.

CHAPTER 5

Imperial Bakuran Senator Gaeriel Captison sat wiggling her toes and
making patterns out of keys on her inset touchboard.  Under a tiled
ceiling that rose to a point -above its center, the chamber of the
Imperial Bakuran Senate lay silentexcept for a soft trickle from four
two-story, translucent rain pillars at its corners.  Roof gutters
channeled rain water into the pillars.  Lit from below, they shimmered
with the liquid pulse of Bakura's biosphere.

Gaeriel had stood in the rain this morning to watch it drum on dancing
pokkta leaves, letting it soak her skin, hair, and clothing.  She took a
deep breath of damp, soothing Bakuran air and folded her hands on the
table.  Imperial Center was now the only world where a student could do
postgraduate work in governmentne of the Emperor's ways of ensuring that
his philosophy trickled down to subject worlds.  After a required year
of indoctrination on Center, she'd returned last month.  Confirmed now
to the senatorial post she'd won as a youngster, she was here for her
first emergency evening call.

Atop the stairs to Gaeriel's left, Governor Nereus's massive,
purple-cnshioned repulsor chair sat empty.  The Senate, declining in
power every year, awaited Nereus's convenience.

Down the steps from Governor Nereus's chair, a pair of tables lay on
Gaeriel's long middle level; on a third, lowest level, two inner tables
framed an open space.  Orn Belden, senior senator, shook his finger
across the low central table.

"Don't you see?" Belden creaked at Senator Govia.  "Compared to systems
the Emperor truly wants to control, our ships and facilities are well,
the ships are older than I am, and the facilities are undermanned.  As
for staff, we're a dumping ground-"

"All rise," barked a voice near the chamber's door.  A warden in
ancient-style violet doublet and hose thumped a spear's butt on carpeted
flooring.  Gaeri slipped her shoes back on and stood with thirty-nine
other senators.  Only the Imperial Guards saluted.  She hoped this
session didn't mean more taxes.  Not now, with the Ssi-ruuk threatening.

Imperial Governor Wilek Nereus strode in, flanked by four black-helmeted
naval troopers.  They reminded her of leggy beetles.  Governor Nereus
wore a specially designed uniform, heavy on braid and gold piping, its
short coat cut to create an illusion of taper from his shoulders to his
waist -and skintight black gloves that had given him a reputation for
being fastidious.  His features were heavy except for prissy lips, and
he had the Imperial swagger down to a science.  "Sit," he said.

Gaeri smoothed her long blue skirt and sat down.  Governor Nereus
remained standing near the entry.  Taller than any of them, he used his
height to intimidate.  She'd always disliked him, but her year on
Imperial Center had made him slightly more tolerable-by comparison.

"I won't keep you," he said, looking down his long nose.

"I realize you are busy keeping your sectors pacified.  Some of you are
doing well.  Some aren't."

Gaeri frowned.  Her district's residents were abandoning their jobs to
dig shelters, but at least bunker-blasting was productive.  She glanced
at her uncle, Prime Minister Yeorg Captison.  Here in Salis D'aar,
Captison had been quelling riots, using Bakuran police to keep Nereus
from sending out stormtroopers from the garrison.

Nereus raised a gloved hand to silence murmurers.  Once he had their
attention, he slowly turned his head and cleared his throat.  "Rebel
Alliance ships have arrived in the Bakura system."

That gave her a rain-cold shock.  Rebels?  The Empire allowed no
dissent.  After Bakura entered the Empire three years ago, two minor
rebellions had been efficiently quashed.  Gaeri remembered too much of
that period.  Both of her parents had died, caught in the wrong place
during a running battle between insurgents and Imperial troops.

That was when she'd gone to live with her uncle and aunt.

She didn't hope to live to see another uprising, or any more of the
bloody purges that followed.

Perhaps these troublemakers wanted the repulsorlift component factory in
Belden's district.  Could Nereus's forces protect Bakura from Rebel
raiders and the Ssi-ruuk?

Nereus cleared his throat.  "The Dominant, our only remaining cruiser,
sustained heavy damages.  On the advice of my staff, I have ordered our
forces to withdraw from the main battle and protect Bakura itself.  I
request your confirmation of that order."

Belden straightened his back and fiddled with a voice amplifier on his
chest.  "Covering your tracks, Governor?  So if anything else goes
wrong, you can finger us?  Who's keeping the Ssi-ruuk off, I wonder?"

It wasn't wise to attract an Imperial Governor's attention, but Belden
seemed fearless.  Maybe if Gaeri were 164, with a second prosthetic
heart and one foot in the grave, she'd learn his kind of courage.

Abruptly distracted, she checked the time.  She had promised Senator
Belden that she'd visit his elderly wife this evening.  Madam Belden's
caregiver Clis left for the night at 2030, and Gaeri had offered to sit
with her until Senator Belden finished a committee meeting.  Fiery
little Eppie's mind was eroding, at only 132.  (Eroding?  It had washed
out to sea three years ago.)  Orn Belden's devotion, and the genuine
affection of a few lifelong family friends such as Gaeriel, sustained
her.  Eppie had been Gaeriel's first real "grown-up" friend.

Governor Nereus ran a hand over his dark hair.  He tried to mimic a
classic Old Republican politician, using minimum threat of force to keep
the population in line.  Consequently, he'd built a new order suzerainty
far from Imperial Core shipping lanes, with minimal open violence. after
those bloody purges, three years back.

Nereus smiled blandly.  "The action I have ordered merely ensures that
Rebels will not strike at Bakura."

"Did Rebels disable the Dominant, or did the Ssi-ruuk?"

"I do not yet have full reports, Senator Belden.  It appears that-for
now-your factory is safe.  I shall send over three defense squads from
the garrison."

Belden wouldn't like that.  Prime Minister Captison stood again.  The
deep green shoulders of his tunic seemed to float at the top of his
perfectly straight back.  Gaeriel had been stunned to find his hair
white when she came back from the university.  Captison's dignity shamed
Nereus's posturing.

He flicked two fingers against his trouser seam: placate.

Apparently Belden saw it too.  He sat down slowly, deferring to the P.M.

"Thank you, Senator Belden," said Prime Minister Captison.  "EvidenUy,
for the moment the Rebels are between us and the Ssi-ruuk.  Perhaps
that's the best place for them." He looked around the table.  Forty
senators, human except for two pale Kurtzen from the Kishh district,
stared back.  Like the senate, Prime Minister Captison had lost
authority every time he crossed Imperial wishes.  "Let us support
Governor Nereus," he said without enthusiasm, "and confirm his
withdrawal order."

He called the vote.  Gaeri extended an open palm with the majority. Only
Belden and two others closed their fists.

Gaeriel sighed to herself.  Belden wasn't a follower of the Cosmic
Balance.  He could not bring himself to believe that when he graciously
allowed fate to diminish him, others were exalted.  The wheel always
turned, too, and those who humbled themselves for the present would one
day reap rich rewards.

"Thank you for your support," purred Nereus.  His beetly escorts
followed him out.

Gaeriel stared after him.  Before the Empire arrived, Bakura had been
governed by a prime minister and a senate -and no set of three
individuals in the government could ever agree on a program.  Schools
had run half-year when Gaeri started attending, then shifted to "tumble
month" schedule, two on and one off; then someone scrapped the entire
curriculum.  If the government couldn't agree on a school calendar, even
a child knew it wouldn't agree on anything else.  As a senator's
daughter and the prime minister 5 niece, she'd overheard unending
machinations and bickering about other subjects-social justice,
repulsorlift exports, and taxation.

Most important, no two senators had ever agreed on a defensive strategy.
Consequently Bakura fell quickly to the Empire.

She straightened her shoulders.  Perhaps that easy conquest explained
why Governor Nereus had left so much of the original government in
place.  Her experience on Imperial Center had taught her to keep her
mouth shut about Bakura's senate.  Other systems' residents reacted
indignantly to its existence.

Imperial peace compensated Bakura for the autonomy it had lost, or so
Gaeri's admittedly limited experience told her.  It had ended the chaos
and civil infighting, and brought Bakuran trade goods out onto stellar
lanes.

Yet many older senators disagreed, and when they spoke quietly, Gaeri
listened.

Speaking of dissidents, she'd better head for the Beldens' apartment.
She slipped her shoes back on-again-and headed for the roof port.

Dev generally spent battle time in his master Firwirrung's quarters,
working feverishly on his translation project to keep from feeling enemy
fighters' fear when tractor beams caught them.  Today, though, Master
Firwirrung had asked him to carry food trays and a packet of drink bulbs
from the galley up a brightly lit corridor to the command deck.

Busy defending the advance force, Admiral Ivpikkis had ordered the
empowerment of additional battle droids instead of refilling the
Shriwirr's normal complement of internal droid servantsxcept the
security droids who guarded the bridge itself-so Dev filled a servant
role different from his usual post.  The Shriwirr's captain held back
out of battle, protecting Ssi-ruuvi lives and holding open communication
lines that stretched along a string of subspace beacons all the way back
to the main fleet.

Whenever human prisoners were brought on board, Dev took secret comfort
in their company .  for a little while.  They were always enteched so
soon, their Force presences focused inside battle droids.  He wouldn't
deny them that joy for the sake of his own psychological comfort, but
secretly-selfishly-it saddened him.  Unbeknownst to his masters, he
sometimes reached out through the Force during battles and fondled whole
human presences.  Feeling guilty but compelled, he stretched out now And
touched power.  Gripping the steering surfaces of his repulsor cart, he
stood motionless.  Someone-somewhere off the Shriwirr-had the deep,
placid strength he'd always associated with his mother.  His eyes
flooded.  Surely she hadn't come back for him?  Could that be?  He'd
heard of visitations, but No.  If this were the sense of a human-and the
human was clearly not on Bakura, from its proximity-then this was the
sense of an enemy.  it was far stronger than his mother, too.  He'd
heard the admiral mention an incoming group in passing, almost as if it
were beneath his notice, but this enemy made him think of of home.  The
Outsider was concentrating on the combatants, too, but not with the same
shade of passion Dev felt.  Dev reached deeper.  Their likeness beckoned
and seduced him.  The Outsider seemed not to notice his probe.

Dev gave the repulsor cart a push.  He shouldn't think about it.  He
hoped the feeling wouldn't come back.

He paced onward.  He had almost reached the bridge when a warbling
whistle sounded over the general alarm system.  Emergency: Harness for
reorient.

Startled, Dev released his cart.  He plunged through the nearest open
hatchway and spotted several ceiling-to-deck emergency hammocks.  Large
russet Ssi-ruuk and small brown P'w'ecks struggled into the nearest
harnesses.  Dev spied one that hung limp.  He dashed over, seized the
red cord at its edge and held it against his breastbone, then twirled to
surround himself.  Now more than ever, he wished for a massive Ssi-ruuvi
body.  Slender and tailless, he had to twirl half a dozen times before
the webbing enclosed him securely.

Then he had several seconds to think above the alarm trill.  To try to
remember if he'd netted the nest pillows this morning.  He'd also left a
laden cart in the corridor.

Worse, the invincible Shriwirr was accelerating unexpectedly for
hyperspace.  Surely this wasn't retreat.  They'd been so close to
victory.  They'd The near bulkhead became deck, then ceiling.  Dev's
stomach protested violently.  Acceleration smashed his face into six
layers of netting.  Unable to brace against the deck, he dug his fingers
through the webbing and spun out of control.  He clenched his eyes shut
and begged it to end.

When gravity came from the deck again, the alarm whistle cut off.
Dizzily, Dev struggled to unwind.

"What's going on?" one of his neighbors asked.  "I don't remember an
emergency reorient since Cattamascar.

The answer came in a disturbingly familiar voice.  "We lost a cruiser.
Nearly all the new drone fighters are gone.

We're having to waste humans to protect our remaining ships.  We must
analyze the newcomers' tactics before going in again.  This group is
different.  Different ship types, different command style."

Command style?  Did the new group have a Force-strong commander? Perhaps
a a genuine Jedi, who'd finished the training his mother had only begun?

But the Empire had purged Jedi.  Hunted them down.

Yes, and the Emperor was dead.  A true Jedi might dare to show himself.

That was all supposition.  Finally unwound, Dev stepped out of his
hammock.  Standing in front of him, staring down with liquid black eyes,
stood the massive Ssi-ruu who performed his comforting "renewals":
Sh'tk'with, the elder they respectfully nicknamed Bluescale.  Bluescale
had sprung from a different Ssi-ruuvi race from Firwirrung's: brilliant
tiny blue scales, narrower face, longer tail.  Bluescale's race
dominated on the home world as Firwirrung's dominated the military.

He should tell Bluescale what he'd sensed but that would mean confessing
his guilty secret habit.  Dev blinked down at the deck.  "I greet you,
Elder-"

"What is amiss?" Bluescale demanded.  His black scent tongues flickered,
tasting the air.  Of all Ssi-ruuk, he seemed most sensitive to subtle
changes in human scent due to stress.

"Such tragedy," Dev said cautiously, "that many battle droids lost.
Those poor humatheir new lives, their new happiness, was cut so short.
Let me mourn for my for other humans, Elder.  How sad for them.  How
sad." The boldness of his lie staggered him.

Triple eyelids blinked.  Bluescale let out a guttural honk, the
Ssi-ruuvi equivalent of a thoughtful "hmm." Tapping his foreclaws,
Bluescale answered, "Later, then.  After you have contemplated their
deaths, return to me.  I will renew you for happier service."

"Thank you, Elder." Dev's voice cracked as he backed away.  `I must
clean the corridor.  Labor will give me time for thinking."

Bluescale waved a foreclaw and dismissed him.

Dev fled back out through the hatchway, feeling guiltier than ever.  Had
he endangered the advance force?  Surely not.  Admiral Ivpikkis would
succeed.  Dev's immediate problem was to hide that moment's touch in his
memory, before Bluescale called him in and convinced him to confess.

Cold food splattered the bulkheads, and drink bulbs littered the
gray-tiled deck.  Dev hurried downship to a supply locker.  Cleanup was
P'w'eck work, but he felt responsible.

He had never been able to fool Bluescale.  Wasn't hiding thoughts
treasonous?  His masters had saved him from starvation and death.  He
owed them so much.

Yet he'd never had so strong a reason before.  His mind had touched a
kindred soul.  He couldn't betray it yet.

He flung open the supply locker, seized up a galleyvac and hurried
upship toward the nearest dribbling glob.

CHAPTER 6

Safe conduct to Salis D'aar, the capital city.  Control ilers will talk
you down," finished a spaceport unky's voice on the Falcon's
transceiver.

"Thank you." Han cut the connection and leaned back.

Leia exhaled.  "So.  We can get to work."

Han arched an eyebrow.  It seemed to him they'd been working already.

Leia didn't notice.  "We have to decide what to do next."

She smoothed one of the braids that circled her head.

"Right," he answered, glad to see her thinking sensibly.

"Do we use this safe conduct and land on Bakura, or not?

They're in better shape now.  This might be a good time to take our
troops and get out."

Leia stared at the Falcon's deck.  "That wasn't what I meant, but you're
right.  I can't help wondering if we'll be able to deal with Imperials
directly."

On link from over at the Flurry, Luke spoke up.  "Leia, aren't you
feeling well?"

She cleared her throat and leaned toward the control board.  "I'm
uneasy, Luke.  Maybe i'm starting to think like Han.  I don't feel quite
right about this situation.  I'm more nervous than usual."

Han eyed Chewie, who whuffled softly.  Yeah, maybe she was picking up a
sense of self-preservation.  Skywalkers seemed to be born without it.

"We're all nervous," answered Luke's voice.  "Something's going on here
besides what shows on the surface.  I have to figure it out."

Han peered through the Falcon's port at the Flurry.  it hovered, looking
lumpy and awkward, near the Falcon in a parking orbit outside the
imperial defense web.  "You sure, kid?" he asked.  "It'd be a good time
to head home."

"I'm sure.  Leia, you're in charge of negotiations.  Do you want to
shuttle over and make a dignified landing in the Flurry's transport?"

"Wait a minute." Han straightened his back.  "I'm not landing anything
but the Falcon.  I want this bucket planetside, in case we need to make
another fast getaway."

`Another?" asked Luke.  "What happened?"

"Later." Leia tapped her thumbs over clasped fingers.

"What about the impression we'll create, landing in well, think what the
Falcon looks like if you don't know her."

Thanks a lot, Your Highness.  "That's camouflage."

She spread her hands.  "This will be the Bakuran Imprials' first
impression of our group, Han.  We want them as allies.  Think in the
long tem."

"First we have to survive the short tem."

Luke cleared his throat.  "The Falcon won't fit in the Flurry's hangar
bay.  It's full."

Leia glanced at the immaculate control panel, then over at one bulkhead
wired together with leftover circuitry.  She gave him a long, somber
stare.  At last she said, "Okay, Luke.

Come on over.  We'll land in the Falcon .  but only if everybody dresses
up."

Han clenched a fist on one hip.  "Well, I'm not-"

"Except you, Captain." Her voice sounded sweet, but he saw an evil gleam
in her eye.  "It's your bucket.  You'd better look the part."

Some time later, Leia stared out the viewport at cloud patterns on a
stunning azure world.  Chewie examined the boards and then stood,
looking satisfied, to head up the corridor.

Luke appeared with damp, tousled hair.  He'd taken her account of events
at Planet 6 calmly, then said something about scrubbing down.  "Feel
better?" she asked.

"You bet." He plunked down in the oversize copilot's chair.  "Let's see
if we can raise Commander Thanas again."

"I still say it smells like a trap." Han slid back into the pilot's
seat.  "Maybe Thanas thinks he's being a nice guy, offering to let us
into that defense web.  But if we split our forces, we've got half tied
up for some Imperial desk jockey and only half on alert where they ought
to be."

Luke tapped a pattern onto the console.  "Their ships are going to need
longer repair breaks than ours.  What i saw had been shot up pretty
badly."

"And we still don't know what those aliens are up to," Leia said.  She
glanced sidelong at Luke.  She could swear that he knew more than he was
telling.  "I have a very bad feeling about it."

"It's our necks in the noose, now," Han joined in, "along with the
Bakurans."

"That was the idea," Leia agreed.  "To prove we're with them by sharing
their danger."

"Alliance Forces?" rumbled Commander Thanas's voice from the speaker.

Leia leaned over Luke's shoulder.  Nearly dry already, his hair caught
dim cabin lights like an aureole.  "On frequency, Commander Thanas,"
Luke answered.

"I've cleared Alliance ships to join the defense web in the positions
you requested, while your party conducts negotiations at Salis D'aar.  i
look forward to meeting you in person.

"it's mutual.  Alliance out." Luke paused for a second after switching
from the imperial frequency to another.  "Got all that?"

"Locked into the BAC," Captain Manchisco answered through the speaker.
"Have fun down there."

Luke blew out a long breath.

"You're going to have to tell the imperials who you are sooner or later,
Luke." Han made a wry face.

Leia started.  No you're not.

"I'd rather do it face to face," Luke said calmly.

Oh.  They only meant revealing his name, not his ancestry.  She hurried
to agree.  "He's got better control, better discernment in person, Han.
He can feel if they're covering up.

Han snorted softly.  "it still smells like a trap.  i don't like it."
But he reached for the control panel.  Luke relinquished Chewie's seat
and took one in back.

"And Luke's a Jedi," Leia reminded him.

Luke nodded at her.  "We'll keep our eyes open.

The Falcon vectored out of position in parking orbit toward an approach
for the Bakuran capital city, Salis D'aar.

Passing through the defense web, Leia spotted a huge repair station:
saucer-shaped, not spherical, thank goodness.

They'd had enough Death Stars.  Han made a tight descent, all dive and
no sightseeing.  Leia peered between Han and Chewie's seats at the
scanner display.

Between the twin rivers, an enormous outcrop of pure white rock sparkled
in low-angie light.  it dazzled her eyes.

Blinking, Han punched in a visual filter.  "Better?"

"Look at that," Leia whispered.  Where the outcrop took southeastward
bend, an entire city sat perched on its width.

South of the city, she made out a double ring of large craters
surrounding a tall metal tower.  Civilian spaceport, she guessed.

She glanced north again, to the city.  Radials and concentric circles of
its road system gave it a web pattern, and considerable aircar traffic
cruised on and off several sharp towers near its midpoint.  `What's the
local time?" she asked.

"Just after dawn." Han rubbed his chin.  "Going to be a long day."

irregular green blotches suggested that luxuriant parks had been created
in pockets of soil on the rocky white outcrop.

"Look." Luke pointed a kilometer south of the spaceport.

inside a circle of barren black artificial surface, enormous turbolaser
turrets guarded a hexagonal complex.

Leia folded her arms.  "Standard design for an Imperial garrison."

"it's going to be crawling with stormtroopers down there," Han observed.

"What was that?" Threepio called from his usual station in the gaming
area.  "Did someone see stormtroopers?"

"Don't overload a circuit," said Han.  "They're going to be everywhere."

Threepio's answering mutter had the rhythm of, "Oh dear, oh dear." Luke
unharnessed and slipped out of the cockpit.

Chewbacca howled something.  "Luke must be expecting a smooth
touchdown," Han translated.  "Don't know why not," he added.

Leia elected to stay in her seat and brush a wrinkle out of her white
skirt.  She'd ordered a copy sewn from her threadbare white senatorial
gown.  She still hoped to dispel the Rebels' ragtag reputation, if that
was possible after landing in the Falcon.

Han flew the ship around the perimeter of Salis D'aar twice, swooping
out over the river on each side of the stunning white outcrop that kept
them from flowing together.

"They're not firing on us," he said.  "Guess we might as well go through
with it."

Controllers directed Han toward a vacant multiship crater at the western
end of the spaceport.  The early morning shadows of several moveable
repair gantries stretched out long on the rough white ground.  "What's
that surface?" Leia murmured as Han made his final descent.

Han glanced at a scanner.  "Says here the outcrop's almost pure quartz.
The crater looks like rock glass, but somebody roughed it up."

The Falcon touched down softly.

"There.  See?" Han asked.  "Nothing to worry about."

Chewie barked.  Leia turned to look where he was pointing one hairy
hand.  About twenty people clustered around a long repulsor shuttle,
near a gantry at the edge of their landing crater.  "Hurry it up, Luke,"
Han shouted.

"Right." Luke's breathless voice echoed out in the corridor.  `Leia
sprang off her seat and joined him.

Threepio stood nodding approval of Luke's white shipsuit without rank
insignia.  As Leia looked him up and down, he hooked on a silvery
utility belt from which dangled a blaster, three trifle pouches, and his
lightsaber.  "Good enough?" He fixed his eyes on Leia They looked so
blue and innocent.

"I guess that's how a Jedi ought to dress," she said dubiously.  I wish
you looked older.

Luke glanced anxiously at Han.  Han shrugged.  Leia laughed.  "What does
it matter what he thinks?" she asked Luke.

"You look splendid, Master Luke," put in Threepio.  "General Solo,
you're rather untidy.  Don't you think it would minimize our danger if-"

"Chewie," said Han.  `You want to stay on board?"

it was a valid question.  Chewbacca would represent the Alliance well if
he came along.  imperials despised aliens on principle, but humans and
imperial-repressed aliens had founded the Alliance together.

Chewie roared.  "Okay," Han said.  "Guess we can use one more pair of
eyes.  Everybody look sharp."

Leia thought Threepio snickered, if such a thing were possible.  Artoo
chirped aloud.

All right," Luke cut in.  "Here we go.

Leia positioned herself in the center of the group with Luke on her
right, Han on her left, and Chewie behind with Threepio and Artoo.
Chewie dropped the entry ramp.  She walked down slowly, sniffing cool
wet air that seemed heavy with exotic plant odors.  Her first breath on
a new planet was always a treat.

As she stepped onto the pale spaceport surface, it crunched.  She
glanced back.  The Falcon sat on a satiny bed of white rock and gray
spaceport dust.

Enough exploring.  Get to work.  She strode to meet the imperial group
beside its shuttle.

"Ooh," Han said sarcastically.  "All the pretty white armor."

"Cut it out,' Leia muttered.  "I'm wearing white too." She thought hack
to her days as an imperial senator, the double game she'd played between
the Emperor's coterie and the infant Alliance her father had died for.

Her real father, Bail Organa, who had raised and trained her and
nurtured her sense of self-worth and self-sacrifice.

Regardless of biology, she would never own another man by that title.
Period.  Enter data.  End program.

The man at the center of the group had to be Imperial Governor Wilek
Nereus.  Tall and dark-haired with heavy features, he wore a khaki
uniform that he might have borrowed from Grand Moff Tarkin, with the
addition of a pair of thin black gloves.  The other individuals in his
group kept shifting positions to watch him.  He was absolutely In
Charge.

Relax, she told herself.  Flow with it.  My strengths lie here, along a
dtfferent path from Luke's.

Governor Nereus's delegation made a semicircle around him.  "Princess
Leia of Alderaan." He sketched a half-bow.

"it is an honor to receive you.

"Governor Nereus." She returned his bow, making sure hers dipped not a
millimeter deeper.  "It is our honor to be here."

"in the name of the emperor, welcome to Bakura."

She couldn't have hoped for a better opening than that protocol
greeting.  "Thank you for your welcome," she answered placidly.  "You
may think me terribly rude to correct your kind words, but it's no
longer valid to welcome us in Emperor Palpatine's name.  Emperor
Palpatine died several days ago.

Nereus cocked a dark, heavy eyebrow and clasped his large hands behind
him.  "My dear Princess." He swaggered forward another step.  "Have you
come to Bakura spreading rumors and lies?"

"it gets better, Your Excellency.  He was killed by his apprentice,
Darth Vader."

"Vader." Nereus straightened several millimeters to loom over her.
Distaste dripped through his pronunciation, a sentiment she understood
perfectly.  "Vader," he repeated.  "His imperial Majesty should never
have trusted a Sith lord.  i was prepared to disbelieve you, Your
Highness.  But Vader as an assassin, i believe."

"Lord Vader is dead as well, Your Excellency."

Luke's chin rose at the edge of her vision.  She knew what he wanted her
to add.  Maybe Vader had died heroically, but ten minutes' contrition
did not make up for years of atrocities.

The governor's people turned aside in pairs to whisper.

Leia seized the initiative again.  "Governor, may i present my
escortfirst, General Solo." Han was supposed to bow, or at least shake
hands.  Instead, he stood aside with a flat disapproving expression.  At
this rate, he would never make a diplomat.

"His copilot, Chewbacca of Kashyvyk." Chewie grumbled as he bowed.
Wookiees had been deeply betrayed by the Empire.  She hoped Chewie
didn't forget himself and start tearing arms off imperials.  The chilly
morning breeze ruffled his fur.

She laid out her trump card with flair.  "And Commander Skywalker of
Tatooine, Jedi Knight."

Luke bowed beautifully-she'd coached him.  Nereus squared his shoulders.
After a moment, he returned the bow.  "Jedi." His large nose twitched.
"We'll have to watch ourselves."

Luke clasped his hands in front of him.  Good!  Leia praised him
silently.  He was letting her answer, just as she'd begged.

Now she felt repaid for letting him take charge in battle.

Maybe there was a future in this division of labor, so long as it didn't
go too far.  "Yes, Excellency," she said.  Governor Nereus turned his
head toward her again.  "We mean to reestablish the Old Republic,
including the Order of Jedi knights.  Commander Skywalker is head of the
order" Again she guessed what he wanted her to add: also the only
member.  Don't look sheepish, Luke I

"Commander Skywalker," Nereus repeated, and his tone became as oily as
droid lubricant.  "Ah.  Now I recognire your name, Commander.
Fortunately for you, Bakura has a good trade balance.  You might know
that for some years there has been a an astronomical reward offered for
your capture.  Alive, only.  That must be something of a distinction
among Rebel forces."

"I'm aware," Luke answered quietly.  This was nothing new, either.  They
were all on the most-wanted docket.

"And I see two droids," said the governor.  "They'll have to be equipped
with restraining bolts for the duration of their stay on Bakura."

Fitting droids with those bolts was standard procedure on most planets,
compulsory on Imperial worlds and battle stations.  "We'll see to it,"
Leia agreed.  Now certain she had commanded Nereus's respect, she
stepped out of her own protection.  "Governor, Alliance forces
intercepted your call for assistance.  The Imperial Fleet is no longer a
presence in this part of the galaxy.  We are here to assist you in
repelling the invaders.  Once that is accomplished, we will leave you.

`Bakura must choose its own destiny.  We will not attempt to impose ours
upon your .  .  .  on the Bakuran people," she corrected herself.

Governor Nereus showed her a chilling half-smile.  The left side of his
face contracted, pulling up that side of his mouth.  The right side
could've been cast in iron.

Luke stayed at attention.  Just as Nereus's face wore two expressions,
he was of palpably different minds.  It would be difficult for such a
man to accept Rebels as allies.

The gloved governor's savor in the Force licked and pushed at him.
Nereus had an uncontrollable compulsion to dominate people, and that
kept his delegation at attention.

Luke knew the type: his ways were the only sensible ways.

Anyone who countered him would capture his attention only long enough to
be squashed: the quintessential Imperial governor.

Luke kept himself open to perceive intent all around.  So many nervous
flickers tremored through the Force that simply looking calm strained
his control.  He didn't intend to get fried by a trigger-happy trooper
before Leia talked out a treaty.

As Leia and Governor Nereus continued a guarded conversation, he
stretched deeper and opened himself toward them again.  Leia: calm and
poised, not intimidated by Nereus.  The governor: a facade of trained
manners, the compulsion to dominate, and-underlying both-a gutwrenching
sense of terror.  Surely not of us.  Again Luke thought of the
despondent, not-quite-human presences on that Ssi-ruuvi fightership. Had
he contacted captive Bakurans?

Obviously the governor meant to leap in any direction that offered
protection.  As hostile as he acted in front of his troopers, he could
easily jump into the Alliance camp.

Temporarily.

In a civilian shuttlecraft offered for their ride to the city, Luke
relayed that impression to Han.

"Yeah," Han muttered quietly.  "He could jump into our camp, all right.
Or he could torpedo it.  Want to place bets?"

Luke's formal trousers clung to his legs, clammy with the pervasive
Bakuran dampness.  leia sat in front of him, lovely in her hooded white
senatorial gown.  She stared out the window of the plushly upholstered
shuttlecraft.  Sure enough, the Bakuran senate had requested that they
attend an immediate emergency session.

Abruptly Leia straightened.  "Threepio, what do I need to know about
protocol?"

"I'm afraid that is not in my program." Threepio already wore his
magneto-fixed restraining bolt, and his tone sounded whinier than ever.
Artoo interrupted with an electronic whistle.  "WIiat?  Master Luke
downloaded the data files from that probe into your memory banks?  Why
didn't you say so, you overstuffed recycle cylinder?"

Artoo chattered back at length.  Then Threeplo answered Lela, "All I am
able to ascertain is that Bakura was once governed by a prime minister
and senate, but all real authority now rests in the Imperial
governorship."

"Tell us something new," Han remarked aside.

A Bakuran pilot/guide brought them in low over a huge wedge-shaped
building punctured by two wide greenwell arcs.  "This is the Bakur
complex," announced the pilot's assistant, linking one arm around a
silver stabilizer bar.  She stared at Chewbacca.  Luke guessed she'd
never seen a Wookiee.

The complex appeared to fill several hectares between two radial
highways, and bordered the round city-center park along its southwestern
arc.  "The complex includes guest and resident housing, Imperial
offices, a major medical center, and the grand old parkside building
that was our seat of government under the Bakur Corporation."

Leia looked down, as if she were watching huge, vinecovered trees flit
across the complex's rooftop.  Actually, Luke guessed, she was mentally
reviewing Imperial protocol.  Bakura's freedom rested on her ability to
negotiate this truce.  Han, beside her in the shuttle's front seat,
fiddled with his blaster.

At a rooftop landing pad, they transferred to a repulsor tram for a
rapid ride across the large complex.  Their guide kept up the tour,
concluding, "The corporation wing of the Bakur Memorial Building was
built over a hundred years ago, overlooking Statuary Park at city
center.  Please remain seated until the car comes to a complete stop."
The tram slid under a vine-draped arch and decelerated.

"Wait, Leia." Han sprang up.

Luke slipped out his own side of the tram.  leia kept her seat for a few
seconds.  "I believe this archway is suitably secure," Threepio's
observation drifted through an open hatch.  "Still, we must be certain
of safety."

Leia poked her head out Luke's side.  "Listen," she said, "if they mean
to hurt us, the entire mission has already failed."

Han glanced over the tram.  "Right.  Okay on this side, Luke."

Luke swung around to the rear of the car and uncarted Artoo.  The droid
whistled jauntily and extended his tricycle wheels.  Han and Chewie
stepped out ahead of Leia and Threepio.  Luke followed, trailed by
Artoo.  Door wardens in gold-trimmed violet doublets and hose admitted
them to a spacious hallway carpeted in black.  Gold traceries ran like
veins of precious metal up a row of columns built in doublewedge style,
then crisscrossed overhead on a vaulted ceiling.

"Red marble," Leia murmured.

"Worth a fortune, if you could smuggle it out," Han answered over his
shoulder.  He followed one door warden.

After a few mincing steps in imitation, he shifted back into his
watchful stride with glances to left and right, behind every pillar, and
toward each open door.  Luke listened intently through the Force for
flickers of aggression.  He sensed nothing.  Leia walked serenely ahead
of him, at the center of the group beside her protocol droid.

The violet-legged warden stopped at an arch carved of glistening white
stone.  A rough wooden wall blocked most of it, with scanners hovering
on silent repulsorlifts over each side and four imperial stormtroopers
standing guard.  The sight of them gave Luke a fight-or-flight surge of
adrenaline.

"They're here illegally," leia murmured.  "We are the galaxy's rightful
envoy to Bakura.

"Tell that to them." Han glowered at the stormtroopers.

Luke stared up into one sensor's glossy round eye.  Artoo's dome
swiveled around and around as his own sensors scanned the hallway.

"Weapons check." A trooper bent over Leia and spoke in a metallic voice.
"Leave all ordnance in a security locker."

He gestured toward a bank of palm-keyed receptacles across the archway.

Leia spread her empty hands and then folded them mock-submissively. Luke
crossed the arch, selected a cubicle, and then palmed its lock while
pressing a button to key the locker to his hand print.  He drew his
blaster from its belt holster and laid it inside.  "Come on, Han," he
said softly.

Han had followed him, tailed slowly by Chewie and leia.

Han didn't seem happy about it, but he keyed a cubicle of his own and
set his blaster inside.

Leia cleared her throat.

Han shot her a look that might've fried lead, then pulled out his boot
knife, the pocket blaster from his wrist sheath, and his favorite
vibroknife.  Chewbacca was easing off the bandolier for his bowcaster
when Luke's subconscious tossed up a suggestion.  "Chewie," he said
softly, "stay with the locker.  Artoo, you too."

Chewie's lips drew back in pleasure, and he wrinkled his black nose. The
big Wookiee had little use for politics and no trust for Imperials.  He
would love to stand guard.

Leia led the group back toward the arch.

"Stop right there," said the stormtrooper who'd spoken before.  He
pointed at Luke's lightsaber.  "That's a weapon, too.

Luke extended a tendril of Force energy and answered soberly, "This is a
symbol of honor.  Not an offensive weapon.  Let it pass."

"Let it pass," echoed the stormtrooper in the same sober tone.
Recovering, he added, "I'd leave the droid at the door.

Droid malfunctions nearly killed the first crew of Bakuran colonists."

"Sir," protested Threepio, "my function is-"

"Thank you," Leia said firmly.  None of them were forgetting that
restraining bolt.  "Threepio will wait just inside."

A door warden announced, "Senator Princess Leia Organa, of Alderaan.
And"-he waved a hand vaguely-"and escorts."

CHAPTER 7

eia led them through the arch and mounted four broad steps into a vast
square chamber.  Luke followed, matching Han step for step, hoping he'd
done the right thing by keeping his lightsaber.  He didn't want to
offend the entire Bakuran senate by carrying in a weapon, but they might
not recognize it as dangerous.  He also hoped Leia would've challenged
him if she'd thought it important.

The chamber was square under a tiled ceiling, and in each corner stood a
tall, glassy pillar.  Most of the senators were human, with only two
exceptions: tall, white-skinned individuals with corrugated scalp
instead of hair.  Luke opened himself to listen through the Force.  A
babble surrounded him, the textures of forty or fifty nervous minds.

Narrowing his focus, he reached straight across the chamber toward a
massive repulsor chair, all gold and purple except for two banks of
controls on the armrests.  Wilek Nereus must have caught a faster
shuttle.  He sat there already, with his double-mindedness coming
through as strongly as ever.

Luke let his attention drift leftward, observing the senators' reactions
to leia He sensed curiosity tinged with hostility, but a dark
undercurrent of fear also pervaded the chamber.  This world was under
attack.

"Stay here, Threepio." leia halted atop the stairs and faced Governor
Nereus.  "Good morning again, Governor."

His heavy eyebrows lowered.  "Come in," he said.  "Come down."

They stepped forward and down to the central rectangle.

Floor seams showed where it could be slid aside.  Luke had a
disconcerting flash of memory that included a trapdoor and a huge,
slavering Rancor that'd almost devoured him.

Thrusting the image aside, he glanced around the chamber.

The Bakuran senators displayed all common shades of human skin, a subtle
blending of blood lines.

One trim, athletic-looking man with thick white hair, who sat below
Governor Nereus at an inner table, extended a hand.  "Welcome to
Bakura," he said.  "I am prime Minister Yeorg Captison.  Under normal
circumstances, you would have had a protocol briefing, and I apologize
for the haste with which this meeting was convened, but certainly you
understand."

leiawho'd barely acknowledged Governor Nereu made a deep, deliberate
curtsey to the older man.  Luke scanned him.  The prime minister's
charisma made a glimmer in the Force only a shade dimmer than Mon
Mothma's.

Luke glanced back up at Nereus, wondering why the governor hadn't
eradicated him.  Captison must've been ve careful.  Or did he have
Imperial connections?

"Please don't apologize," said leia.  "This is a desperate hour."

Ariother inner-table man stood up.  "Blaine Harris, defense minister.
You have no idea how desperate.  All of our outposts on the other
planets in the system have been destroyed.  Our salvage crews that
survived to report back found no bodies and no survivors." Harris's fear
shot an answering shiver down Luke's back.  Hastily he swept his focus
leftward along that table, feeling echoes of fear, hope, and hostility.
When he reached its end, he worked toward the right along the outer,
upper table.

A sharp-chinned young woman sat third from the left.  He paused,
startled by the way she resonated the Force back to him.  Like a deep,
slow thrum, her presence echoed his probe with a rich overlay.  It
wasn't Force strength of her own-at least, he didn't think sbut a unique
energizing effect on his awareness.  He'd never experienced it before.

Hurriedly, he slammed off all perception but his five senses.

He mustn't let her distract him.

Nereus's strident voice carried distinctly across the chamber; he'd
placed his throne at an acoustic focus point.  "Princess Leia, do you
understand what you are up against?"

leia laid a hand on an inner tabletop.  "No," she admitted.

"We came to answer a distress call, to show that the Alliance has no
grudges against Imperial-ruled peoples, only the Empire itself."

Nereus curled his lips.  "I thought not.  Ellsworth," he ordered into
the air, "run the Sibwarra recording.  Your Highness, come up here and
stand with me.  Bring your escorts.

Mounting the carpeted stairs behind leia, Luke glanced left again.  The
young woman stared back, resting her chin on one open hand.  Ught brown
hair swept around her face, framing pale flower-petal skin and an intent
expression.

Although she leaned forward, her slender shoulders set proudly straight.
He didn't dare touch her with the Force again-not yet-but her very
presence electrified him.  Visually striking.  Not blindingly beautiful,
but striking.  Control I he reminded himself sharply.  You're here to
help L,eiaI Servomotors whirred behind him.  Ahead, leia drew even with
Governor Nereus's chair, then she pivoted to look back.  Luke stopped on
the step below her and took the same position.  Threepio gleamed on the
other side of the room.  Hovering over the place where they'd stood, a
holographic projection appeared.  It was a young human male with
muddy-cream colored skin, short black hair, and a sweet face with
prominent cheekbones.  He wore a white robe with blue and green side
stripes.

"Humans of Bakura, rejoice!" said the .  boy?  man?  "I am Dev Sibwarra
of G'rho.  I bring you warm greetings of the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium, a
culture of many worlds that stretches its hand out to you.  Our flagship
is the mighty Shriwirr, a Ssi-ruuvi word that means `ripe with eggs." We
are approaching your galaxy at the behest of your own Emperor."

Luke glanced across at the young senator.  When the invader's image had
appeared, she'd withdrawn, clenching her hands on the tabletop and
pushing straight-armed back into her chair.  Cautiously he brushed her
with the Force again.  Fear and revulsion streamed out of her, but
beneath those dark emotions hid a sensation as deep as a shifting pool
full of jewel-toned colors.  Bemused, he shook his head.

That didn't make any sense.  But that was how it felt.

He'd perceived all this in an instant.  The holo image spoke on,
"Bakurans, be glad!  The joy that we bring goes beyond mere sensory
happiness.  Yours is the privilege of assisting the Ssi-ruuk to
hberate"he boy's grasping gesture looked more like taking than
liberating-"the other worlds of the galaxy.  You are the first, the
spearhead!  What an honor!

"As humans, you have inestimable value to my masters.

From them, you will receive lives without pain, without need, without
fear."

"Watch this," Nereus muttered.

The recording shifted.  Several dull brown, saurian aliens clustered
around a metallic pyramid that Luke recognized instantly.  Antennae and
laser cannon bristled at its four corners, swiveling thrusters filled
its four faces, and scanner/ sensor clusters surrounded each thruster.
It lay on some kind of control console.

Full recognition blasted through Luke's mind.  He recognized the
creatures, too from his disturbing dream back at Endor.

The boy's voice kept speaking.  "Here you see the most beautiful
fighting spacecraft in the galaxy.  Even if you never dared to dream of
flying the stars, we have one of these fighters for each of you.  Your
life energies will leap into one of these battle droids.  You will soar
between plane"

Life energies.  Luke recalled the human presences he'd touched,
despairing and anguished.  He leaned forward.

The robed boy reappeared.  "To allay your fears, let me show you a bit
of the entechment procedure.  Then when the time comes, you may greet
your destiny with joy." A smaller image appeared beside him.  A man sat
on a chair, anchored to it with clear binders, head lolling.  Luke
squinted.  Were those tubes stuck into his throat?  A smaller
holographic image-within-an-image of the robed boy lowered a glowing
white metal arc around the man.  The small image froze.

"It is joy," said the larger image.  "It is peace.  It is freedom.

It is our gift to you." He stretched out a pale palm.

Those had been humans they'd been fighting.  Luke clenched his hands.
The Ssi-ruuk weren't simple slavers, but robbers of souls.   Senator
Gaeriel Captison shuddered and pulled her warm blue shawl up on her
shoulders.  "Who does he think he's fooling?" she whispered.

 "They got him young," answered the senator on her right.

"Look at him.  He acts just like a Flutie.  He must even think like one.

Gaeri stopped watching.  She'd seen this recording ten times, starting
the afternoon it abruptly overrode all .tri-D screens, vid monitors, and
entertainment channels on the planet.  The senate had studied and
dissected it for nuances of meaning of hope.  The only possible
conclusion had been to drive away these aliens or face a terrible fate.

So were the Rebels here to help, as they claimed?  If they'd come hoping
to steal repulsorlift coils, they'd fallen into the Ssi-ruuvi trap along
with Bakura.  They would have to help Bakura, now, simply to escape.

Gaeri eyed the delegates.  Senator Princess leia Organa, her own age,
was known throughout the Empire as one of the Rebellion's chief
perpetrators.  She might be a deluded soul fighting for a lost cause,
like Eppie Belden when she'd had her youth and her mind, but she had
risen to leadership.  Gaeri hoped to compare notes.

Princess leia's dark-haired escort was no idealist, though.

He watched everything and everyone, especially their escape route.
According to the data files Governor Nereus had hastily sent Uncle
Yeorg, this one-Solwas a smuggler with a questionable past, a criminal
record, and several blood prices.

But the fair-haired one hadn't been in any of those files.

He had a deep calm about him that you could fall into.  As the image of
Dev Sibwarra warbled on about the joys of entechment, Escort number two
leaned forward for a better view, although his upright posture did not
appear to change.

Several trilling chirps drew Gaeri's attention back to the hologram.
Here it came: the glimpse of the enemy.  A massive upright lizard with a
black V on its face shuffled into the field and stared with a
calculating black eye.  "My naaster, Firwirrung, has always treated me
with the utmost of kindness, my friends."

The senator on Gaeri's right muttered, "Bloody-handed Fluties."

"Good-bye for now.  I look forward to meeting each of you personally.
Come to us soon." The image blinked off.

Now that the Rebels knew what Ssi-ruuk did to prisoners, Princess leia's
face matched her white dress.  She touched the smuggler's arm, and he
bent to listen to her whisper.  Abruptly Gaeri guessed he was her Rebel
consort.

The younger man slowly stared his way around the tables.

Time to speak up.  "You see?" Gaeri called without standing.  "This is a
threat against which we have no experience and no defense."

The young man nodded at her.  He obviously understood their predicament.

"lf I may be permitted to speak," called the gold-plated droid across
the chamber.  "I found that spectacle utterly appalling.  Mechanicals of
all kinds will be shocked by this perverse display of-"

Catcalls from around the chamber drowned it out.  As projectors sank
back under floor panels, the Rebels stayed on their step below the
governor's chair.  Princess Leia took another step downward. "Bakurans,"
she cried, "whatever you think about droids, listen to me now.  Let me
tell my own story."

Gaeri rested her chin on her hand.  The Rebel princess extended one hand
like a classical lecturer.  "My father, Bail Organa, was viceroy and
first chairman of the Alderaan system, a trusted official of the
Republic from the days of the Clone Wars.

"When Senator Palpatine declared himself emperor, my father began to
work toward reform.  Change proved impo sible.  The Empire has never
been interested in reform.  It only wants power and wealth."

Gaeri's mouth twitched.  True enough, if one-sided.  The Imperial system
discouraged change and built economic stability.  She shifted on her
repulsor chair.

"I was little more than a child when I began serving my father as a
diplomatic courier and not much older when elected to the Imperial
senate." She glanced sidelong at Governor Nereus.  "The Rebellion was
already active, and as the Emperor surely guessed, I was not the only
young senator involved.  My father had barely thrown in his open support
when I was captured by the Emperor's henchman, Lord Darth Vader, and
taken on board his first Death Star.

"The Emperor claims that Alderaan was destroyed as an example to other
rebellious worlds.  That is only partially true.  I stood on board the
Death Star.  I saw the order given.

It was given to terrify me into revealing information."

Governor Nereus rocked forward.  "Princess Leia, that is enough-unless
you wish to be arrested for your crimes here and now."

Princess Leia's chin tilted defiantly.  "Governor, I have only
strengthened your position.  The Empire rules by fear.  I have just
given the Bakurans one more reason to fear you.

But not respect him.  Gaeri crossed her ankles, willing for the moment
to listen, if not to accept the Rebel point of view.  That could have
happened to Bakura, if the Rebels hadn't destroyed that Death Star.  Two
senators in Gaeri's field of vision shot covertly suspicious glances
toward the governor.

"After the destruction of Alderaan," Princess Leia went on softly, "I
fled to Alliance headquarters.  I have lived with its leaders, moving
frequently as the Empire continues to try to wipe us out.  We mean to
help you," she called.  "The Alliance has sent one of its ablest
military leaders, Commander Skywalker of the Jedi Order."

Jedi?  Caught with her defenses down, Gaeri reached for a pendant on her
necklace, the half-black, half-white enameled ring of the Cosmic
Balance.  According to her religion, Jedi had upset the universe by
their very existence.  For every height, there had to be a depth.  She
believed that every time an individual learned to wield so much power,
that diminished a hapless counterpart somewhere in the galaxy.  The
power-greedy Jedi had puffed up their abilities without regard for the
unknown others they destroyed.

Their disappearance had become a morality tale, and the deaths of both
her parents left her profoundly religious.  At least in the Balance
she'd found comfort.

But had some of the Jedi survived?  Commander Skywalker looked so young,
not at all like her idea of a Jedi, except his intensity.  He'd stared
right at her when she spoke.  He might be listening to someone's
thoughts.

Was a single Jedi so powerful that the Cosmos had brought in the
Ssi-ruuk, reducing so many humans to droid-powering circuitry, to
balance his rising powers?

He turned.  Blue eyes probed her again.

She blinked and glared, and she didn't look away until he did, so she
got the satisfaction of seeing his composure falter.  He glanced at her
again, then shifted his booted feet and stared at the ground.

With that threat dispelled for the moment, she stared a little longer.
Something about him reminded her of Uncle Yeorg.

Chewbacca leaned against the bank of lockers, openly returning the
stares of six stormtroopers.  He thought he could guess their intention:
to confiscate the group's weapons and leave them helpless.  One trooper
had started walking over a few minutes ago.  A single teeth-bared growl
had sent him back, but that wouldn't last.  Luke's astromech droid stood
near the arch with his antenna rotating.  Artoo wouldn't be much good in
a fight.

Chewbacca didn't mind the odds, though.  One armed Wookiee against six
storrutroopers should be just about even.

He heard bootsteps.  Another Imperial strode up the red marble hallway.
This one wore an officer's on-duty khaki.

Storrutroopers gathered around him and spoke quietly.

Chewie fingered his bowcaster.

Leia hadn't missed the senators' whispers and sidelong glances at Luke.
She guessed she'd seen how she would affect people if she were a trained
Jedi.  Luke had offered to teach her, but maybe it wasn't such a good
idea.  This was Vader's legacy: Even Luke's talents, used honorably to
suppon justice and freedom, made people afraid.

She must recapture their attention.  She sidestepped toward the
governor's gilt repulsor chair.  "Governor Nereus, don't you see?  You
must accept Rebel assistance or risk your entire population.  We are
your only hope.  Allow us to help you turn the Ssi-ruuk back.  We are
not a large force, but we are well coordinated and equipped with better
striking ships than the Empire has allotted you." Luke had shown her the
BAC readouts.

Nereus pressed his effeminate lips flat, then said, "For the help you
have given us, we will allow you to leave the Bakura system unmolested,
and give you a head start back to Endor."

One senator jeered from the upper table, "If the Alliance is eager to
assist, why didn't it send us more ships?"

Luke spread his hands.  "We're doing all that we can without "You see,"
leia interrupted, anxious to smooth ruffled feathers, "our forces at
Endor wish to return to their homes.

Some may have already gone." Nereus grasped the arrurests of his chair,
smirking at their exchange.

"We have sent to Endor, though.  For reinforcements," Luke insisted.

leia didn't like the way Governor Nereus's frown firmed.

`But our Endor troops are exhausted.  Reinforcements could arrive within
several days or not at all." Don't work against me, Luke.

Han extended one stiff hand.  "The point is, we're here to help you.
Seems like you ought to take advantage of the offer while it's open."

"Would you clear data files for our use?" Leia asked hastily.  "On the
Ssi-ruuk, of course, and any on Bakura itself that wouldn't compromise
your security."

Governor Nereus covered his mouth with one meaty hand.  Feeling like a
bug on a laser dish, Leia held onto her poise and tried mentally to
nudge him into cooperating.  If this interview dragged on without a
promise of mutual assistance, they were sunk.

A tall, elderly man stood up at one of the lower tables.

"Nereus," he exclaimed, "take help where you can get it.

Everyone on the planet knows why the Rebels are here.  If you turn away
their help, you're going to provoke an uprising."

"Thank you, Senator Belden." Governor Nereus narrowed his heavy-lidded
eyes.  "All right, Princess Leia.  You have your data files.  They will
be keyed into the communications center in your apartment.  Do you have
any other requests for the moment, before I have your guide show you to
temporary quarters?"

"Are you leaving the truce issue unsettled?" She bit back frustration.

"You've said your piece.  We'll discuss it.

"Very well.  Prime Minister Captison-" leia hustled down to the inner
table and extended a hand, which the trim gentleman clasped momentarily.
"I hope we speak again." Leia led her party across the central
rectangle, then up the steps on the other side.

"Move it, Goldenrod," Han whispered as they passed Threepio.  "Arid keep
your voice box turned off." He sprinted for the weapon locker. Chewbacca
greeted him with a snarl and warned that the troopers had been eyeing
their cache.

"Isn't that too bad?" Han plunged in for his blaster.

Luke stepped sideways.  He held his deactivated saber one-handed, low in
an ambiguous stance, not quite attack ready.  Han watched his eyes
widen.  "It's all right," he said.

"That officer has them under control."

"Who does?" Leia spun around.  She stared hard at the conversing
Imperials.  "He's from Alderaan," she whispered low.  "I can tell by the
way he talks."

"Huh." That wasn't particularly comforting.  Han settled his boot knife
and his pocket blaster.  "What's the chance he's got an Alderaanian
conscience inside his Imperial uniform?"

"Not much," she said-but she said it to Luke.

Han straightened and stared.  The black-haired officer looked like any
other Imperial: like a target, with the kill zone marked by red and blue
squares.  He turned around and then strode toward them.  Han kept a hand
near his blaster.

Luke clipped his saber back to his belt and holstered his blaster, then
walked to meet the tall officer.  leia followed Luke, leaving Chewie
with the droids.  "Cover us, Chewie," Han murmured, and he followed too.

"Your Highness," oozed the officer as he bore down on leia, "what an
honor to meet you at last.  Captain Conn Doruggan, at your disposal."

Han wouldn't've minded disposing of him for good, but Leia had slipped
into her senate manners again.  "Captain Doruggan," she said with an
elegant nod.  "This is Commander Skywalker, Jedi Knight." Then she
condescended to notice him.  "And General Han Solo."

Luke shook the officer's hand, but Han kept his right hand low.  He
glanced over his shoulder at Chewie.  The Wookiee stared back, watching
(and covering) faithfully.

Leia could take a few steadiness lessons from Chewie.

"We must be going," said Leia.  "Thank you for introducing yourself."

The Imperial captain reached for her hand.  Han pressed his palm to his
blaster, barely keeping his trigger finger disengaged.  She met the
handshake and let him smooch her fingers.  Immediately Luke glanced in
Han's direction and flicked his hand.  He must've done something with
that Force of his: Han's jealousy cooled a hundred degrees, but it
didn't go out.  leia led them up the echoing hall toward the roof port.

Following with Luke and Chewie, Han glared at Luke.

"Don't do that to me," he said.  "Don't ever do that." He'd been jealous
before, of Luke.  That'd been unnecessary.  This probably was too.

"I'm sorry," Luke murmured, eyes ahead.  "I had to.  We couldn't afford
what you wanted to do."

"I'll control myself thanks."

Leia turned around and walked backward.  "What's wrong, Luke?"

Not Han.  Luke.

"Nothing." Luke shook his head.  `I want to speak with a couple of those
senators.  And Commander Thanas promised to make contact today.  Let's
go dig into our new data files."

CHAPTER 8

heir conductor/guide drove them by tram back across the Bakur complex,
then took them to a sec -floor apartment.  The instant the suite's door
slid shut behind Chewie, Han spun around.  Leia guessed what he was
going to say from the sour look on his face.  it would've curdled Bantha
milk.

"You told them too much." He waved one arm.  "Especially about the Endor
troops.  Those Imperials don't need to know our people are exhausted.
They'll gather up every fightership for parsecs and wipe out the Fleet."

"No, they won't.  They can't conWct anybody else.  They've tried."
Relieved, she laid her palms on his chest and looked up into his
glittering dark eyes.  She'd expected a lecture about that renegade
Alderaanian.  For one instant, the dead world had lived-bitter memories
with the sweet.  imperial policies had never been approved on Alderaan.
It was a rare and suspect individual who volunteered for Imperial
service.

"Well, you did," he muttered.  "Don't tell them so much."

"They'll assume-' Leia began.

"Hold it," said Luke.  "Did anyone else hear the aliens' human say they
came `at the behest of your own Emperor'?

These Bakurans are ignoring it."

"I caught it." Leia stepped away from Han.  "I'm trying to figure out
how to useit."

"Good."

"But did you-" Leia began again.

"Save it," said Han.  He circled the apartment's main room, peering into
all of its floor and ceiling corners.

Paneled in pale yellow natural wood, the main room had a single long
window looking out on one of the greenwells.  A hexagonal lounge pit
filled the room's center, cushioned in green with small blue pillows
floating several centimeters above it.  Han overturned every pillow,
then started rapping walls.  "I don't mind telling you I'd rather sleep
on the Falcon.

"I wouldn't,' sighed Leia Threepio stood by the door, one hand covering
his restraining bolt as if he were self-conscious.  Sometimes his
pseudoemotive programming amused her.  "Sir, droids require no rest. May
I suggest that you humans sleep for a little while?  Artoo will stand
guard-"

From beneath a hanging lamp, Artoo cut him off with a derisive hoot.

Han paused in front of a long, curving wall that displayed a real-time
forest mural.  Its branches waved in an intangible wind.  He peered at
the detail work.

Leia shook her head.  Of course the Imperials were bugging them.  They
probably had voice sensors trained on this suite from across the
complex.

She said, "Obviously Nereus is the real power on Bakura.

But he's trying to keep the Bakurans quiet by letting them play
government games.

Han turned around and leaned on the mural.  "You bet he is.  And he's as
bugged as a closet full of rat roaches about having armed Rebel ships in
his system."

"But the people aren't," leia insisted.

"No," rejoined Luke.  "The people just want to survive.  So does
Nereus," he added drily.

"So once he's safe," said Han, "he turns on us and wipes us out-if we
don't pay attention."

"We will." Luke glanced at the comm center.  `We have a message," he
added, sounding surprised.  He walked over and touched a control.

Han peered past Luke's shoulder.  Leia wedged between them.  An Imperial
officer's head and shoulders appeared on the tri-D screen: narrow face,
thin curly hair.  "Commander Skywalker, we need to talk, as agreed.  How
soon can you join me at my office?" The screen darkened.

"Commander Thanas," murmured Luke.

"Where's his office?" Han asked.

"Probably here at the complex.  Let me find out."

Leia backed out of pickup range.  "Come on, Han." She didn't want even a
glimpse at another imperial for a few minutes.  This place was getting
to her.  Every time she turned around, she half expected to spot a
swirling black cape.  Vader was dead!  Defeated!  She mustn't let black
memories distract her from her life work.

Luke told the recessed wall unit, ``I believe Commander Thanas left a
message Silence.  Then, "Yes, that would be fine.  I'll be there in
about an hour." He strolled back toward the lounge pit.

"Well?" asked Leia Luke clasped his hands behind his back.  "We have
Ssiruuvi ships in our backyard again.  Thanas says it looks like a
blockade, just out of the defense net's easy-kill zone.  Approximately
the orbital distance of Bakura's second moon.  I, uh, also have an
invitation to the Imperial garrison."

"Alone?" Leia exclaimed.

Luke nodded.

"Don't do it," said Han.  "Make him meet you someplace neutral."

Luke shrugged.  "Bakura isn't neutral.  He's probably got better
facilities up there for discussing tactics than we could find in the
Bakur complex."

"Then take Chewie with you.  This Thanas could arrest you just for being
a Jedi.  Never mind frying the Emperor."

"But I didn't-"

"They still don't believe the Emperor's dead," leia interrupted.  "But
take Chewie anyway.  Even disarmed, he's formidable."

Han fingered his blaster scope.  "How fast could you call in some
backup?"

"I've got a comlink.  I could get an X-wing squadron off the Flurry in
orbit in oh, an hour."

"That could be too late," Leia insisted.  The Wookiee roared agreement
at both of them.

"I think I should stay here," Threepio suggested helpfully.

"Han-leiaChewie-I can take care of myself." Luke flopped onto a corner
lounge, scattering small blue cushions.  "The more we act as if we trust
them, the more they'll go along with us.  leia made a lot of progress
with the senate just now."

"Not enough." Leia pursed her lips.  "An honest exchange is our only
hope for a lasting treaty, one that could bring about the defection of
many disillusioned imperials."

"Go ahead." Han swept out one arm.  "Tell me you feel good about working
with these people, both of you.  But look me in the eye when you say
it."

"Well Leia glanced down at Luke for support.  He raised one eyebrow.
"No," she admitted.

"Mm, no," Luke answered.  "I don't feel good.  Alert."

"Right," said Leia.  "And feeling uneasy can't interfere with our
negotiations.  We must make a start somewhere.  We make it at Bakura."

Luke cleared his throat.  "I'd rather take Artoo anyway.

From a corner where he stood, ignored, Artoo beedooped a query.

"For information sharing."

"Oh," Leia said.  if Luke had come up with a plan, there'd be no
changing his mind.  "Tell me about the senators.  What did you feel from
them?" She sat down beside Luke and folded her legs up onto the lounge.
Its repulsor field felt like unseen liquid holding them off the surface.

"They were hostile," said Luke.  "`Who are you, and what are you doing
here, and what business is it of yours?"-at first.  But that old fellow
Belden was glad to see us.  And there were others.  Others ." He glanced
toward Han, who had walked to the corner between windows.  "Leia's story
opened them up.  It made the first real change in their attitudes."

"I'm so glad," called Threepio from his protocol post by the door.  "I
would prefer to return to our own people as soon as possible." Artoo
burbled something leia guessed was agreement.

"There, you see?" leia stared at Han, willing him to turn around and
give her some sign that he'd approved of her presentation.  An invisible
wall had dropped between them the moment that Alderaanian singled her
out.  "It has to be hard," she conceded, "after years of operating
covertly, to be this open.

He finally swung around, thumbs hooked in his belt.  "It's like showing
your sabacc hand too early in the game.  The cards can change faces on
you.  I don't like it.  I don't like these people.  I especially don't
like Nereus."

Leia nodded firmly.  "He's a perfectly normal Imperial bureaucrat.  But
Luke, what else did you sense?  Their reaction to you He frowned. "About
what you'd expect, since they hadn't been warned. Why?"

She searched her feelings for the right words.

Luke found them first.  "You've got Vader on your mind again, haven't
you?"

Stung, she pointed a finger at him.  "I want nothing to do with anything
that came from Vader."

"I came from Vader, Leia-"

She clenched both fists at her sides.  "Then leave me alone."

He shut his mouth without finishing the sentence she'd dreaded: And so
did you.  He could've said it, but he never chose to wound her with
words.  Already she regretted her outburst.  It wasn't like her to lose
her temper so quickly.

"Hey," cried Han.  "Lighten up, Princess.  He's only trying to help."

"What do you expect from me?" She jumped up and paced past him.  "To
take it calmly?  To announce it to Mon Mothma?"

"Not again," muttered Han.

Leia planted her fists on her hips.  Either she loved that man, or she
was going to murder him.

"Again?" murmured Luke.

"Look," said Han.  "Nobody's going to tell your secret.  Not even Luke.
Right, Luke?"

"We agreed." Luke shrugged.  "For a while, at least, no one but us finds
out that you're related to anyone." He stretched out a hand.

leia clasped it.  Unexpectedly, Han pushed in and closed his hand around
both of theirs.

There was a roar behind her.  A huge hairy paw landed on her shoulder as
Chewie continued to whuffle and shout.

"What'd he say?" she asked Han.  Chewie's other paw landed on Han's
head.

"That we're his Honor Family." Han tried to duck.  Blacktipped forearm
fur trailed into his face.  "That's the basic unit of Wookiee society.
It's the best pledge of loyalty you'll get, Leia."

No nicknames this time, no teasing, just Leia That was the best pledge
of loyalty she'd get from Han.

"All right," she said quietly.  "We have work to do.  Let's use every
moment until Luke has to leave or they call us back for another
session."

Chewbacca growled.  Luke dropped her hand and walked toward the comm
center.

"Right." Han disentangled himself from his copilot.

"We've also got to check on repairs.  Our group has set up a temporary
pit over at the spaceport.  Pad Twelve.  That's Chewie's."

"Ah." Luke was already punching keys.  "There, I found our new data
files.  Artoo, run a check.  See what you didn't already get from the
drone ship."

Artoo whistled cheerily.

"Keep your eyes open, kid," said Han.

"And be careful!" Threepio exclaimed.

An Alliance shuttle picked Luke up at the Bakur complex's roof port.
With Artoo loaded in its rear compartment, Luke watched the city sweep
past, perched in its concentric circles on that incredible white rock
vein.

He feared that his own nervous state had set Leia off, but he hadn't
dared tell her or Han anything yet.  He alone knew how desperately the
enteched humans suffered, and therefore the danger they all faced if
Bakura fell.  And if that happened, Bakura's resources (and population)
would help the aliens take another world, where they'd charge up more
battle droids to take another, and another, in a chain reaction that
could spread clear to the Core worlds.

Perhaps they intended to wipe out all humamtyr maintain prison worlds as
breeding populations.  It wouldn't surprise him if they had other kinds
of droids that ran on human energy as well.  He, Thanas, and even Nereus
couldn't even be sure they faced the entire Ssi-ruuvi fleet.

In the light of this crisis, he'd had no business being distracted by
Senator Gaeriel Captison.

Yet those sensations he'd felt, as her presence responded to his probe,
made him tingle in memory.  The sensations, that is, before her sudden
reversal.  He'd never felt so strong and sudden a change from attraction
to disgust.  Now he had to speak with her.  If she opposed Jedi so
vehemently, she could ruin Leia's chances for treaty talks.  He'd rather
have her honest opposition than be ignored.  At first, anyway.

Sooner than Luke felt ready, his shuttle landed at the edge of the dark,
artificial surface they'd picked out as the garrison.  The nervous
Alliance pilot helped Luke unload Artoo and then sped away north toward
the spaceport.  Luke stared up at the garrison's perimeter.  Above and
behind a fence that crackled with high voltage, stormtroopers paced
catwalks between enormous observation towers.  A shim.

mering, sparking force field blocked the opening between gatehouse
towers.  Patrol droids converged on him from three directions.

This was the Empire, all right.  Luke strode boldly toward the gate.
"Come on, Artoo."

A pair of black-helmeted naval troopers stepped out from behind one
gatehouse.  The force field snapped off.  "Commander Skywalker?" asked
one trooper, hand on his blaster.

I am peace.  Luke pressed his palms together in front of his chest. "i'm
here to speak with Commander Thanas."

"And the droid?"

"Information repository."

The trooper laughed shortly.  "Espionage."

"I'll probably give Commander Thanas more information than I take away.

"Wait here." The trooper vanished into his gatehouse.

Luke stared through the fence.  An AT-ST scout walker plodded past,
looking like a huge gray metal head on legs.

The main garrison loomed across a wide open area.  "Standard" it might
be, but from up close it looked suitably huge.

Luke guessed it at eight stories tall.  Turbolaser turrets gleamed on
each upper level like guardians of a giant's castle.  From this angle,
he spotted two vast launch chutes aimed at the sky.  He could only guess
how many E fighters might be racked inside.  He wouldn't've dared to go
near this place with a squadron of X-wings.  Alone, he was safer.

He hoped.

The trooper reemerged with a restraining-bolt Owner and a repulsor disk
with twin side struts.  "The droid will come in on the disk," he said,
"shut down.  You may carry your personal Owner, but unauthorized
reactivation will be construed as hostile."

Artoo beeped nervously.

"It's all right," Luke said.  "Don't worry." He let the trooper
deactivate Artoo's main power converter.  Once they strapped the
silenced droid to the repulsor disk, Luke checked the clasps to make
sure his metallic friend wouldn't fall off.  He touched his Owner, which
dangled beside his lightsaber.  It too reminded him of his dream back at
Endor.

He'd never liked restraining bolts anyway.  Governor Nereus's personnel
probably had Owners, too, that would let them command Artoo and Threepio
despite the droids' prior programming.

"Follow me," the trooper said.  He led to an open skiff.

Luke took a middle seat and hooked the repulsor disk's tow cable over
one side.  They sped over the base.  The surface that had looked so dark
on approach now seemed to be plain, dark gray permacrete.  But count on
Imperial bureaucracy W cover up anything natural.

The shuttle passed through huge blast doors between a pair of monstrous
guard towers, and into a vehicle bay permeated with the familiar
military odors of fuels and machinery.

At a speeder bike deck swarming with maintenance tecbs, the troopers
parked their skiff.  Luke felt curiosity prickle at him from all sides.
Sorry, I'm not a prisoner.  Not yet.  As he disentangled Artoo, the
curious became hostile.  He lifted a finger and spun a line of the
Force.  Something toppled from one side of the speeder bike deck.

Techs dashed toward the noise.  Ignored, Luke passed through, following
the trooper who steered Artoo's repulsor disk.  They passed down a
narrow corridor with bare walls that sloped toward a narrower ceiling,
then into a highspeed turbolift.  Luke's stomach dropped as the
turbolift rose.

He stepped off on another level at the end of a long straight hallway.
Almost everything was gray-walls, floor, ceiling, furniture, faceso he
noticed the contrasts quickly.  An officer in black hustled across from
one door to another.  Stormtroopers stood at every doorway,
white-armored guardians.  Luke strode past them, eyes forward but Jedi
senses on 360-degree alert and one hand near his lightsaber.

 in a circular reception area, Luke spotted a man approaching up the far
hallway.  His erect posture and measured stride gave him away.  Narrow
face and thin, curly hair confirmed Luke's guess.  Luke walked to meet
him.  "Commander Thanas."

"Commander Skywalker." Thanas peered down an aquiline nose.  "This way,
please." He turned on one heel and sauntered back the way he had come.
Tall and pike thin, he exuded an unthreatened self-assurance that warned
Luke Imperial eyes surrounded them-as if he'd needed warning.

Counting weapons visible in the corridor, Luke steered the repulsor disk
after Thanas.

At the far end of the hallway, Thanas stepped into an office.  Luke
followed.  Simply furnished except for a curious flooring like deep
tangled moss, it looked like a place where business, not pleasure, was
conducted.  Even the clean-lined gray walls were bare of mementos, as if
Thanas had no past.

His plain rectangular desk had only one inset key panel that Luke could
see.

"Sit down." Thanas waved at a repulsor chair.  leaving Artoo shut down,
Luke took the seat.  Thanas gestured toward a servo unit.  "Something to
drink?  The local liqueur is astonishingly good."'

Luke hesitated.  Even if it weren't drugged, it might be strong enough
to muddy his head.  Anyway, it just didn't sound good.  "Thank you, no."

Thanas sat without pouring for himself.  He folded his hands over bent
elbows.  "I will confess, Skywalker, I didn't expect you to come.  I
expected you to ask to meet me somewhere else."

Luke shrugged.  "This seemed practical." He reached out for Thanas's
sense.  Watchful with a twinge of admiration, suspicious but free of
deception: trustworthy for now, with tangible goodness underlying.

"True." Thanas touched a panel on his desk.  Retracted projection
antennae glided up through the desktop.  Above them appeared a large
blue-green globe.  "Shall we observe the battle you so boldly
interrupted?"

"That would be excellent.  May I?" Luke gestured toward Artoo with the
restraining-bolt Owner.

"By all means."

Luke switched the little droid back on.  Artoo's dome spun once, then
came to rest with the blue photoreceptor facing Thanas's hologram.

The battle had begun with a sweeping attack launched by the entire
Ssi-ruuvi line.  It was, as Luke had guessed, a final push against
weakened adversaries toward planetary invasion.  His forces had arrived
barely in time.

"May I see that again?" Luke asked as blue Imperial pips regrouped for a
counterattack.

Thanas shrugged and reran a few seconds of holo.

"Is that a standard maneuver?" Luke asked.

Thanas tapped fingers together.  "Forgive me if I decline to answer."

Luke nodded and mentally filed the maneuver under Top Security.

"Tell me," Thanas said, "are my forces' scanners in error, or did one of
your pilots bring a space freighter into the battle?"

Luke barely smiled.  What Thanas didn't know about the Falcon, Luke
wasn't telling.  "You must remember that much of the Alliance's support
is from the edge of legality."

"Smugglers?"

Luke shrugged.

"Probably modified beyond all legal standards.

"Stolen Imperial equipment is at a premium."

"Only after I asked did I realize the implications of your flagship
having holonet capability."

Enough on that subject.  "Are you aware of what's at stake - - - - - - -
- -  I I here?" Luke told him most of what he'd concluded about the
Ssi-ruuk's intentions.  "Why did the Emperor contact them?"

Thanas scratched his neck, trying to look casual, but the stress lines
around his eyes darkened.  "If I knew, I would not be at liberty to tell
you."

"But you don't know."

Thanas only stared back.  This would be a touchy truce, if it held.

"We do need to discuss the current tactical situation,' Luke suggested.
"According to my data, between us we've got two cruisers, seven midsized
gunships, and about forty one-man fighters, two thirds currently
deployed in the defensive web, one third down for repairs.  Do your
figures line up?"

Thanas favored Luke with an amused curl of his lips.

"Good data.  You also have a rather irregular freighter."

"That, too." Luke shifted on the repulsor chair.  "Have you been able to
get any count on the Ssi-ruuk?"

Thanas nodded curtly.  "Here insystem, three cruisers.

Two midsize ships that've hung back, so far, near the orbit of Planet
Fourour best guess is planetary assault ships.

About fifteen large fighters or small picket ships, just outside the
defense net.  And no one knows how many of those little fightersor which
cruiser carries them.  Maybe they all do."

Simply put, the situation looked bad.  "Where do you get your
information?" Luke asked, wondering what Thanas might tell him about
in-system intelligence.

Thanas raised one eyebrow.  "Standard sources," he said.

"Where do you,, get yours?"

"Open eyes.

The exchange was punctuated by more frustrating dead ends, but when Luke
stood up two hours later, he had a better grasp of the tactical
situation, precise data on orbital defense-net vectors, and a few
miscellaneous tidbits stored in his mind and Artoo's memory banks.

"Commander Skywalker," Thanas said softly, "I wonder if you wouldn't
favor me with a demonstration of that lightsaber.  I've heard about
them."

"I think not." Luke kept his tone polite.  "I don't want to alarm your
troopers."

"They won't be alarmed." Thanas touched another key on his desk.  The
door slid open.  Two white-armored stormtroopers stepped inside.  "I'd
like to keep your astromech droid here.  You two: Take custody."

"I'd prefer to keep Artoo with me." Luke didn't think Thanas meant the
threat seriously, but he unhooked, swept up, and activated the saber
with a single motion.  For all his willingness to talk, Thanas thought
like an Imperial.  He wanted a demonstration.  He'd get it.

The troopers fired milliseconds apart.  Luke pivoted into the blasts and
deflected them.  Tiny flames extinguished in Thanas's gray paneling.

"Hold your fire." Thanas lifted a hand.  "Dismissed."

The troopers marched out.

"I don't understand." Luke stood at ready attention and kept the saber
ignited.  "You could have lost two of your men."

Thanas stared at the humming green blade.  "I didn't think you would
kill them.  I'd have had to take you prisoner, if you did.  I wonder if
you'd care to fight your way out through the whole garrison."

Luke reached for his focus of control.  "lf I had to, I would." He
sensed a trace of amusement in the older man.

Perhaps Thanas was hostile more out of professional habit than out of
real belief in the Empire, but Luke didn't trust him yet.  He closed
down the saber.  "I need to check on my forces' ship damages,
Commander."

Thanas nodded.  "You may go.  Take your droid with you."

Luke tucked his thumbs into his utility belt.  "My shuttle went back to
the Bakur complex.  I'd appreciate a lift over to Pad Twelve at the
spaceport."

Thanas hesitated for a slow beat, then smiled back.  "All right."

If Thanas meant to stop Luke and his party from leaving Bakura, he'd get
plenty of chances.

A noncom drove Luke off in a repulsor craft.  All the dull aches had
come back.  It was indeed turning out to be a very long day.  He made a
mental task list: check in with Leia and let her know he'd left the
garrison safely, double-check that the Falcon was undisturbed, make sure
the fighters were being serviced and the pilots were getting their rest
Abruptly Luke realized he hadn't thought about that striking Bakuran
senator for over an hour.  He tried to dismiss her image again, and his
memory of the way her Force aura had energized his own.  Forgetting
wasn't as easy without Imperials surrounding him.  This wasn't the time
or place to let personal urges distract him.

Yet the first Death Star hadn't been the time or place for romance
either, and his desperate love for Leia had set so much in motion.  If
only Gaeriel Captison needed to be rescued.

Shortly after Skywalker's shuttle left the garrison, Pter Thanas stopped
tapping an AIzoc-pearl pocketknife against his desktop.  He'd tracked
the illegal freighter to Pad 12 at the civilian spaceport.  Relevant
information, but not yet vital.

He unfolded one knife blade and balanced it over his index finger.  He
never could have admitted to young Skywalker how long he'd wished to see
a lightsaber in action.  When Vader and the Emperor had wiped out the
Jedi, he'd given up hope.  Fascinating, the way it'd deflected laser
fire.  its combat uses would be limited, but its very appearance was
compelling.

As was the young man who carried it.  Now he understood why the reward
for his capture was so high.

Thanas imagined what he could do with so many credits.

He'd been transferred to this dead-end position after refusing to wipe
out a village of recalcitrant Talz slave miners back on Aizoc III.

He hadn't been trying to play hero.  .  He'd simply increased his
miners' food allotment.  Most sentients worked harder if better fed, and
the storehouses had been full.  Unbeknownst to him, the furry four-eyed
Talz identified their benefactor.  One day in the mines, he'd taken a
step too close to the lip of an open shaft.  Three Talz dove to save
him.  He owed them his life.

Six standard months later, a colonel with more greed than common sense
reduced the food ration again.  The Talz headman delivered a cautiously
worded protest.  The colonel ordered their village wiped out as an
example.  Thanas ignored the order.  The colonel sent in stormtroopers
himself, then ordered Thanas on board his own ship, "pending
reassignment."

Thanas smiled bitterly.  He'd been told to consider himself lucky-if
he'd pulled that stunt in Lord Vader's presence, he'd have been dead of
asphyiciation.  lnstead, here he sat on Bakura, an isolated, low-paying
job with little hope for rotation out to the Core worlds.

Again he thought about that reward-and early retirement.  He caressed
the iridescent pearl handle.  He could marry again and live quietly on
some nonaligned world.

The reward for Skywalker tempted him, but if anyone on Bakura claimed
those credits, it would be Governor Wilek Nereus.

Thanas frowned, refolded the knife, and dropped it into his pocket.  No
early retirement for him.  He hadn't even been able to repel alien
invaders without reinforcements from the Rebel Alliance.  He'd never
leave Bakura now.

Leia cleared Luke's message from her screen and keyed over to her next
data file.  A photographic memory would've been useful.  This much raw
data would take weeks to internalize.  From Artoo, she'd already learned
that Bakura had information-level technology, repulsor coil
manufacturing and export (due to plentiful mineral deposits in the
mountains north of Salis D'aar), and namana trees, a tropical cash crop
that showed astonishing profit margins.  New information was that
descendants of the original Bakur Corporation ship's captain had always
served as titular heads of government.  Also new: the senate, not the
smallish populace, elected senators to replace those who died or
resigned.

Now, she reflected, it was an approval organ for Imperial Governor Wilek
Nereus.  She'd like quietly to interview a few private citizens and find
out how much anti-Imperial sentiment the Rebels could hope to tap.

She yawned mightily, then stretched her arms and tipped her repulsor
chair.  Han's feet showed through the doorway of his bedroom-the suite
had four private rooms, two with windows and two with real-time murals.
If Han had fallen asleep on the floor, trying to study Artoo's data, she
didn't care.

Looking at that much of him raised her blood pressure.

The nerve of him, implying she wanted to dally with an exAldemmian
Imperial.  A renegade, a quisling.

She didn't hear any sign of Chewbacca.  Threepio probably stood where
she'd left him, plugged into the main comm center near the doorway, and
Luke Once Luke had left, she'd calmed down a bit.  She shouldn't let the
knowledge that Vader was their father infuriate her so.  Even Han hadn't
tossed a single snide comment when she'd swallowed her humiliation back
on Endor and told him about Vader.  He hadn't said anything, only held
her.  With all Darth Vader had done to him-sending the galaxy's lowest
scum to chase him down, then using him as an experimental animal to test
a carbon freeze unit, scorching and creasing his precious ship with
TIE-fighter laser cannonvidentW Han wasn't going to hold any of it
against Leia or Luke.  So long as she avoided anything and anybody that
reminded her of Vader or the Force, she'd be all right.

Fat chance, on this trip.  Get hold of yourself she ordered.

"Mistress leia?" called Threepio's voice.

She walked to her bedroom door.  "What is it?"

"A message for you.  Prime Minister Captison."

"Put it on my bedroom terminal." She hurried back to the tri-D station.
Her door slid shut on a frictionless channel.

She'd never seen so many small-scale repulsors.

leia sat down.  She would have recognized the image even without
Threepio's announcement.  Collecting her composure, she greeted him
respectfully.  "I hope your senate decided in our favor, Prime
Minister."

He smiled with the sad, authoritative dignity she remembered from Bail
Organa.  "Nothing was finalized," he said.  "I hope you and your party
are comfortable?"

"I'm delighted to be speaking at such length with your people, but we
expect a little trouble convincing the Imperial military that we're here
to do a job and then go home."

"Your Highness." The prime minister's tone reproached her gently.
"That's not why you're here, is it?" Captison raised a hand.  "That's
all right.  Our people need a distraction.  They've had nothing but
Ssi-ruuk on their minds for over a week."

"I understand," leia murmured.  "What can I do for you, Prime Minister?"

"You-and your partyould join me at my home this evening.  Dinner will be
at nineteen hundred."

She longed to put down her head and sleep, but "That would be
delightful," she said.  It could be a wonderful distraction, a real
breakthrough.  "On behalf of General Solo and Commander Skywalker, I
accept." What about Chewie?

she thought suddenly.  He wouldn't fit, not the way these people felt
about aliens.  Well, she hoped she could make him understand.  He could
get some sleep.  "Thank you very much."

"I will send an escort for you shortly after eighteen thirty.

Oh," he added, "I have invited Governor Nereus as well.  A chance to
open communication off the official records.

That would keep her awake.  Guaranteed.  "How thoughtful of you, Prime
Minister.  Thank you." Leia switched off., It was the perfect
opportunity.  High time to ask the Imperials what they thought about
Emperor Palpatine's intentions, inviting the Ssi-ruuk in this direction.

She hoped Luke got back from the spaceport in time to clean up.

She hoped Luke got back, period.

CHAPTER 9

ythe time Dev had scraped nauseating blobs of mixed food out of the
galleyvac unit, an hour had passed.  He must report to Elder
Sh'tk'with-Bluescale -before his midcycle bath.  Not that he wanted
renewal, but if Bluescale thought Dev had avoided him, he'd pry deeper.
Bluescale was incredibly sensitive to changes in Dev's scent.  Besides,
the elder had a talent for hypnotic control, even though he was as Force
blind as the rest of them.  Dev ought to be able to resist him, for
simple hypnosis was nothing next to the power of the Force.

But he couldn't control it well enough, and he had no one to teach him.

Dev had felt the presence of one of his own kind.  What if it were a
real Jedi out there?  The Ssi-ruuk would be vitally interested, but Dev
didn't want Bluescale to know yet.

On the other hand, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.  They would seek out
the other, and Dev would have a human friend No, the Outsider was
stronger in the Force-a concept his mother had taught him long before
that fateful invasion day.  Dev would fall from his masters' attention.
Still, they'd entech him at last.  Walking lightly, he headed up the
broad corridor.  Ssi-ruuk passed him going both directions, stepping
quickly with their massive heads bobbing.  A few wore paddle beamers,
for occasional P'w'ecks turned on their masters under the stress of
battle.

On the other hand-he slowed again-they might try to entech the Outsider.
Humans screamed on the entechment chair.  Someone that strong in the
Force might kill Dev with his agony.

No, no.  Only the body felt pain.

Yet what if this were a fully trained Jedi?

Dev dove into a turbolift and hurried to Bluescale's work station on the
battle-droid deck.  He wasn't there.  Several small, brown P'w'eck
workers bent over antenna-cornered pyramids recovered by tractor beam.
This crew was made up of youngsters, short-tailed with jerky movements.
As soon as they finished repairing these droids, the droids would stand
ready for the next group of prisoners to be enteched.

Dev watched for a minute.  Each P'w'eck did its own job without any sign
of satisfaction.  This dull-witted servant race only superficially
resembled the glossy, muscular masters.  Heavy eyes and sagging skin
showed that even the young P'w'ecks didn't bother to eat well.  Battle
droids shone by comparison.

He hiked up to the bridge and sent one of the cylindrical ultimate
security droids looking for Bluescale.  He waited outside.  A conductive
net surrounded the bridge, strong enough to stabilize gravitics and
repel energy surges during battle.  Like a reactor, it could be
overloaded, and a direct hit from a large enough ship would overcharge
the net and make the bridge a deathtrap.  Admiral Ivpikkis made certain
no large hostile ship got the Shriwjrr in firing range.

The droid couldn't find Bluescale either.  Feeling increasingly urgent,
Dev tried Master Firwirrung's entechment hall.

Bluescale stood in the corridor, giving orders to a group of P'w'ecks.
Dev stood back a respectful distance.  Once the P'w'ecks scurried away,
he stepped close.  "You wished me to report, Elder."

Bluescale opened a hatchway.  "Come in."

Once inside, Dev looked around cautiously.  This wasn't one of
Bluescale's usual work stations.  In one corner, waistand knee-high
railings surrounded a meter-square sunken area.  A gate hung open.  Once
Bluescale raised it, it would complete an enclosure.  It almost looked
like a cage built to hold a P'w'eck.  They were led away for discipline
sometimes.  He'd never seen it done.  He started to panic.  "There?"

"Yes." Bluescale slid aside to a small table.  Unable to do anything
else, Dev stepped down into the enclosure.

Bluescale pressed something hard against his shoulder.

"lean on the railings, if you'd like."

Normally, Bluescale began renewals by having him lie down comfortably on
the deck.  At least, this didn't feel like discipline so far.  "What is
it you wish?" Dev whistled uneasily.  "What may I do to please you?"

"Talk with me." Bluescale settled his glistening mass alongside Dev.
"How goes your project?"

Suddenly delighted by the elder's attention, Dev let his weight sag on
the upper railing.  "It goes very well.  My latest effort is a
translation of the announcement we delivered to Bakura, a few week"

"Stop," said Bluescale.  He bent his massive head closer to Dev and
peered down with one eye.

Dev smiled back fondly.

"You are human," Bluescale said.  "Think for a moment what that means."

Dev pushed up one sleeve and stared at his soft, fuzzy arm.  "It means
inferior."

"Are you certain?"

Bewildered, Dev shut his eyes.  From the deepest recesses of emotion, he
released something controlled and repressed and stinking and hateful and
The huge lizard loomed nearer.  Dev howled and struck its forelimb.

"Harder," it whistled.  "You can do better than that, weakling."

Gritting his teeth, Dev plunged a fist into its upper arm.

"You killed my world.  My parents, my people.  Every one of them gone,
absorbed, murdered, mutilated He trailed off, sobbing.

"Nothing new to be angry for?"

Dev raised his fists in front of his chest.  What was the lizard doing,
pumping him for information?  It wouldn't get any this time.

it bent closer and blew lizard stench at him.  "You'd like to poke at
this eye, l'll guess."

Dev stared at the eye.  It seemed to grow and surround him with
blackness.  It sucked him in.  He fell into its depths, clutching the
trailing edges of freedom.

He tumbled.

Horrified, he lay curled up on cold gray deck tiles.  He had abused
Bluescale.  He could only guess his fate.

"Dev," Bluescale said softly, "you should never say things like that."

"I know," he said miserably.

Bluescale trilled, a soft throaty purr, "You owe us so much."

How could he ever think otherwise?

"Dev," Bluescale whistled.

He looked up.

"We forgive you."

He sighed deeply and pushed up to his knees, gripping the enclosure's
lower railing.

"Here, Dev." Bluescale held out a hypospray.  Gratefully, Dev leaned his
shoulder into another sting.  His shame melted magically away.

"I angered you deliberately, Dev To show you how close to the surface
your temper lies.  You must never show anger.

"I won't again.  Thank you.  I'm sorry."

"What so disturbed you this afternoon, Dev?"

He vaguely remembered that he'd hoped not to tell, but be couldn't
remember why.  The Ssi-ruuk protected him and met all his needs.  They
gave him pleasure, even when he did not deserve it.

"It was remarkable," he began.  "The sense of another Force user, close
by."

"Force user?" Bluescale repeated.

"Someone like me.  It's not that I'm lonely, but like seeks like.  I
wished I could seek him out, but I guessed he was an enemy of the fleet,
since he arrived with the new ones.  it made me sad."

"Him?  It was male?"

Dev raised his head with an effort and smiled up at Bluescale.  Whatever
had been in the hypospray, it was making him so sleepy he could barely
move.

"Perhaps I'll dream about him," he murmured, and he slid down off the
railing.

Gaeriel lay resting in midair above a circular repulsor bed.  A knitted
fur coverlet wrapped her from shoulders to knees.  The bed hovered over
a slightly faded carpet.  Yeorg and Tiree Captison's home was one of the
finest on Bakura, so she'd heard, but as Imperial taxes increased, even
the prime minister had to defer repairs and replacements.

Gaeri's new salary helped with upkeep.  She didn't care about "finest,"
but she did care about Uncle Yeorg and Aunt Tiree.

it'd been months since she'd needed a midafternoon rest, and the nap
hadn't helped.  She'd awakened in a cold fright that the repulsor bed
only chilled.  The Jedi Luke Skywalker had appeared in a disquieting
dream, hovering over her head in a repulsor field he generated with his
Jedi powers.

Before she could wake herself up, his skin and hair darkened.  He became
the Ssi-ruuvi envoy, Dev Sibwarra.

Sibwarra floated slowly downward into the repulsor field and through the
coverlet, drawing life out of her Frustrated, she wriggled out of the
coverlet and punched a wall control.  The Imperial Symphony Orchestra
struck up a soothing melody around and inside her ears.  She'd returned
from Center thrilled by the latest Imperial sound technology, a
hydrodynamic music system.  For her graduation gift, Uncle Yeorg had
ordered a system built into the walls of this room.  Each surface, even
the long window, functioned as a huge speaker.  Fluid slowly circulated
between panels, carrying and amplifying sound.  Workers had restructured
her long, rectangular room into an oval for better acoustics.

However, Wilek Nereus owned the only hardopy catalogs on Bakura to go
with the system.  Data, literary, and musical recordings had to come
through his office.  So far, all his dealings with her could be
justified as "sponsorship."

But Wilek Nereus did nothing for free.

Harmonies slowed overhead and muted brasses took up a melody.  Maybe
Bakura had a better chance of repelling the invasion with Rebel
reinforcements.  Idly, in this unguarded moment, she recalled the way
she'd been drawn to the Jedi Skywalker before she learned what he was.
If she'd been ten years younger, she reflected as she rolled over in the
repulsor field, she'd have probably wished he were something else, and
that he might stay for a while .  .  .  or that she could go back in
time ad unlearn what she knew.

But the Cosmic Wheel rolled only forward, building tension and then
balancing, building and balancing.

A bell rang.  Gaeriel sat up as her door slowly slid aside.

Aunt Tiree stepped through, looking elegant in a blue executive tunic
and gold torc necklace.  "Feeling better, Gaeriel?

Headache gone?"

She felt obligated to tell the truth.  "Yes, thanks."

"Good.  We have invited guests for a late dinner tonight.

This is very important.  Please dress nicely."

"Who's coming?" Gaeriel turned down the sound system.

This wasn't like Aunt Tiree.  Generally, she used the intercom or sent a
servant.

Tiree stood as still as a mannequin.  Like Uncle Yeorg, she'd served
Bakura for thirty standard years.  Her poise had become a trademark.
"The Rebel Alliance delegation and Governor Nereus need a chance to
speak on neutral ground.

It's our duty to provide the opportunity."

"Oh." Blast.  Rebels and Nereus?  For the second time in two minutes,
Gaeri wished she were ten years younger.  She could've begged off.

"We're counting on you to help us keep them from arguing, dear."

So she'd delivered the news herself to make sure Gaeri understood its
importance.  Bakura needed Rebel help to repel the Ssi-ruuk, but
snubbing Governor Nereus might bring on fresh purges.  "I understand."
She swung her bare feet over the bedside.  How long since she'd walked
barefoot in Statuary Park?  "I'll be there.  Dressed."

To her surprise, Aunt Tiree sat down on the repulsor field beside her.
"We are concerned about Nereus's attention to you, too," she said in a
quiet, confidential tone.  "He hasn't done much yet-not that you've told
us, anyway-but this is the time to choke it off."

"I agree," Gaeri said, relieved to hear Aunt Tiree talk this way.

"I'm seating you with Princess Leia Organa, unless something disrupts my
seating plan."

In other words, unless Uncle Yeorg had other ideas.

"Maybe you could invite Senator Belden." One more friendly face, and one
more comfortable voice, would make her job much easier.

"Good idea, dear.  I'll see if he's free.  You start dressing." Tiree
patted her shoulder and hurried out.

Gaeri yawned and lay back down on the bed, but only for a moment. Bakura
needed her.  She was society's child, bound down with duties to the
Empire and Bakura and the Captison family.

But not in that order, and she wouldn't want to live any other way.  It
was time to go back to work.

"They're here, Luke."

"I'm hurrying!" Luke stuck his head under the water flow and scrubbed
hard.  Helping adjust engine brackets, he'd caught the edge of a
lubricant shower.  Would this day never end?

He told himself to stop whining like Threepibut he had counted on a
long, slow soak in an old-fashioned planetside tub.  After growing up on
desert Tatooine, he would never take rain for grantedr enough bath water
to submerge in.  Unfortunately Leia had met him at the door with news of
their dinner engagement.

"I'll stall them," Leia clipped over the comlink.

Luke bustled to dress in his whites, then joined Han and Leia in the
central room-leia resplendent in a long red gown that left one shoulder
bare, and Han dressed in an elegant, satiny black uniform with
military-style silver trim.

Luke wondered where, and on what pre-Alliance adventure, he'd found that
outfit.

Then Leia brought her right hand out from behind her back.  A massive
bracelet made of long curling tendrils bung from her wrist, grooved and
swirled to catch the light and shoot it in all directions.

She rotated her hand.  "The Ewok chief gave me this.  I tried to refuse
it.  They have so little metal-it was obviously a treasure of the tribe,
and offworld.  But they insisted."

Luke understood.  Sometimes you had to accept an outrageous gift or else
offend a sincere giver.

Chewie, immaculately brushed all over, emerged from the door beside
Luke's.  An Academy-age woman who stood waiting beside the main door
stumbled backward.  "Oh," she said.  ``Your friend is welcome too, of
course.

Luke glanced at Leia and Han.  As he understood it, there'd been another
disagreement over whether the invitation included Chewbacca.  Evidently
Han had won the battle but was losing the war, because Leia-whose hair
lay tight to her scalp in the front but flowed loosely down the middle
of her back, like a living thing freed-looked everywhere but at Han.
Han's low-slung holster was missing.  Carrying concealed, Luke guessed.
Formal wear.

"Let's go." leia tossed her head.  "We're late.  Record any messages,
Threepio."

Their escort took them down to ground level, instead of up to the roof
port.  A closed white repulsor vehicle waited, running, in a garage
along the eastern radial highway.  They climbed in.  The driver
weight-stabilized the vehicle and then set off.

Luke glanced up and out as the vehicle purred along near ground level. A
pair of brilliant blue-white lights hovered in midair over the street
corner.  The street seemed to be the same blue-white shade.  But white
stone would reflect any color.  At one spot between tall towers, a
steady stream of aircars whizzed overhead at right angles to their
boulevard.

Immediately after they passed under the aircar route, the escort turned
left onto an avenue that curved to follow the circles of the city.

Luke craned his neck.  The lights here gleamed warm and yellow, not
blue-white-but at the very moment he noticed their color, the escort
pulled into a short drive that arced to a portico lined with softly
glowing pillars.  Luke stared.  The massive stone building behind that
portico, built of white stone blocks, was shorter than Salis D'aar's
high-rises: a private midtown dwelling, on a world where stacks seemed
to be the norm.  He wished he could sneak away during dinner and see how
anyone could fill so many private rooms.

A man and a woman in dark green military jurnpsuit definitely not
Imperial, maybe leftover from pre-Imperial Bakurapened the vehicle doors
and then stood aside.

Luke sprang out first and looked around.  Nothing seemed amiss.  He
nodded over the top of the car at Han.  By then, Leia and Chewbacca had
scooted out.

"There you are,' exclaimed a feminine voice from between the glistening
porch columns.  "Welcome."

He felt leia panic.  Reaching for his saber, he scanned the porch for a
threat.

Prime Minister Captison, dressed in a dark green military tunic that was
crisscrossed with gold braid from epaulets to cummerbund, bowed to Leia
"My wife, Tiree," he said.  A spangled, black-caped figure stepped
closer.  Madam Captison wore a floor-length ebony hooded robe strewn
with tiny gemlike beads, and she didn't even remotely resemble Dartb
VaderHiespite the black cape.  "Tiree, may I present .

Leia curtsied to the woman, struggling palpably to control her panic.
Luke frowned.  This Vader preoccupation was really getting to her.

Captison's introductions made it obvious that Chewbacca's presence
caught him unawares.  Recovering, Leia glared at Han, but Madam Tiree
Captison looked delighted.

She reached up, laid a hand on one of Chewie's huge shaggy arms, and
announced, "Let's go in.  Everything is almost ready."

Leia ignored Han and took Prime Minister Captison's arm.  Luke saw and
felt Han bristle.  "Easy," he murmured as they stepped into line behind
Leia "Show `em your charm."

Han lifted his head.  "Charm," he muttered.  "Right."

Along both sides of this indoor hallway ran another line of glistening
rain pillars, similar to those in the senate chamber and outdoors, but
narrower.  Behind the rain pillars, flowering vines covered irregular
white stone walls.

Leia paused to touch a rain pillar, then smiled at Prime Minister
Captison.  "I haven't seen a home so lovely since I left Alderaan."

"This house was built by Captain Arden, the city's founder.  Wait until
you see the table my grandfather added." He raised a white eyebrow.

Luke held Han back a few paces.  "It's only politics.

"I know.  I don't like it.  Give me an honest fight."

They caught up with Leia at the entrance to a dining hall surrounded by
indoor trees with dangling, drifting branches.  More vine-covered white
stone walls enclosed the trees, and at their center he spotted a table
that was roughly triangular, with its corners blunted for extra seating.

Then he looked down.  Blue-green water rippled beneath the room's
transparent flooring.  Underwater lights cast small moving shadows of
fish and an occasional long, snakelike creature.

Finally, amid the table stood a miniature mountain range delicately
carved from some translucent mineral and lit from inside like one of the
rain pillars.  Tiny blue rivers trickled down its sides.

Ingrained habit reminded him to probe the room for hostile intent.
Halfway down the table, he sensed Herr else there were two women on this
planet who could electrify him without even meeting his eyes.  She
already sat down, facing away from the door.

"Lovely," Leia murmured.

Madam Captison looked back over her shoulder.  "Thank you, dear." She
swept into the room, swirled off her cape, and handed it to a servant as
she appeared to walk on water.

Trees along the vine-covered walls raised their branches like arms. Luke
wondered if her motion or some other cue signaled them, and if they were
really flexible trees, some kind of primitive animal, or artificial.

Luke stepped forward, drawn almost against his will.  Human servants
scurried away from the table-he had yet to see a droid anywhere-probably
having rearranged seating to accommodate Chewbacca.  Captison escorted
Leia to a spot next to himself along one side.  Madam Captison took the
other chair on that end.  An elderly man wearing a voice box on his
chest-Senior Senator Belden, Luke realizedalready sat next to her on
that corner.  "Just beyond him, dear," she told Chewbacca.

Luke grinned despite his distraction.  Dear wasn't a tem he'd have
applied to a Wookiee.  Chewbacca ducked his head and chuckled softly.
They'd left him almost an entire side of the table.  No repulsor chairs
here.  The ambiance was antique and formal.

"Nice job of work yesterday," the elderly man told Luke.

"My chance to thank you.  We were ready to run for the hills when you
arrived."

Han sat down next to Leia in the second corner spot.  That left Luke
only one chair, just left of that glimmer in the Force.  He sat down,
gathered himself, and glanced right.

Gaeriel Captison sat leaning away as hard as she could.

Over her deep green dress, a sparkling gold shawl draped her slender
shoulders.

"Our niece Gaeriel, Commander," declared the prime minister.  "I'm not
certain she was introduced in the senate chamber.  Too much hurry."

"it's all right, Uncle Yeorg," she said.  Before Luke could even say
"Hello," she turned to Chewbacca.  "if you'd prefer to sit with your
party, I'd be glad to trade places."

Luke suggested subliminally to Chewie that he'd like to remain.  Chewie
snuffled.

"He says he likes it there," translated Han.  "Look out, Madam Captison.
Wookiees make friends for life."

"I'm honored." The older woman adjusted a triple strand of blue jewels
on her pale gold bodice.

Luke made it a point not to look in Gaeriel's direction again until the
matter of switching seats was settled.  As conversations sprang up
around the table, he turned toward her.

Caught by surprise, he looked closer.  Senator Gaeriel Captison had one
green eye and one gray eye.  They narrowed.  "How do you do, Commander
Skywalker?"

"It's been a long day," he answered quietly, damping down his awareness
of the Force to keep the seductive savor of her presence from
monopolizing his attention.  The entrance of another group robbed him of
the chance to say more.  Flanked by a pair of troopers in black dress
uniform, Governor Nereus strode to the third corner of the table and sat
down.  His troopers stepped into position behind him in unison, then
stood at alert parade rest.

Everything looked terribly formal and something smelled delicious.
Luke's stomach rumbled, making him feel more like a farm boy than ever.
Great, he thought.  All I need is to make a fool out of myself in front
of these peoplend embarrass Leia He wished he had let her train him in
diplomatic functions such as formal dinners.  There was a truce at
stake.

"Good evening, Captison.  Your Highness.  General.  Commander." Governor
Nereus's smile looked oily down the table.  "Good evening, Gaeriel."

The arrival of a soup course made answering unnecessary.  By the time
Luke was free to speak again, Senator Belden had engaged Madam Captison,
Leia, and the prime minister at their head of the table (good: Leia
would cultivate Belden and the elder Captisons).  Governor Nereus leaned
aside to let one of his bodyguard/aides whisper something in his ear.
Han's eyes tracked leia Only Senator Gaeriel Captison was available for
conversation.  Luke took a deep breath-nothing risked, nothing gained:
"You have some very strong preconceptions about Jedi," he said.

Her mysterious eyes blinked.  Shallow creases furrowed her forehead.

"You see," he went on quickly, "this morning in the senate chamber, I
was doing all I could to see who might be willing to work with the
Alliance.  I won't deny it."

"I am a trained Imperial diplomat, Commander." She touched a cloth
napkin to her mouth and glanced up the table toward Belden.  "It's
possible some of the others are Rebellion sympathizers.  And misled."

He definitely needed to talk with Senator Belden.  "We want to help
protect you from the Ssi-ruuk," he said softly.

"I spent two hours at the garrison this morning, talking strategy with
Commander Thanas.  He has accepted our presence, temporarily.  Can't
you?  For your people's sake?"

"We are grateful to the Alliance for help."

Deciding to stick with the direct approach, he laid down his spoon.
"Perhaps you think I can read your mind, Senator Captison.  I can only
sense your emotions, and only when I'm trying to.  Most of the time, I
live pretty much the way you do."

"It's not that," she admitted, but he felt something inside her relax.
She fingered an enameled pendant that hung over her breastbone on a
short gold chain.  "I have religious difficulties with your kind."

That caught him like a kick to the stomach.  Ben and Yoda had taught him
that the Force embraced all religions.  "And the Alliance?" he asked.

"You're right.  At the moment, we need every bit of help we can get."
She clenched a small hand on the tabletop.

"Forgive me if I've seemed ungrateful.  The Ssi-ruuk have us terrified,
but in the long run, accepting your help could lead to unpleasant
repercussions."

"Like what happened to Alderaan," he said softly.  "I understand.  The
Empire rules by your fears."

She stared down at her soup dish.  Stretching out, he felt a turmoil
that had to be her struggle for a response.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "You have to excuse my manners.  I wasn't brought
up to diplomacy."

"How refreshing." She flashed a subtle, enchanting smile.

He flung self-control to the unseen winds of the Force and reached down
deep to fully sense her presence.  Layers and layers: the living depth
of Endor's teeming forest, the allenveloping warmth of a night on sandy
Tatooine, and the hypnotic glitter of deep space came to mind.

Small talk!  he reminded himself.  Servants brought in a main course of
tiny green shellfish and buttery, unfamiliar vegetables, served with
bowls full of pale blue-brown grain.

Luke remarked on the greenery, the twin rivers, and the fishes
underfoot, and tried complimenting her outfit.  She remained polite but
distant until he asked, as servants removed plates and bowls, "I like
Senator Belden.  Is he a friend of your family?"

"Yes.  For years, despite his oddities." Evidently a very close friend.
Abruptly, her stiff-upper-lip guard melted away.  She grasped a carafe
that stood beside the centerpiece and poured a few pale orange drops
into the tiny goblet in front of him.  "Try that."

Finally-a response.  Curious, he swirled the goblet.  The liquid clung
to the glass like syrup.

"Go ahead." She raised an eyebrow.  "it's not toxic.  Our finest local
product.  You're insulting Bakura if you refuse."

She poured herself an equal portion and drank it down.

He sipped.  Liquid turned to fire and burned his mouth and throat.  Then
he caught its flavor, like intoxicating jungle flowers mingled with the
sweetest fruit he'd ever tasted.

Her eyes sparkled.  Obviously, she hadn't missed a nuance of his
reaction.  "What is it?" he whispered.  He cooled his mouth with a sip
of water.

"Namana nectar.  One of our chief exports."

"I can understand why."

"More?" She reached for the carafe again.

"Thanks." He grinned.  "But no.  That's a little strong for my taste."

Gaeriel laughed and filled his goblet anyway.  There's likely to be a
toast soon.

If Governor Nereus didn't pick a fight.  "I hope so."

She passed him a transparent dish of yellow-orange candies.  "Maybe
you'd prefer tasting namana fruit this way.

He dropped one onto his tongue.  Without the nectar's fire, its exotic
flavor flowed smoothly down his throat.  Tropical flowers a hint of
spice .  he shut his eyes and studied the sensations it caused His eyes
flew open.

"That was quick," she said, smiling.  "Namana fruit, once processed,
indus a faint sense of pleasure.  Most people don't notice immediately.
They just feel good without knowing why."

"Habit forming?"

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  "All the best sweets in the
galaxy are habit forming.  Be careful."

He decided to leave the candies alone-and he hoped his cheeks didn't
look as warm as they suddenly felt.  Still, Gaeriel seemed to have
opened up.  "I'm not .  supposed to ask you about rumors," she said
softly, bending her head closer, "but we've had no response from His
Imperial Highness since we sent to him for aid, and what you said this
morning went out over the media.  Are you certain he is dead?"

Abrupt hostility grated at Luke from Gaeriel's right.  Luke peered
beyond her and saw Governor Nereus staring at him.

Jealous?  he wondered.  Could Nereus have designs on Gaeriel?

He spoke quietly.  "The Emperor was strong in the Force.

For one thing, I felt his death." That was true, so far as it went.

To his surprise, she blanched deeply.  "I hadn't known that about His
Majesty."

Governor Nereus turned aside toward Chewbacca.  Luke relaxed his guard.
"It's not just Jedi?" he murmured to Gaeriel.  "Your religion condemns
anyone with a strong Force ability?" What would she say if she knew how
the Emperor had nearly killed him?  Later, he told himself firmly.
Alone.

He imagined himself vindicating the Jedi and pointing the accusing
finger squarely at her honored Emperor.

"Now, just a minute." Han's voice rose above the polite hum of dinner
conversation.

Governor Nereus pressed his forearms to the table and said, "I am not
accustomed to dining with aliens, General.

Your HighnesSenator Organa-I question your good taste, bringing a
Wookiee to table tonight when Bakura is fighting for its very existence
against aliens."

Luke tensed.

Leia flushed.  "If you-" she started.

"Do you think only human" Han began, but Chewie's interrupting series of
bellows and howls stilled both of them.  Luke relaxed, seeing Chewie's
temper under control.

The Wookiee could've upended the laden table, just to warm up.  "Excuse
me," Han said in a decidedly unrepentant voice.  "My copilot doesn't
want me to argue for his sake.  But he said something you should all
hear.  It's humans your Ssiruuk are after, you know.  So even if they
invade, Chewie is at less risk than the rest of us." Han stirred the air
with his spoon to take in the gathering.  Chewie barked while Han
paused, and Han grinned.  "Yeah.  The worst they could do to him is kill
him, since they don't want Wookiees for their droid batteries."

Chewie growl-barked one more time.  "He says," translated Han, "that if
you needed somebody to carry messages out to their ships, he'd
volunteer."

"Oh, yes." Nereus's tone scoffed.  "What an excellent idea, General
Solo.  But Ssi-ruuvi speech has never been translated, and the Empire
does not deal with .  aliens."

Except as slaves, Luke added to himself.

"Never translated?" Han leaned over his scattered silverware.  `Never's
a big word, Governor."

Gaeriel spoke up from Luke's right.  "Not that we know of," she
explained, "but if it's been translated elsewhere, that will do us
little good here."

"And I doubt that the Wookiee could duplicate it," Nereus announced
triumphantly, "since Wookiees have never even mastered human speech.
Whistles, tweetlike a flock of birds.  That's why we call them Fluties."

"Governor," Leia called from her end of the table.  "Perhaps I might
offer the service of my protocol droid, SeeThreepio.  He knows over six
million languages."

Nereus laughed shortly.  It sounded almost like a snarl.

"Send a droid and an alien to represent an Imperial world?  I think
not."

Leia didn't answer.  Chewie crossed his long arms and leaned back, the
body language plainly conveying, "I'm not going anywhere." Han smiled at
the centerpiece.

"One more thing," said Nereus.  "Anyone who tries to talk Bakurans into
sedition-publicly or privately-will be arrested and expelled.  Must I
make myself clearer?"

"No, Governor," leia said in an icy tone, "but I have a question for
you.  According to the recording you showed us in front of the senate,
the Ssi-ruuk are here because your late Emperor invited them.  How do
you explain that?"

Nereus raised his head.  "I do not presume to secondguess the Emperor,
Your Highness."

"Maybe he thought he could conquer them," Belden suggested loudly.

Han rocked his ornate chair.  "Maybe he had surplus prisoners to sell
them."

Luke caught a flash of insight.  "That's part of it," he guessed aloud.
Faces turned toward him, some curious, some accusing.  "What does any
moisture farmer do with his produce?"

Gaeriel shrugged.

"He delivers it to a processor in return for a share of the processed
goods." Thanks, Uncle Owen.  "Palpatine wanted battle droids of his own.
They're more maneuverable than your TIE fighters-and far better shielded
for their size."

"True," Nereus admitted, "from what I hear."

"Well, we've seen them." leia tilted her chin.  "At close range.

No one spoke for several seconds.  Gradually, separate conversations
began to buzz again.  Han leaned close to leia.

Luke barely caught, ".  .  .  but this isn't getting us anywhere, Your
Worship.  let's go back and get some sleep."

He only heard a few hissing words of her answer.  "I must spend .
Minister Captison."

A soft breath against his right ear startled him.  "Is that man the
princess's consort?" Gaeriel whispered.

They certainly fight like it.  "I think so." Luke eyed Han.

"He's a little rough at the edges, but he's the truest friend anyone
could have.  Didn't you ever know someone like that?"

"Well." She adjusted her sparkling shawl, which had slipped off one
white shoulder.  "Yes."

They were halfway into dessert, something cold in a bowl with six
nut-flavored layers, when an Imperial trooper strode in.  The soldier
touched Governor Nereus's shoulder and led him out a vine-covered arch.
"What do you think that's about?" Luke murmured to Gaeriel.

Her glance followed them.  "We'll soon see.

The governor returned five minutes later, fairly blasting agitation and
fear.  Surely even Gaeriel saw it.

"Something's very wrong, Your Excellency." Luke spoke in a voice that
carried throughout the dining room.  All other conversation stilled.

Nereus drew a deep breath.  Then he speared Luke with an angry
expression.  "That was a personal comrnum.qu from Admiral Prittick of
the Fleet.  You all might as well hear it." His strident voice took on a
knife edge.  "His messsige confirms these Rebels' claims.  The second
Death Star has been destroyed, and Emperor Palpatine is presumed dead as
is Lord Vader.  The Fleet is regrouping near Annaj."

leia nodded.  "Now do you believe us?" she asked.  "Commander Skywalker
saw him die."

Gaeriel recoiled.  "I didn't kill him,' Luke explained hastily, laying
both palms on the table.  "Lord Vader killed him -and died because of
it.  I was there as a prisoner."

"How'd you escape?" Grinning like an old war-horse eager to swap
stories, Senator Belden leaned closer.

"It was chaos on the Death Star after Palpatine's death.  It was under
attack.  I got to a shuttle bay." He glanced aside at Gaeriel.  She
buzzed with revulsion and awe and the effort to resolve them.

Prime Minister Captison tipped his chair over as he sprang up.  "Then
there will be no help from the Empire?"

Governor Nereus stared over the table at Luke.  For once, Luke sensed no
deceit.  Despite his external composure, the man was frightened half to
death.

"I think," said Luke, "that the Imperial Fleet is too busy patching
ships back together to send troops out to Rim worlds."

"Which is one reason we came in the first place," said leia

"We tromped `em," Han crowed.  Hostility seethed up and down the table.
Even leia glared.  A servant righted Captison's chair, and he sat back
down.

But Governor Nereus shook his bead.  "Princess Leia," he said, standing
up at his place, "if your troops are willing to cooperate with mine,
under truce, we need your help."

Leia's shoulders straightened.  "An official truce, Your Excellency?"

"As official as I can make it."

That sounded evasive to Luke, but evidently it satisfied Leia.  She
stood and extended her hand.  The massive bracelet shimmered on her
wrist; it seemed to add the weight of many star systems to her
handclasp.  This was a long stretch for both sides, literally and
figuratively.  For the first timeever-Rebels and Imperials would fight a
common enemy together.

Nereus engulfed her small hand in his gloved, meaty one.

Then he lifted his goblet.  "To strange alliances."

Leia raised her glass.  Belden and Captison followed her.

Luke braced himself and got a firm grip on his goblet.

"Driving off the Ssi-ruuk won't be easy," he said.  Neither would
sipping that stuff again.  "It will take all our forces in total
cooperation."

"Right," Han rejoined.  "Otherwise, we'll all end up motivating
Ssi-ruuvi droids.  Together."

Gaeriel shuddered and touched her glass to Luke's.  The milliliter he
tasted burned all the way down.

Around the table, people started farewell exchanges with their dinner
panners.  Reluctant to leave, Luke took a deep breath of Gaeriel's
presence.  Worried?  "What's wrong?" he asked.  Surely she didn't wish
he could stay longer.  That was too much to hope.

Staring at the centerpiece, she whispered, "If Governor Nereus can't
count on a Death Star any more, he'll have to rely on threats closer to
home."

A more realistic menace.  Luke rubbed his chin.  "If it weren't for the
Ssi-ruuk, you'd be in for purges?"

Gaeriel's cheeks faded.  "How do you know ." She didn't finish the
sentence.

She didn't have to.  "Standard imperial procedure.  We've seen it on
several worlds."

Gaeriel seemed to withdraw momentarily.  Across the table, Han and Leia
sprang up and walked in opposite directions.  Neither looked happy.

Just another tiff.  "Are you sure you believe in the Empire?" Luke
murmured.

She frowned.  She blinked her mismatched eyes.  She swallowed a last sip
of namana nectar, and then stood up with him "It's a balance.  All
things contain darkness and light.  Even Jedi, I suppose."

"Yes," he whispered.  If only the evening could last for a week.  Ask to
see her againi-Was the suggestion Ben's, or just his own impulsiveness?
"Could we finish this conversation tomorrow?"

"I doubt there'll be time." Looking gracious but relieved, she offered
her hand.

Hadn't he seen that Imperial officer kiss Leia's hand?  Was that the
proper gesture here?

Gambling, he raised it toward his face.  She didn't snatch it away.  it
smelled like namana candy.  Hurrying before his nerve failed him, he
mashed her knuckles with his lips.  He felt like a clod, but he didn't
dare try it again.

She tightened her fingers on his hand, then pulled loose and walked
toward Senior Senator Belden.  Luke stood still, rubbing his hand and
trying to visualize Gaeri as a part of his future.

By the Force, he'd make time to finish that conversation tomorrow.

CHAPTER 10

ev tottered to his feet.  He'd awakened on the deck of a round,
uncomfortably warm cabin full of lights and mechanical sounds.  Above
instrument panels, bulkheads curved inward to join the ceiling.

This had to be the bridge.  He was rarely allowed up here.

Bridge security was supreme priority.  But the Shriwirr's captain and
Admiral lvpikkis hunched beside Bluescale.  All three slowly blinked at
him.

Apparently the presence of another Force user mattered a great deal.

He'd known that and forgotten it.  What games were they playing with his
mind?  Was he in his right mind now, or deluded by manipulation?  Had
his contact with the stranger, brief as it was, unsettled his mental
patterns completely?

"Tell them what you told Elder Sh'tk'with," Master Firwirrung urged from
Dev's left side.  "It felt like your mother's presence, but male?"

Barely able to recall the feathery touch of his mother, Dev studied
metal deck tiles.  He hadn't felt homesick like this since finding
Firwirrung.  He had thought they were home.

"Like," he said softly, "but different."

"How?" asked Firwirrung.

"This one has the the shape, the sense of training that Mother had, but
Mother was not so strong."

Admiral Ivpikkis's left eye swiveled from Dev to the captain.  The
captain clicked his foreclaws and repeated, "Strong."

"Look at me." Bluescale thrust his head forward.  The beautiful eye
seemed to swirl.  Up from a corner of Dev's mind bubbled a spring of
excitement.  This was his right mind.  He loved them.  "Why, if this
one's trained," Dev exclaimed, "he could contact other humans.  Even
from a distance!"

Firwirrung's massive V-marked head turned toward him.

"That is an interesting idea.  How far, do you think?"

Dev felt freshly energized.  "I don't know," he admitted, "but we were
many light-years away when I felt the emperor's death for you."

"True," whistled Bluescale.  He touched Firwirrung's shoulder scales.
"With a strong enough direct contact, could you not conduct entechment
from a distance?"

"Possibly." Firwirrung twitched his tail.  "We might have to modify an
apparatus yes.  Modify it to keep this strong one alive in a fully
magnetized state, calling energies from outside."

Admiral lvpikkis's tail quivered too.  "A pipeline to humans.  We could
own all known space, not merely this empire."

Catching their excitement, Dev interlaced his fingers and squeezed hard.

"I observe," said Admiral lvpikkis, "the need for another shift in
strategy.  First we secure the strong one.  Then we test this theory. If
in practice it works, we can call back to the main force of our fleet.

They spoke hurriedly among themselves.  Ignored by Bluescale, Dev
wilted.  He could barely follow their speech.

He had always been their special pet, their beloved human.

Would they tail-sweep him aside?

He touched his throat.  He might get his battle droid at last, but at
what cost?  His anticipation curdled like the slop he'd cleaned off the
bulkheads.  Entechment was to have been his reward, not They might
entech him simply because they no longer needed him.  He wanted his
battle droid, but he craved their love.

They turned around simultaneously.  Firwirrung stroked Dev's arm,
lovingly raising red welts.  "Help us now.  Stretch out to the unseen
universe.  Give us a name, a place.  Help us find him."'

"Master," Dev whispered.  "Will you always put me first?"

Firwirrung stroked harder, bringing tears to Dev's eyes.

"We have never doubted your devotion.  Surely you don't mean to make us
question it."

"No, no." Dev felt his face go pale.  He had made Firwirrung his family,
Firwirrung's cabin his home.  He had given up his humanity.  If
Firwirrung replaced him, what was left?

Bluescale lurched forward.  "Dev Sibwarra, we need your service as never
before."

Dev couldn't tear his eyes off Firwirrung.  The entechment chief had
always implied that he loved Dev, but had he ever actually sang the
word, jove?  Shaken, Dev took a step backward.

A P'w'eck wrapped brown foreclaws around Dev's shoulders and held him
toward Bluescale.  The elder lifted a hypospray.

They couldn't be doing this.  The hypospray wouldn't hurt much, but he
remembered now what would follow.

How could they be so unkind, after all he had done?  Didn't they love
him?  Didn't Firwirrung?  Recognition filtered up out of Dev's memory.
They'd been unkind before, and before that too.

This was his right mind.  This was Dev Sibwarra, human, restored by
touching the Outsider but he couldn't beat his masters' drugs or
Bluescale's direct domination.  He was slipping.

The hypospray relaxed him as before, though he fought it for the sake of
his secret.  Firwirrung bent close.  "Look outward, Dev.  Serve us now.
Where is this one?  What is his name?  How can we find him?"

Firwirrung's head blurred.  Dev squeezed a salty river out of each eye.
Then he closed out his grief and his awareness of the Shriwirr's deck,
and escaped into the Force.  He let the swirling universe carry him past
his masters' dim auras.

The Outsider felt as strong and as close as before, undeniably masculine
and kindred, though a second, diffuse feminine presence hung close by.
The first one's sharply focused light almost washed out the second: an
echo, perhaps?  He didn't understand.  All that he knew was that love
and security came from Firwirrung.  He avoided touching the Outsider's
Force presence.  "In the capital city," he murmured, half-conscious.
"Salis D'aar.  The man's name is Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker." Distracted by the effort of speaking, he opened his
eyes again.  Firwirrung's shallow happy breathing tore at his heart. The
master didn't care-maybe didn't even know!-how jealous their attention
to the Outsider made him.  Perhaps Ssi-ruuk never were jealous.

"Skywalker," repeated Bluescale.  "An auspicious name.

Well done, Dev."

Dev relaxed into the Force.  Their glee and greed vibrated around him.
With an unlimited supply of enteched humans, Admiral lvpikkis could
rapidly conquer known space.  Dev would be pan of it.

Yet he felt humiliated.  As much as he resented the Outsider, he opened
himself to a bare touch, almost a Force caress, of farewell.

Firwirrung bent close and sang, "Are you unhappy, Dev?"

His sentiments had seesawed so many times in the last few minutes that
he was sure of only one thing: if they manipulated him once more, he
might lose his sanity.  He shut his eyes and nodded.  "I am content,
Master." I hate you I hate you I hate you.  They would not twist his
humanity.  No more games with his mind.

Yet he could not hate Firwirrung, the only family he had known for five
years.  The emotion softened.  He dared to reopen his eyes.  "Master,"
he whispered, "my highest pleasure is to help those who love me." He
forced himself to gaze fondly at Firwirrung.

Firwirrung honked thoughtfully.  Plainly the entechment chief's pleasure
was not compassion this time, but control.

He touched Bluescale with one foreclaw.  "Elder, Dev has grown close to
having true love for our kind.  Let him stretch a little.  Let the
decision to serve me be of his own free will.

That is higher affection.

Dev shuddered.  Firwirrung had already enslaved him, spirit and soul.
Now he wanted Dev willingly to tighten the cords of his own bondage.
That might be Firwirrung's mistake.

Dev laid a hand on Firwirrung's upper forelimb, making the gesture as
Ssi-ruuvi as he could.  "This is my master," he crooned.  At any moment,
Bluescale might look into his eyes or smell the deception.

"You see?" said Firwirrung.  "Our relationship broadens."

"Take your pet and go," said Admiral lvpikkis.  "Abuse it as you will.
We have work to do, as do you.  Busy your mind with the modifications -
for Skywalker."

Firwirrung rocked his head gravely and swept a foreclaw toward the
hatch.

Every step away from Bluescale took him that much farther from
enslavement.  Dev reached the hatchway, then the corridor.  The hatch
slid shut behind Firwirrung.

An hour later, forgotten as Firwirrung busied himself with schematic
drawings, Dev curled up in the sleeping pit's warm center.  How had his
mother taught him to open contact?  It had been five years.  His ordeal
had exhausted him.

He wanted to lie still and fondle sweet memories.

But he must try before Bluescale renewed him again, and there wasn't
much time.  The Ssi-ruuk would catch him eventually.  They "renewed" him
every ten or fifteen days, even if he didn't feel needy.  He'd pay for
this with the deepest renewal of his life, but he owed humankind one
effort.

He closed his eyes and emptied himself of hope, repentance, and
bitterness.  Fear wouldn't leave.  It tinged his control, but he touched
the Force through it.

Almost instantly, he felt that brilliance again.  He flicked at its edge
for attention, then formed an urgent warning in his mind.

Luke flung thermal covers away into darkness.  One slithered off the
edge of his bed's repulsor field.  For a cold, sleepy instant, he
couldn't remember what had awakened him.  Then he recalled a dark,
urgent sense of fear and warning.  Humanity was in peril because of him.
The aliens meant to take him prisoner, and Whoa.

Exhaling, he lay back down.  Artoo burbled at him from the foot of the
bed.  "I'm all right," he insisted.  What a dream.  He had to guard
against inflating his ego.  He might be the last-and first-Jedi, but he
was no focal point for humanity's enslavement.

Yet the memory didn't fade as a dream would.  Perhaps someone had
honestly warned him of something.

Ben?  he called.  Obi-wan?  why is this happening?

Forget questions, he commanded himself.  There is no why.  Search your
feelings.

He cast aside fear and false humility and reconsidered the warning in
light of the Ssi-ruuk's known intentions and methods.  In that context,
the concept felt chillingly real.

What kind of terrible mistake had Ben Kenobi made, sending him here?
Jedi masters weren't perfect.  Yoda had believed Luke would die at Cloud
City.  Ben had thought he could train Anakin Skywalker.

He curled his arms around his knees.  If Yoda and Ben could make
mistakes, Luke Skywalker could too.  Fatal ones.

If the warning were real, some trace would show in the future.  Like
ship sightings from a distance, visions of the future sometimes
conflicted, but any hint that he could help the Ssi-ruuvi war effort
would confirm the eerie warning.

He calmed himself, steadied his breathing and heartbeat, and reached
forward to scan the future in his mind.  Some things were hidden from
him, and some possibilities he glimpsed looked ludicrously unlikely.
Seconds, minutes, months later, he spotted the possibility: a map of the
future showing the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium stretching into the Core worlds.
As Han feared, they had blundered into a trnbut it was worse than they'd
anticipated.

And the Ssi-ruuk were about to invade Bakura.

Dev rolled over, clutching cushions.  It was a Jedi out there.  This
time he'd felt the unmistakable, trained control ven when barely
awakened.

Firwirrung's cabin gleamed under brilliant lights, but he didn't feel
rested.  "MasteO." he murmured.  "Is it time to get up?"

Firwirrung climbed out of the pit.  "Hatch alarm," he whistled.  "It's
for me.  Go back to sleep."

Dev curled up tighter but kept one eye open.  When the hatch slid aside,
a massive blue shape appeared.  "Come in."

Firwirrung's greeting warbled with surprise.  "Welcome."

Bluescale marched toward the bed pit.  Dev tried to uncurl, but his
muscles stayed taut.  He guessed what was coming: The elder had changed
his mind and doomed him.

The rounded rim guard of a paddle beamer protruded from his shoulder
bag.

"Admiral lvpikkis has conceived a new mission for our young human ally,"
Bluescale sang.  "He must be freshly renewed before it begins."

Panicking, Dev wanted to spring up and run away.  But where would he
run?

Firwirrung blinked slowly.  "Then it is my honor to submit Dev to you.

Bluescale closed a massive foreclaw around Dev's right arm and yanked
him upright.  Dev kicked and tried to settle his feet on the firm deck.

Bluescale released him.  "Precede me," he whistled.

"Firwirrung shall follow."

Dev plodded out the hatch and up the dim, nightshift-lit corridor.  He
could fight this.  He could survive a little longer, free to think if
not to act but for only a few minutes.  And if Bluescale bullied,
cajoled, or hypnotized him into confessing what he'd just done, the
Ssi-ruuk might kill him outright.  Waste his life energy in their
justifiable anger.  He'd seen them beat a P'w'eck to death, just using
their broad muscular tails.

Worse, if the Ssi-ruuk knew Skywalker expected them, they'd find a way
to take him anyway: more force, greater numbers, inventive technology.
Even a Jedi didn't stand a chance.  The galaxy would fall.

Dev could think of only one escape.  Using what little he knew of the
Force, he could plunge willingly into the renewal trance, bypassing
Bluescale's hypnotic awareness.

He recoiled from the idea.  Renewal would mean the death of Dev
Sibwarra, human.  He would forget all that had made him free.

Free for how long?  Hanging his head, he grimaced.  He had thrown down
his life countless times already, for no purpose.  This time, he could
save dozens of millions of humans including one Jedi.  His was a small,
poor unsung sacrifice to buy so many lives.  But he'd help them if he
could.  He'd honor his mother's memory.

Standing straighter than he had stood in five years, Dev led Bluescale
through a too-familiar hatchway.

"Are you awake, small thing?"

Dev blinked.  He lay on a warm, nubbly deck near a pair of massive,
clawed hind feet.  He knew that whistling song and the scent of that
breath.  A narrow-faced blue head bent close to him.  He felt pristine
and fresh, like a hatchling emerged from its egg.

"I have healed you," said ?  Dev struggled to remember the name.
"Welcome back to full joy."

Dev reached up and wrapped his arms around around Bluescale!  and
squeezed embarrassing moisture out of his eyes.  "Thank you," he
whispered.

"You have only the thoughts, emotions, and memories that will strengthen
you.  None of the overburdening clutter that complicates life for your
masters." Bluescale crossed slender forearms over his chest.

Dev inhaled deeply and gladly.  "I feel so clean." He couldn't remember
how Bluescale did this.  He never could remember.  Obviously, then, that
memory wouldn't have helped him continue his life of selfless service.
Anything that gave someone this much peace had to be right.  Anyone who
gave it must be wholly good.  It must be long, hard work.

Master Firwirrung waited outside Bluescale's chamber, muscular tail
flicking anxiously.  Dev cringed at the concern narrowing his warm black
eyes.  Evidently Firwirrung had worried for him.  That made him guess
something evil had been cleansed away.  "I'm much better, Master," Dev
volunteered.  "I've thanked our dear Elder.  Thank you, too."

Firwirrung touched his left shoulder with his right foreclaw and bobbed
his great head, scent tongues extended.  "You are welcome," he answered.

"Now we will go to Admiral lypikkis," sang Bluescale.

Yes, the mission!  He remembered that, now, too: a supreme privilege for
the sake of the Ssi-ruuvi lmperium.  Dev walked between the elder and
his master with his head bowed and clawless hands clasped.  He had white
eyes, furred skin, and a small stinking tailless body.  Who was he to
deserve such effort on their part, such happiness in service, such
important life work?

Jangling noises jostled Luke out of a fitful doze.  A light blinked at
his bedside, but other than that the room remained dark.  "What?" he
asked drowsily.  There'd been a macabre nightmare no, a warning.  "What
is it?"

"Commander Skywalker?" spoke a male voice out of his bedside console.
"Are you awake?"

"Getting there," he answered.  "What's wrong?"

"This is Salis D'aar Spaceport Authority.  There's been a disturbance
with some of your, uh, troops.  We have several speeders at the Bakur
complex for official use.  How quickly could you get to the roof port?"

Could this be a trap?  Did it have anything to do with the dream
warning?  He jumped out of the warm, comfortable bed.  At least he felt
rested, and his aches had left him.  "I'm on my way.

He dressed hastily and decided to wake Chewbacca and take him along.
Chewie wouldn't need to waste time getting dressed, and he'd be extra
eyes, brain, and especially muscle.  Han had to stay with Leia, though.
She'd said something about a breakfast appointment with Gaeriel's uncle.

A disturbance.  He couldn't imagine Rebel troops making trouble Well,
yes.  He could.  He clipped on his lightsaber.

He dashed out his bedroom door and around the corner into Chewie's, then
stepped back from the bed.  He didn't want to tangle with a suddenly
roused Wookiee.  "Chewie," he whispered, "wake up.  We've got trouble."

"Slow down, Chewie."

Chewbacca steered the landspeeder around the spaceport's outer-arc
access road.  Luke peered ahead and to the right.  Pad 12, the temporary
Alliance ground base, lay just beyond the next radial road outward from
the control tower.

Spaceport lights gleamed on this side of the radial, but on the other
side, dark night was lit only by occasional flashes that looked like
blaster fire.  Either someone had shot out Pad 12's lights, or someone
had shut them down.  Where was Spaceport Security?

They swooped left, past Pad 12, then onto its access road through an
open gate in its high metal-chain fence.  Unguarded, Luke observed.
Maybe the guards had gone in to settle the disturbance.  He pulled down
the hitched-up back of his parka.  Out here in the night, between two
rivers, damp air wasn't so pleasant.

Four multiship launchingilanding pads lay in a cluster between these
radial roads and the spaceport boundary, and in the middle of that
cluster sat a small, unattractive cantina that looked like two bungalows
joined at right angles.

Someone standing next to it waved them down.

Chewie grounded the speeder in the angle between bungalows.  With the
repulsor engine shut down, eerie silence rang for about ten seconds.
Then another whizz of blaster fire brought up the hair on the back of
Luke's neck and lit the silhouette of a tall repair gantry.  The
dark-haired person sprinted toward them.  "Manchisco!" Luke exclaimed.

"What's happening?"

The Flurty's captain shook her black braids.  "Our alliesright over
there-insist they've got a pair of Ssi-ruuk trapped behind one of our
ships.  I can't get in close enough to confirm it.  They're shooting
everything that moves."

"Nobody has any macrobinoculars?" Han had a pair on the Falcon, a
quarter of a kilometer away.

Manchisco shook her head.

"Well, c'mon.  You too, Chewie!" Luke ran toward the gantry, unhooking
his saber.

Before they reached it, a voice shouted, "You!  Get down!

Get back, if you're unarmed-the aliens have landed!

They've killed two of us!"

Manchisco ducked into the pitiful cover of an Artoo-size recharge unit.
Chewie edged closer to the gantry.

"Ssi-ruuk wouldn't kill people," Luke muttered.  "They'd take prisoners.
Chewie, cover me." If the Ssi-ruuk were here, he'd rather deal with them
himselfespite that eerie warning.

But he had an unsettling hunch.  He drew and ignited his lightsaber.  By
its glimmer, he spotted Chewbacca aiming his bowcaster into the
darkness.  "Stay there," Luke said softly.

"That's close enough."

Eerie silence had fallen again.  "Everybody hold your fire,' Luke
shouted.  Step by step he advanced, holding the saber upright in front
of him.  Although its light was dim compared with the spaceport beacons,
it was all the light in Pad 12.

He rounded an Alliance gunship.  Two human bodies lay sprawled on that
odd, rough glassy surface.  He paced past them, listening hard for
hostile intent.  All he felt was panicked fright.

Geometric forms sparkled ahead, metallic surfaces of another repair
gantry reflecting the light of his saber.  "Who's there?" Luke shouted.
"Show yourselves!"

A domed Calamarian head appeared behind the gantry.

Then another.

Luke groaned and sprinted toward them.  "What are you doing down here?"
he demanded.

"Shore leave," wheezed the nearer one, straightening his stiff, high
round collar.

"Authorized?" Luke asked.  Surely their commanding officer had more
sense than t(H

The Calamarian waved a finny hand.  "Of course, Commander.  Our rotation
came up.  We're as tired as anyone else.  But these strangers spotted
us."

"So you killed two of them?"

"Commander, they were charging us!  Ten of them!  They fired first,
Commander."

Luke wanted to go back to Endor.  "One of you come with me.

"Sir?" The Calamarian backstepped, clenching his blaster.

"That's an order," Luke said quietly.  "Follow close, so I can cover
you.

Slowly the tall alien wormed out of his hiding spot in the gantry.  A
blaster bolt zinged in from across the way.  Luke whirled and deflected
it, then shouted, "Hold your fire!

Chewie, beat their heads together if you have to!"

A Wookiee roar echoed across the empty area between ship and gantry.

"All right," said Luke.  "Come on.

Walking a little more slowly, this time-the Calamarian wouldn't move any
faster-Luke retraced his steps toward the gunship.  He avoided the spot
where the bodies lay.

"Chewie, where are you?"

Another burst of blaster fire flashed in, then another.

Luke leaped and spun, parrying without thought.

Just as suddenly, the firing stopped.  A weird creaking groan came from
the gantry ahead .  .  .  and the unmistakable roar of a furious
Wookiee.  Luke held up his saber to get a better look.  The metal tower
rocked violently.  High overhead, several dark forms clung to struts in
the black night.

Blasters clattered to the ground.

"Good work, Chewie," Luke called.  He adjusted his grip on the saber.
"Okay," he shouted, "everybody down.  Get a good look.  This is a Mon
Calamari.  Not a Ssi-ruu.  Look at him!" He heard scuffling noises, but
no faces appeared in the green-lit circle.  "Come on," he called, losing
patience.

After three seconds of silence, he heard Chewbacca whuffle.

Then out they came, ten humanight males and two femalesdressed in an
assortment of loose, bulky coats and warm hats.  None appeared to be
armed, now.  One male, shorter and thinner than the others, pointed at
the Calamarian.  "He's right-it's not a Flutie," he said.  Luke
recognized the voice.  This was the man who'd tried to warn him away.

A larger man pushed forward, squinting.  Green light flattered nobody,
but Luke guessed this character wore dark circles under his bulging eyes
in any light.  "Quiet, Vane."

The thin man shut his mouth but shuffled closer to Luke and the
Calamarian.  Tessa Manchisco stepped into the circle of light.  Her eyes
reflected green anger.

"This pad is blocked off for the use of Alliance crews, Luke said
sternly.  "Why are you here?"

Dark-circles crossed his beefy arms.  "This is our planet, sword boy.
We'll thank you to keep critters like that fishand that hairy oneff of
it."

Chewbacca edged toward that side of the gang.

Luke needed information, and he needed it quickly.  Had these ruffians
been sent in by the Empire, or were they acting alone?  The thin Bakuran
stood close enough for Luke to attempt probing his mind, briefly.  Luke
felt ceflain his motives were good enough that he didn't risk drifting
toward the dark side.

Still, he hesitated before focusing his attention tightly toward the
thin man, opening himself to listen for the man's feelings (wnjusion,
fear, embarrassment, suspicion .  .  .).  He thrust past them into
memory.

He didn't have to search very deeply.  "A little something, direct from
the governor's office," had been promised if they hung out close to Pad
12 and made certain the Ssi-ruuk didn't infiltrate Bakura by way of that
closed-off Alliance landing area.

Luke broke off the contact and lowered his lightsaber.

"Go home." He hoped his voice sounded as disgusted as he felt.  "Tell
Governor Nereus that we'll police Pad Twelve ourselves."

No one moved.

A deep, throaty rumble started from Chewbacca's direction.  Picking up
the cue, Luke added, "Go on.  You still haven't seen a Wookiee get
really mad.

The thin man slunk out of the green-lit circle toward the bodies.  One
by one, the others followed.  Soon a bedraggled little group shambled
toward Pad 12's main gate, carrying their comrades.

No sooner had they passed through the gate than the main bank of lights
lit up again.

Someone must be watching from the Imperial garrison, only a few
kilometers south.  And Spaceport Security was unquestionably busy at Pad
2, or 6, or 9.  On Imperial business.

He exhaled hard.  "Let's go make sure the Falcon's okay, Chewie."

When Threepio wakened Leia early, she found a message from Luke: He'd
taken Chewbacca to the spaceport to oversee ship repairs.  She dressed
hurriedly in the bathroom and braided up her hair.  Scurrying back out,
she caught sight of a tall human standing against the mural wall.  She
gasped and stopped in midstep.  By dim room light, he glimmered faintly
and washed out the real-time image of a sparkling city.

Luke had said he sometimes saw Ben Kenobi like this.

Backing away, she squinted.  This man didn't look like the old general,
nor anyone else she'd met before.

Whoever he was, he didn't belong in her apartment.  She eyed her
blaster, just out of reach on the repulsor bed.  it probably lacked a
certain threat against apparitions, if this was one.  "Who are you?" she
demanded.  "State your business."

"Do not fear me," the figure said softly.  "Tell Luke to remember that
fear is of the dark side."

Who was this person, bringing messages for Luke into her allegedly
private quarters?  A Bakuran?  An Imperial?

"Who are you?"

The stranger stepped sideways into a darker spot, where his glow
brightened.  He was tall, with a broad pleasant face and dark hair.  "I
am your father, Leia."

Vader.  A chill started at her feet and shivered its way to her scalp.
His very presence stirred every dark emotion she owned: fear, hatred
"Leia," the figure repeated, "do not fear me.  I am forgiven, but I have
much that I wish to atone for.  I must clear your heart and your mind of
anger.  Anger is the dark side, too."

Her blaster definitely wouldn't help.  Even when he'd lived, he'd
deflected blaster bolts bare-handed.  She'd seen him do it at Cloud
City.  "I want you to leave." The dark chill froze her voice.
"Disincorporate.  Fade out, or whatever you do."

"Wait." He did not move away from the wall.  If anything, he seemed to
shrink in size and proximity.  "I am no longer the man that you feared.
Can you not see me as a stranger, not an old enemy?"

She'd lived too long with the fear of Darth Vader.  "You can't restore
Alderaan.  You can't bring back the people you murdered, or comfort
their widows and orphans.  You can't undo what you did to the Alliance."
Old pain jabbed her like a fresh wound.

"I strengthened the Alliance, although that was not my intent." He
extended a glimmering arm.  The mellow voice sounded wrong.  The mild,
naked face didn't look as if it'd hidden for decades behind a black
breath mask.  "Leia, things are changing.  I may never be able to return
to you."

She glanced away.  Maybe she couldn't harm him with her blaster, but it
would feel good in her hands.  If she stretched, she could almost reach
it.  "Good."

"There is no justifying .  my actions.  Yet your brother saved me from
darkness.  You must believe me.

"I heard Luke." She crossed her arms and clenched her hands around her
elbows.  "But I'm not Luke.  Or your teacher.  Or your confessor.  I'm
only your daughter by a cruel trick of fate."

"Of the Force," he insisted.  "Even that served a purpose.  I am proud
of your strengths.  I do not ask for absolution.

Only your forgiveness."

She set her chin and kept her arms crossed.  "How about what you did to
Han?  Are you going to beg him for his forgiveness?"

"Only through you.  My time here is short.

She swallowed.  Her throat felt dry.  "I can almost forgive you
torturing me." He bowed his head.  "And the evils you did to other
people-because those drove so many worlds into the Alliance.  But
cruelty to Han .  .  .  no.  If you want to go through me, you won't get
his forgiveness.  Never."

The figure shrank farther away.  "Never is too large a word, my child."

Darth Vader, lecturing her about virtue and eternity?  "I will never
forgive you.  Dematerialize.  Go away.

"Leia, I may not speak to you again, but I'll hear if you call me.  If
you change your mind, I will be watching."

She stared.  How dare he, after all his cruelties and perversities?  Let
Luke deal with him.  She would not.

How did Luke stand knowing this was their father?

She rushed out of the bedroom.  Morning light streamed through the main
room's long window, lighting yellow walls and dark flooring.  Han pushed
up out of the closest corner lounge.  "You're going to be late,
Highness-ness."

Threepio waddled toward her.  "Are you ready, Mistress L-?"

She had seized up the Owner and shut off Threepio.

Now she turned to watch the bedroom door.  No one emerged.  "He can't do
this to me," she muttered.  "To my life.  He can't do it!"

Han glanced at the comically frozen droid, then crinkled his mouth.  "He
who?  Did you get a call from that captain guy?"

Flinging out her arms, she paced past the windows.  "Oh, fine.  That's
all you'can think of, your petty -she grabbed a couch pillow-"lousy"-she
twisted it between her hands -`jealousy!  Vader's been here, and all you
can think of is acch!"

"Whoa, Princess." He showed her his palms.  "Vader's dead.  Luke burned
him.  I took a speeder bike out and saw the ash pile."

Leia's stomach hurt.  "You saw his body.  I just saw the rest of him."

"You're seeing things too, now?" He stood hip-hitched, hands in his
pockets, eyebrows raised.  "Either you're getting stronger in this Force
stuff or Luke's a bad influence."

"Maybe both," she said bitterly.  "if I had to see ghosts, i could've
put up with that Yoda of his.  I would've enjoyed talking to General
Kenobi.  Who do I get?" Dropping the pillow, she struck the yellow wall
with a fist.

"Easy," he murmured.  "It's not my fault."

"I know it isn't." Now her knuckles hurt, too.  Frustrated, she pivoted
to lean against the wall.  She glared back across the lounge pit's blue
and green cushions toward her bedroom.

"What did he want?"

"You're gonna love this.  To apologize."

Han gave a short, disbelieving laugh and ran a hand over his eyes.

"Yeah," she said.  "My sentiments exactly."

"You know, you've been jumping at everything that reminded you of him.
Now you've faced him down.  Maybe the worst is over."

"It's not." She let her shoulders sink.  "Han, he's still here.

I'm ." Unable to finish the sentence, she shut her eyes.

"So what?" Han stepped closer and laid a hand on her shoulder.  "Hey,
nobody gets to be as big a deal with the Empire as he was without a lot
of strengths and abilities.

You got `em.  You're just using `em differently."

How could he be so insensitive?  "Thanks a lot, Han." She considered
taking a swing at him.

"Leia?" He spread his arms.  "I'm sorry too.  i guess.  Sorry I made a
stink about that Alderaanian guy, anyway."

She drew a long, slow breath and stayed against the wall.

"Go away.

"All right," Han exclaimed abruptly, "okay!  I can take a hint."
Glaring, he stalked around the lounge pit.

"Han, wait!" What had she done, venting her anger on the one person she
shouldn't hurt?  He passed Threepio, then the darkened comm station,
almost reaching the main door.  "Han, it's it's the Vader in me.  i
can't help what I am."

As the impact of what she'd said flooded through her, Han stopped beside
the black console.  He turned slowly.

"No," he said.  "it's the Skywalker in you."

That name-Luke's nameidn't raise her hackles the same way.  A fleeting
thought flashed through her mind: What had Vader been like before he was
Vader?

"I'll tell you one thing." Han walked up to the edge of the lounge pit.
"Governments need each other.  Yeah.  Planets do, species do.  But so do
people."

Governments.  She was going to be late for breakfast with the prime
minister-"Yeah." She paced back to his side.

"Right.  Anyway, he's gone.  He didn't hurt me.  Maybe he can't hurt me
any more.

"That'd be good." Han ran a finger around the tight braids pinned to her
head.

She yanked out the pins and pulled off the end clasps.

Han stood with his eyebrows at attention as she ran her fingers from
scalp to ends and tossed her head.  Her hair swung loose.  "But I'm not
going to forgive him," she said softly  "Are you sure you're all right?"
He fingered the dark cascade, then wrapped an arm around her waist.

His shoulder made a firm, warm pillow.  "I love you, Nerf Herder."

"I know that."

"Do you?"

He stroked the back of her head.  "What makes you think I don't?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered, straightening her neck.  She held her lips
near his chin.

Accepting the invitation, he bent and kissed her.  She felt her life
energy draw up into the kiss until nothing existed but barely
perceptible movements of Han's mouth.  She flattened her hands on his
shoulders.  His legs shifted toward her.  All perception vanished but
the taste of his breath.  Her pulse quickened in her ears.

The comm center blatted behind him.

"Mmmf!" Han cried before she could disengage.  Once he pulled free, he
shouted, "No!  It's not fair!"

Laughing at her own despair, Leia pushed her hair behind her shoulders.
"Want to get it?  Or shall I?"

``Well, you're-'' He looked her up and down and smiled crookedly.
"Lovely."

"But I'm not presentable."

"It isn't your usual image," he agreed with a sad head shake.  "I'll get
it."

Leia backed aside.  Han touched a control and then blinked.  "Luke!" he
exclaimed.  "What's up?"

"There's been a little trouble," said Luke's voice.

Leia whisked back to Han's side.  Luke looked calm.  She tried
stretching out with the Force to feel his presence, but she couldn't.
She must still be too agitated.  "I thought you were going to check on
ship repairs," she said.

"I didn't think the comm center was secure enough to leave messages. Our
Mon Calamari crew came downside for an authorized shore leave.  Some
Bakurans on the wrong side of the spaceport-at Nereus's
suggestion-spotted them and thought the Ssi-ruuk had landed.  By the
time I got here, the Calamari had blasted two in self-defense."

"Oh, no." Treaty papers burned in Leia's imagination.

"Sorry I missed it." Han grinned.  "Looks like you made out all right."

Luke nodded.  "it was still dark enough that one lightsaber lit up the
whole pad area.  Once Chewie and I had both sides' attention, and the
Bakurans got a good look at our people, they declared a cease fire."

Han raised one eyebrow.  "Not bad, farm boy."

"But, Luke." Leia pushed her hair behind her shoulder again.  "What
about the injured Bakurans?"

He pressed his lips together and shook his head.  "Did I say injured?
Sorry.  Dead.  Their families need formal apologies.  Could you do it
for me?  You're better at that kind of thing."

Leia didn't relish the idea, but he was right-she wanted it done
correctly.  "I will." She tried stretching out for him again.  What she
touched frosted her blood.  The crisis might be over, but in his deeper
sense hid a dark disquiet.  "Luke, what's wrong?"

His cheeks colored.  "Come on, Leia.  This isn't a secure channel."

Luke was deeply afraid.  What else had happened in the night?  Han
cocked an eyebrow at her.  She shook her head.

"Later, then," she said.  "Han and I will go straight from here to the
prime minister.  I'll apologize to him first.  I'm also taking him
Threepio and Artoo, to try translating."

"Good.  Artoo's probably still in my bedroom, plugged in.

Han, I'm leaving Chewie here to keep things calm.  I'll try to talk to
Belden next, if I can find him."

"Belden?"

"The senior senator.  I have a feeling,' he said softly.

"About the shooting?" asked Han.

"Right.  See you two later." The image faded.

Han folded his arms.  "I suppose the sooner we get on with it, the
sooner we can get away from this planet with our skins."

Leia stretched a hand toward the comm board.  "I'll send Prime Minister
Captison a message that we'll be late." Good thing they'd been late.
Otherwise, they'd've missed Luke's transmission.

Frowning, she puncbed in Prime Minister Captison's code.  Maybe some day
she would wish she'd accepted Vader's apology.  Anakin's.  Whoever he
was.  He had been polite.

Watching her, was he?  Freshly furious, she shook her fist at thin air.

CHAPTER 11

uke stepped out of the comm booth closest to pad

12, glad he hadn't settled for the cantina's nonvisual comm net.  From
watching Han and Leia's faces, he felt sure they'd be all right.  Better
than all right.  While he was on line, he'd also filed an incident
report on the mainframe and looked up an address.

Chewie stood on watch.  Luke grabbed a handful of arm fur and said,
"Thanks, pal." The Wookiee slapped Luke's shoulder in reply, then
stalked past the shabby cantina back toward the Falcon.  A thorough
investigation had assured them that nobody'd messed with it.

Captain Manchisco lounged against the cantina's corrugated wall.
"Heading out, Commander?" She must've cleaned up for shore leave, but
gray spaceport dust had smudged her cream-colored shipsuit during the
fracas.

Three black braids still dangled jauntily on each side of her head,
dusted with leaf fragrnents and twigs.

On board the Falcon, she'd declared that she (sensibly) offered her Duro
navigator triple overtime to stay shipboard.

Luke wished the Mon Calamari captain had thought of that.

Credit-poor the Alliance might be, but its leadership would rather pay
triple overtime than provoke incidents that cost Bakuran lives.  "Say,
how's the Flurry?" he asked.

Manchisco frowned.  "Small problem with her starboard shield.  It's
fixed, but I had to let an Imperial maintenance team on board.  All her
specs are probably on Thanas's computer now." She thrust her hand into a
deep pocket.

"Did they do good work, though?"

"Looks all right." She shrugged.  "I don't know if I told you it's been
a pleasure making your acquaintance."

"I like working with you, too.  And I'm sure we're not finished here."

Her battle-hard face lost a few smug lines.  "You're the one who knows
about these things, but I've got this odd feeling we won't meet again."

Another warning.  Or had Manchisco experienced a premonition of her own?
"I don't know," he answered honestly.

"The future is always in motion.

She waggled her left hand.  "Doesn't matter.  We do what we can, for as
long as we can.  Eh, Commander?"

"Exactly." A two-seat speeder cruised through the gate to Pad 12,
overloaded with four Alliance crewers.  Just what he needed.  Spaceport
Authority had reclaimed the speeder he arrived in.

"Hot night downside," Manchisco observed.  "Let's hope there wasn't any
more trouble."

The crewers looked bleary-eyed but nonviolent.  "I think they're all
right.  Force be with you, Captain." Luke commandeered the speeder and
drove it out the perimeter road.

Five minutes later, he parked atop a residential tower.  He found Senior
Senator Belden's apartment near the drop shaft, ran a hand over his hair
and straightened his gray shipsuit, then touched the alarm panel.

While he waited for an answer, he glanced up the hall in both
directions.  This musty corridor, with plating peeled off several door
frames, was a far cry from the Captison mansion.  Perhaps the Belden
family owned a finer home elsewhere, or maybe Governor Nereus made sure
that the dissidents' credit balances stayed slim.

The door slid aside.  He stepped back.  Gaeriel, here too?

"I-" he stammered, "uh, hello.  I was hoping to speak with Senator
Belden."

"He's out." She was sliding through the doorway into the hall when a
cracked voice behind her called, "Let him in, Gaeri.  Let him in."

"That's Madam Belden," Gaeri whispered, "and she's not well." She
touched her forehead.  "Come in for a moment.

CIiher caregiver-had a family crisis, so I'm having tea this morning."

"I'll just say hello," he murmured.  "I didn't mean to bother you.

A wizened woman sat propped up on cushions in a brocade chair with
wing-shaped arrurests.  She wore yelloworange, almost the color of
namana candy, and she'd dyed her sparse hair auburn.  "You're back,
Roviden.  Why did you stay away so long?"

Luke shot Gaeri a puzzled glance.  "She thinks you're their son, Gaeri
whispered against his ear.  "He was killed in the purges, three years
ago.  She thinks every young man is their son.  Don't argue.  It's
better."

Was there an escape route?  Luke saw spindly wooden furniture that was
probably antique, a gray box that was probably electronic, and Gaeriel's
bare feet beneath her space-blue skirt and vest .  but no way of
gracefully evading a filial masquerade.  Hesitantly he took Madam
Belden's hand.  "I'm sorry," he murmured.  "So much work to do.  For the
Rebellion, you know," he added on a gamble: Son killed in the purges.

She squeezed his hand.  "I knew you were working undercover somewhere,
Roviden.  They told meh, but it doesn't matter.  Gaeriel's missing, you
see, and

"No, she'" he began.

"I'm here, Eppie." Gaeri sat down on a furry repulsor footstool.

"You're-?" Madam Belden stared from Luke to Gaeri shaking her head
helplessly.  "I'm-?" She shut her eyes and set her chin.

Gaeriel shrugged.  "You're fine, Eppie.  Would a nap feel good?"

"Nap," repeated the woman in a tired voice.

Luke followed Gaeriel back toward the door.  "Tell me about Madam
Belden.  How long has she been like this?"

"Three years." Gaeri shook her head sadly.  "Unfortunately, she was
deeply involved in resistance to the Empire.

She broke down when Roviden died.  It destroyed her."

"Maybe that's why they let her live," he guessed.

Gaeri's sharp chin tilted angrily.  "You can't-"

Madam Belden thrashed in her chair.  "Don't leave without saying
good-bye," she cried.

Wedged too tightly into the awkwardness to run away, Luke hurried back
and knelt beside Madam Belden.  He cleansed his mind of concern and
desires and focused inward, examining Madam Belden's deep presence.  It
pulsed too powerfully for someone who needed full-time care.  The mind
remained, affecting the Force creating a life pulse so strong that Luke
guessed she had untrained strength of her own.  But some of the links
connecting mind to senses and communication didn't operate.  They'd been
severed.  The Empire did this, he guessed.

He blinked up into sad, watery eyes.  Gaeriel was watching him from
behind.  If he used the Force, she might throw him out.  Or she might
begin to respect his abilities.

Regardless of what Gaeriel wanted, Eppie Belden needed healing.  Luke
stroked the spotted, bony hand.  Should he go on pretending to be her
son?  That seemed like a dangerous dishonesty, using the Force.  "I want
to show you something," he murmured, ignoring Gaeriel.  That was hard.
"lf you can do this, you may be able to heal yourself."

Her sense brightened and became eager.

"No," he directed.  "Be calm and still.  Listen deep." He pressed into
her awareness and showed her how he had healed himself, traveling in
hyperspace the silence, the focus, the strength and he made certain she
saw, even if she didn't understand, that he hadn't been able to do it
perfectly.  Then he turned her focus inward.  Something has been
damaged, he told her.  I think the Empire did it.  Find it.

Heal it.  Fight back, Eppie.  May the Force be with you.  Yoda would've
called her "too old for training," but this wasn't training.  Not
exactly.  And, Yoda, she's not going to go off chasing trouble like I
did.

A wave of her gratitude washed him out of her mind.  He inhaled deeply
and pushed up off his knees.  Eppie Belden rested against her cushions,
eyes closed, breathing tranquilly.

"What did you do?" Gaeriel stood in an unconscious fighting stance.

Luke studied her eyes.  Somehow the gray one calculated while the green
one looked angry.  "There's still a very sharp awareness in there," he
murmured.  "I don't think her problem is natural.  I really think she
was harmed."

Gaeriel hesitated.  "Deliberately?"

Luke nodded.  Feeling her hostility swing away from him, he stayed
silent a moment longer and let her process the implications.  Someone
had harmed her.  Who but the Empire?  Then he elaborated, "I know a
little about self-healing.

I showed her something she might try.  That's all."

"Is that so little for you?" she asked bitterly.

A non-Jedi couldn't do that much.  "I did nothing to her.

My word as a as an honorable man.

At last she shrugged, dismissing the matter.  "Come out here.  Sit
down." She strode through a door arch into a white-tiled dining room,
both hands brushing her long vest as she walked.  She motioned him past
a fragrant, simmering tea warmer toward a seat at a transparent table.
"lf you can do so much with the Force," she said, "why don't you simply
get into a fighter, blast your way onto the Ssi-ruuvi flagship, and get
rid of them?"

I might try it, if you told me to.  He sighed away the impulse and
explained, "If I used my powers in anger or aggression instead of for
knowledge and defense, the dark side would take me.  It took ." He
strangled a terrible temptation.

Some day, he must admit his ancestry.  He almost wished he had it over
with, but the time hadn't arrived when his humbling, provocative
revelation would count for something.

Telling Gaeriel would be disastrous.  "It took many Jedi.

They became agents of evil, and had to be hunted down."

"I should've guessed." Gaeriel looked him up and down, then cocked an
ear toward the open door.

He might yet win her, through Eppie.  "If she tries what I showed her,
she might seem to sleep for well, days."

"That might be a blessing." Relaxing, Gaeri crossed her ankles under the
table.  "What did you need to talk with Orn about?"

Oh, blast.  Commanding the Flurry was easier than admitting this.  "Some
of your people attacked some of mine at the spaceport this morning. Mine
had Alliance aliens with them, and yours thought they were Ssi-ruuk.  I
suspect Governor Nereus found some Bakurans who like trouble, and tried
to make some for them."

He felt her suspicion.  "Were there casualties?"

"Two Bakurans.  Princess Leia is making forrnal apology," he added
hastily.  "I wish we could do more.  it shouldn't've happened." He
glanced out a broad window.  The morning sun was turning brilliant, but
he felt chilly.  He'd been warned.  Somewhere out there, the Ssi-ruuk
would soon be looking for him.  He didn't think he was in any serious
danger, but he still wasn't certain why they wanted him.

What was he doing here, endangering Gaeriel and Madam Belden?  "if
Senator Belden has any thoughts on the incident, please have him contact
me." He stood up.  "I hope Madam Belden improves.  What I sensed
underneath her troubles He searched for words.  "I think I would have
liked her.  She was a fighter, wasn't she?"

Gaeriel's left eyebrow arched.

Great.  He'd reminded her of his Jedi abilities again.  Staring at the
floor didn't help either, because her bare feet suggested a lighthearted
spirit.  Except when I'm around.

"Thanks.  I'd better leave."

He glanced at Madam Belden on his way to the door.  She hadn't moved.
Gaeriel slipped out into the drab hallway behind him.  "Luke," she
murmured, "thank you for trying."

"Luke"-she finally used my name.  He hurried to the roof port with a
lighter heart.

Leia caught herself bustling as she led Threepio through a guarded door
arch in the Bakur complex's old Corporation Wing.  Artoo wheeled
silently behind, and Han followed at rear guard.  Reddish wood paneled
Prime Minister Captison's inner office.  His massive desk had been sawed
freeform out of the weathered burl of some rain forest giant.

He sat near its center, where a flat space had been carved and polished,
and he was frowning.

Was she that late?  Abruptly she realized he was frowning at Threepio
and Artoo, not at her.  She brandished the restraining-bolt Owner to
show Captison she had both droids under control.  She'd also programmed
Threepio not to speak until she rescinded the command.  Asking him to
keep quiet on his own just hadn't seemed kindr plausible.  "I'm sorry to
have been delayed," she said.

Captison wasn't a large man, but like Luke, he radiated assurance.  "I
hope you were able to take care of your personal problem."

"Yes, thank you."

He extended his hands toward two repulsor chairs.  Han pushed one toward
her, then took the other one.  Sideways.  I love you, Neif Herder, Leia
silently repeated as she sat down on the gently bobbing seat.  "I must
make a formal apology for the deaths this morning.  May I contact the
families of the fighters who were killed?"

One corner of Captison's mouth twitched up as he watched Han.  "I think
that would be appreciated.  Yes, I'll arrange it for you.  There has
also been a reconfiguration of Ssi-ruuvi ships outside our defense web,"
Captison added.

"The web reconfigured to compensate.  So much I hear from Commander
Thanas, at any rate."

Leia caught Han's sidelong giance.  "Does he report to you and Governor
Nereus?" Han asked.

Captison shrugged.  "I've asked him to.  Seems the least he could do."

Leia puffed out a breath.  "Maybe you don't know how unusual it is for
an imperial officer to pay the slightest attention to the people he's
allegedly defending."

"Really."

Maybe Captison did know.  Maybe he'd cultivated Commander Pter Thanas.
"At any rate, here are the droids I offered.  May we try translating
whatever you have?"

"I'm not fond of droids," Captison said drily.  "But at this point I'm
willing to use them, if there's a chance they could help."

She shot at Threepia with the Owner.  It whirred softly.

As if he'd never been silenced, Threepio chimed in.  "I am fluent in
over six million forms of communication, sir."

Leia had heard that sentence so many times she'd forgotten how
impressive it was.  Captison's sudden interest reminded her.  "That's
right, Your Highness said so over dinner." He touched a panel on his
desktop console.

"Zilpha, key in those ship-to-ship recordings we picked up from the
Fluties." He leaned back in his chair and explained, "We've got plenty
of their chatter.  Sounds like a flock of birdgreat big ugly ones, with
deep voices."

"Well, if anyone's good at talking, it's our Goldenrod."

Han rapped Threepio's metal shoulder.

Threepio's head whipped toward him.  "Thank you, General Solo!"

A light changed color beside Captison's elbow.  "Here we go.  Have your
droid listen to this."

"You can talk to him directly," Leia put in.  "His full designation is
See-Three-Pee-Oh, and he answers to Threepio."

All right," said Captison.  "Listen, Threepio.  Tell me wiiat they're
saying."

The console emitted a series of whistles, clicks, and grunts, some as
high as an alto voice, and others eerily basslike.  The "Flutie" played
a very large instrument.  As Leia listened, she stared around Captison's
office.  His dual windows looked down on a round park scattered with
stone figures.  Bordering the clear window panels, tall leafy trees with
straight trunks had been executed in threedimensional colored glass.
Namana trees, she guessed.

Threepio's head cocked.  He shook it.  "I am sorry, Prime Minister, but
I can make nothing of it.  It is entirely outside my comprehension.  I
have been in service for many years, and I can communicate in every
language ever used within Republican or Imperial space."

"Our Fluties are from outside Republican and Imperial space, Captison
declared.  "I believe that was mentioned."

Han rubbed his chin.  Leia couldn't think what to say.

From behind her came a whistling echo.  Startled, she spun around. Artoo
stood his place in a wood-paneled corner, warbling what seemed to be a
perfect imitation of Prime Minister Captison's recording.

"Threepio," she said when Artoo finished, "wasn't that exactly how the
Ssi-ruuk sounded?"

"No," Threepio answered firmly.  `He missed one note by a full four
vibrations."

Artoo honked.

"Soak your own transistors," Threepio retorted.  "I won't stand for that
language."

Captison raised a white eyebrow.  "It can duplicate them that closely?"

"I wouldn't doubt Artoo, though it never occurred to me that he'd be
able to do that," Leia admitted.  "Sir, I'm certain that given enough
time and recordings, Threepio could make a solid effort at decoding that
language."

"If he can," Captison said, pointing at the little bluedomed droid,
`we've got a native speaker if we need one.

Take your metal friends to my aide's office.  Zilpha will set them up
with enough recordings to keep them busy well into tomorrow night."

Governor Wilek Nereus bit the end off a narnana twist and chewed
thoughtfully.  In this cool greenway lined with tall fern trees and
passion-bud vines, he could momentarily ignore the menace surrounding
Bakura and ponder his own career.  With both Palpatine and Vader dead,
the Rebel AllianceHiowntalked so disdainfully on all official
communique'became rather more of a threat.

Still, all odds favored the Empire, and he had two high Rebel leaders
within striking distance.  He could weaken the Alliance substantially.

He thrust the distraction aside.  Strolling down the greenway, he
returned to his original thought path.  Someone new would undoubtedly
spring onto the Imperial throne.  Nereus would've cautiously evaluated
the risk of attempting that leap himself, except that this far out on
the Rim, he didn't stand a chance and anyone who jumped and failed was
ruined or dead.  So he must watch for a new emperor to emerge, flatter
and praise him, and meanwhile make Bakura a shining example of pacified,
profitable enterprise.

If the Ssi-ruuk didn't take it away.  He despised them on principle,
even without the entechment complication.  As a h, he'd pursued two
hobbies: alien parasitology and alien dentition. The Empire had quietly
used both talents.

Aliens were creatures to dissect or fight-not to ally with.

His aide snapped to attention several paces away from the southeast
greenway's central fountain.  Nereus had issued strict orders that he
was not to be disturbed, and he let the messenger wait.  He'd come here
to enjoy a few minutes' peace, and by all the forces and balances that
those idiots worshiped, he was going to have it.

He took another fruity bite and stared into the fountain's heart,
measuring the pleasant glow the candy gave him.  He controlled his
namana habit: nectar in the evenings only, and only two candy breaks a
day, usually here by the fountain.  Water leaped from a hundred sonic
motivators in gravity-defying swirls, finally captured by Bakura and
pulled into the turbulent blue pool.

The Empire could weather turbulence too.  Nereus's Imperial colleagues
had made the galactic bureaucracy selfperpetuating; and employed by the
Empire, Wilek Nereus would rise farther, grasp more authority, and wield
more power than in any other system of government.  Therefore, he would
sell anyone and anything to keep the Empire on Bakura.  The loss of
another Death Star peeved him.  Fear was his ultimate tool for keeping
Bakura subdued.

Well, the natives were afraid now.  Sighing, he turned to the aide.
"It's important, I trust."

"Sir." The aide saluted.  "You have a personal message waiting on holo
from the Ssi-ruuvi fleet."

The Fluties had captured several Imperial ships since sending the
Sibwarra recording, so now they had access to Imperial holonet. "Idiot,"
Nereus snapped, "why didn't you speak up?  I'll take it at my desk."

The aide pulled a communicator from his belt to relay the reception
order.  Nereus marched up the greenway 5 mossy path.  Two uniformed
guards held glass doors open at the corner of a long, artificially lit
tunnel connecting this greenway with the other.  Nereus strode sharply
left, then left again through his personal staff's station and into his
broadwindowed private office.

On the holonet reception pad alongside his desk, a green light blinked.
He straightened his collar and whisked one hand over the rank insignia
on his chest to make sure they hadn't picked up any passion-bud pollen,
then swiveled his repulsor chair to face the transmission pickup.
"Receive," he told his desk.  He curled his hands around his armrests.

What did the Flu ties want now?

A meter-high, translucent figure appeared over the reception grid:
human, in striped white robes.  "Governor Nereus." The figure bowed at
its waist.  "Perhaps you remember me, I'm-'

"Dev Sibwarra," Nereus growled.  Now that was an alien parasite.  "I
know you as well as I want to.  What joyful news do you have this time?"

Sibwarra shook his head.  "Less joyful than before, I fear, but perhaps
in the short run it will please you better.  The mighty Ssi-ruuk, seeing
your hesitancy to join the lmperium's quest for galactic unity, to
experience freedom from physical lirnitation"

Nereus snatched a long ivory Llwelkyn tooth off a pile of flimsies.
"Make your point."

Sibwarra extended one palm.  `Admiral lypikkis is willing to move our
fleet out of your system, if you'll grant us one boon."

"Keep talking." Nereus fingered the tooth's serrated slashing edge.  If
the holo had been flesh, he could've sliced it just so.

`Among the new visitors in your system is a man named Skywalker.  If you
can hand him over to a special Ssi-ruuvi delegation, we will leave
immediately."

Nereus made a deprecating sound.  "What do they want him for?"

Sibwarra cocked his head and squinted, looking reptilian.

"We simply mean to rid you of an unpleasant presence.

"I don't believe that for an instant." Still, if the aliens went
elsewhere for human droid-chargehe might suggest Endor-then Bakura
returned to status quo, he remained in power, and he could alert the
Empire to oncoming danger.

Sibwarra said, "I'm told to admit that he would be useful in certain
experiments."

"Oh.  Certainly." Hah.  Whatever they really wanted Skywalker for, it
had to have something to do with entechment.  He trusted neither
Sibwarra nor his reptilian hosts.  If they wanted Skywalker, they
mustn't get him.

Yet surely he could work this proposition to his advantage.  "I will
need time to arrange things." Killing Skywalker outright was one option.
Or .  yes, he could help the Ssi-ruuk take the youngjedi, but ensure
that he died before they made use of him, killing two dangerous birds
with one carefully planned strike.

But would Rebel officers serve Thanas, if their Commander vanished with
the alien fleet?  He tapped the long tooth.  They would, if it were
their only hope of survival.

Still squinting, Sibwarra pressed his palms together and touched his
fingers to his chin.  "Would a day be sufficient to make your
arrangements?"

Nereus despised him.  "I believe so.  Contact me again tomorrow noon,
local time."

Three quick raps on Gaeriel's office door interrupted her effort to
regain a lost morning's work.  Luke Skywalker's intimation that the
Imperials took Eppie Belden's mind had preyed on her all the way back to
the complex.  Immediately on arriving, she'd checked Eppie's criminal
record.  Every rabble-rouser arrested during the takeover or the purges
had one, even including Uncle Yeorg (a very minor offense).

But not Eppie.  Either it had vanished or it was under an extremely
high-level security seal.  Why would the Empire bother covering up?

She put her revenue-revue program on "hold, security" and called, "Come
in."

A slim woman in a dark green jumpsuit glanced over her shoulder and then
slipped through the glide door.

Gaeriel sat straighter.  "Aari.  What is it?"

"Monitor," Aari mouthed.  "Nereus's office."

Gaeriel motioned Aari closer.  Her aides had broken several of Governor
Nereus's security systems, but surely his aides had ears in her office
as well.  "What did you hear?"

Aari's lips brushed Gaeriel's ear as she whispered, "The Ssi-ruuk just
made Nereus an offer if he'd turn Commander Skywalker over to them."

A lump of ice formed in Gaeri's stomach.  Luke Skywalker had seen the
Emperor die.  Obviously he was not simply a new Jedi.  He had to be one
of the pivotal individuals in the Alliance in the changing galaxy.

So what did they want him for?  Gaeri curled her toes tightly inside her
shoes.  Luke had deliberately risked her goodwill by using his powers to
help Eppie, and frankly she admired his decision.  If Jedi were
self-serving at heart, why had he acted on his conscience despite her
disapproval, when he so obviously-and frighteningly-hoped to befriend
her?

Evidently the Ssi-ruuk thought they could handle him.  If so, any
humanven Wilek Nereusught to know to keep Luke away from them.  Either
Nereus didn't understand what surrendering Skywalker could mean to
humankind or he was obsessed with getting Alliance people off his world,
or Or he'd try to kill Luke before they could abduct him.

The third possibility meant Luke Skywalker, whatever he was, had no time
left.

Should she warn him?  To do nothing would give weight to Governor
Nereus's side of the Balance.  To aid Skywalker might unweight the rest
of the universe.

But it was hard to think in universal terms when danger threatened the
Bakuran people.  Luke had finally convinced her that he'd do everything
in his power to help Bakura repel the Ssi-ruuk.  "Thank you, Aari." She
stood up and checked her chrono.  Sensible people would already be
eating dinner.  "I'll take care of this."

CHAPTER 12

uke trudged down the white stone corridor toward their apartment suite.
After talking to Gaeiiel and Madam Belden, he'd spent the rest of the
morning and half the afternoon reasoning with shop supervisors.  His
reputation as a Jedi was obviously getting around.  They'd given him
grudging respect for getting his hands greasy with them-that had been
the highlight-then let him sandwich all the remaining A-wings onto that
day's service schedule.

Luke suspected that Bakura's best repair teams had been shuttled up to
the Imperial cruiser Dominant.

Then, without a chance to clean up, he'd had to help his quartermaster
provision the battle group, spending the nonexistent collateral of a
maybe-someday government.  He'd've given a lot for Leia's help on that
one.  All this while watching over his shoulder for the Ssi-ruuk and
pondering what the dream-warning really meant.  No wonder his barely
healed body ached.

A pair of Imperial storrutroopers stood guard in the broad lobby outside
the suite, blast rifles slung across their chests.

Weary as he was, his adrenaline surged.  Quicker than thought, he went
for his lightsaber.

Then thought caught up.  He dropped his hands to his sides, fingers
spread.  `Sorry," he murmured to the near guard.  "Not used to this."

"Understood, sir." The Imperial stood back.  Luke slipped inside, then
spun through the common room to his bedroom and fell onto the repulsor
bed, laughing off his tension.  He'd never heard of such a preposterous
situation.  His apartment, guarded by "friendly" stormtroopers?

He stared across the room and through a huge window, wondering what his
Uncle Owen would've given for a rain shower like the one that'd just
started.  Early summer on IBakura would've been heaven on Tatooine.

A message light blinked on his personal console.  Sighing, he called it
up.  Senior Senator Belden requested his presence at an early dinner.

Luke groaned.  Gaeriel must've relayed his message, but he was too late.
He'd barely have time to rush over if he didn't clean up.  He needed to
speak with the elderly senator -if nothing else, to discuss his wife's
medical history.

Luke keyed in a polite request to see him tomorrow, sent it, then bent
over to pull off his boots.  The door chime rang.

"No!" he whispered irritably.  Their guide had shown him how to use the
bedroom console to scrutinize callers.  He poked several buttons but
couldn't make it work.  Wishing he didn't feel so greasy, he hustled
through the common room and answered it himself.

Gaeriel stood half turned away from the door as if she'd rather keep
walking than speak with him.  She carried a tightly woven string satchel
against her blue skirt, and as before, her very presence made his Force
sense tingle.

"Commander?" she asked tentatively.  "May i speak with you for a few
moments?"

Luke back stepped away from the Imperial guards' inquisitive eyes.
"Please."

 Once the door shut, she cupped her hands around her mouth and
whispered, "You're monitored.  We're about to disappear." She lifted the
satchel and held it open.  Inside was a gray box like the one at the
Beldens' apartment.  She toggled a large switch, then said aloud-but
softly, "Disruption bubble generator.  I can't leave it on for more than
a few seconds at once.  You're in danger."

"What's wrong?"

"The Ssi-ruuk have approached Governor Nereus." She slid her hand back
into the satchel.  "Is your party comfortable here, Commander?" she
asked full-voice.

He had to think quickly.  "The situation's a little awkward," he
answered.  "I have an allergic reaction to stormtrooper armor.

Go&, she mouthed.  She raised her right eyebrow, over the green eye,
then twisted her wrist again and softly said, "They've asked Governor
Nereus to surrender you and offered to leave Bakura if he does."

The dream-warning rushed back into his mind.  So, they meant to move
through Nereus.  "Naturally, he's tempted."

"I don't think so.  He's not stupid.  If they want you alive, he's going
to make sure they don't get you that way." She glanced down and moved
her hand again.  "We all have to deal with our automatic reactions, I
suppose," she announced.

So much for Leia's assurance that Nereus wouldn't harm them.  Now the
fitn begins.  "The accommodations are excellent, though." He motioned
toward a corner lounge.  "I've been on my feet all day.  Please.  Sit
down, so I can."

"I don't think I should."

He overlaid his voice with a calming veneer of Force overtones.  "I wish
you would trust me."

She slid her hand back into the string bag.  "I suppose my reaction to
Jedi is like yours to storrutroopers."

"I'm learning to suppress mine."

"So am I.  Eppie was still sleeping when I went back." She glanced away,
then mumbled, "Thank you.  Now my aide and I intercepted a transmission
from the Ssi-ruuk.

Governor Nereus asked for one day to arrange things."

"One day." Luke nodded.  "Thank you."

Shift.  "Is there anything your alien requires?  What did you say he
was, a Wook?"

"Wookiee.  Nothing special, just twice as much food as the rest of us.

"I understand." She worked the generator again.  "They wouldn't come
after you the way they'd grab one of us plain folks, you know.  Neither
will Governor Nereus.  Watch your back.  Watch your guards.  Watch what
you eat and drink and breathe."

"What do the Ssi-ruuk want me for?"

She shrugged.

"I'll be careful," he said quietly.  Nereus would probably try to play
all angles, convincing the Ssi-ruuk he meant to cooperate.

Maybe he did.

"Have you eaten this evening?" Gaeriel asked.  "I can have a light
dinner sent to my suite and then diverted here.

Touched, Luke brushed at a grease stain on his coverall, then hid it
under one hand.  "Would you?"

Once she'd called over the comm center for something he couldn't
remember, let alone pronounce, awkward silence fell.  Luke held his
peace, wondering what she would say if he waited.  At last she stopped
pacing around the room, looking out the long window into the greenwell,
and up at the ceiling.  She glanced over at him.  "Are you listening to
me think?" she asked boldly.

Her string bag lay on the repulsor lounge.  "I can't do that," he said
carefully.  "Some of your feelings come through the Force, but that's
all." Not really all.

"That's still not fair.  I can't tell what you're feeling."

Luke slid out the gray box and found the control.  "Would you like to
know what I'm feeling?"

"Yes."

He drew a deep breath.  Honesty was one thing, stupidity another.  He
wished he had Leia's gift for turning a phrase.  "I already know you on
a deeper level than anyone else does.

Of course, that makes it worse, because all you know about me is what
you tiunk you believe." Had he said that right?

He plowed on.  "Your feelings are strong for me.  Strongly ambivalent."

She walked toward the lounger.  "It's not that I'm afraid of you,
Commander "Luke," he insisted.

"I have a religious objection to what you are.  What you've become.  You
weren't born a Jedi.  And you'd better turn that back off for a few
seconds, or we'll both be in trouble." Then he caught it: through the
Force, a swirl of intense attraction that had not come from him.  Five
years ago, he might have seized her hand and sworn away everythinghe
Fleet, the Alliance, and the Force.

But t five years had molded his destiny.  Perhaps he could change her
mind.

He caught himself.  What right did he have to chip at her beliefs?  She
drew on the Force like anyone else, though she couldn't accept it.

Quickly, he switched the field off.  "How long have you been a senator?"
he asked.  Surely that could be considered casual conversation.

"The senate elected me five years ago.  I've been in school ever since,
either here or at Imperial Center.  And don't be too impressed with the
position." She tapped her thumbs together.  "It mostly involves finding
creative ways to drain tax credit out of Bakurans.  Now we've got an
influx of Imperial data flow and culture to support, too.  Some of it's
very good," she added, "but some of it only appeals to a few people who
think like Governor Nereus."

In every subjugated culture, there'd be a few people who welcomed the
Empire because they were already Imperials at heart.  "I don't think
you're one of them."

She glanced at the generator.  Perhaps the conversation was getting too
personal for comfort.  "Does it always rain this much?" he asked.  "I
was raised on a desert world."

After a few more noncommittal comments on the weather, he turned the
generator back on.  "I will respect your fears," he said.  "And your
beliefs."

The door chimed.

Gaeri sprang up and opened it, grateful for the distraction.  She had no
business flirting with destiny this way, and no hope of bringing Luke
Skywalker to understand the universe as she saw it.

Orie of her personal staff pushed a hover cart through the door.  Gaeri
motioned for the staffer to park it between their chairs.  Once he had
gone, she uncovered the single plate.  ` hope you like seafood." Raised
on a desert worldand this is twice in two days.

"Would you stay?"

"Forgive my cowardice, Luke, but .  .

Wordlessly he unhooked a cylindrical silvery object from his belt and
laid it on the repulsor cart.  Long enough to grip two-handed, it looked
like half of a weapon.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked softly.

"You may be safer here than at home." His face colored.

"Sorry,' he added.  "I sound like a swaggering stormtrooper."

At least he could laugh at himself.  She hesitated.  For a few minutes,
she'd probably be safe.  "There are two of them out in that corridor,"
she reminded him, "and if I were you, I wouldn't trust them any more.
Still-this smells very fresh.  I'll join you.

Evidently he did like seafood, because he ate like a starving man.  She
blunted her hunger with a few delicately seasoned bites.  In a few
minutes, he reached for the projector, which now lay on the cart beside
his lightsaber.  "Do most Bakurans share your beliefs?" he asked.

Relieved that he'd brought up the subject, she answered, "Many are
stricter.  My sister is an ascetic.  She lives with almost nothing in
order to free up more for everyone else.

I'm less devoted.  We're a minority, but the weight of the universe
could balance on one rightly placed atom."

"I can feel through the Force that you're a woman of depth.  Of deep
feelings."

"I thought I'd convinced everyone that I'm a career politiclan.

"Everyone else seems convinced."

"Good," she said lightly.  Mustn't look at his evesut they're such a
delicate blue.

"The Ssi-ruuk are out there." He gestured with his fork.  "I have a day,
at most, to get ready for them."

"Less."

"Once I settle with them, I'll come back-to talk with you, Gaeriel-if
there's any hope that you'd reconsider about me.  About Jedi.  You were
only partially right when you said I wasn't born a Jedi.  The Force is
strong in my family."'

Startled, she sipped from the water glass.  Part of her head had guessed
he might say something like this, and part of her heart had longed to
hear it.  why not admit it?  she asked herself.  See how he reacts.
"Thank you for being honest.

We have no time to be socially correct.  And I'm drawn to you, which is
dangerous."

He shook his head.  "I wouldn't-"

"Yes, you would.  If I encouraged you." She stared down at her clasped
fingers.  "You could manipulate people easily if you chose to."

"I wouldn't," he repeated, blushing.  "That would be dishonest.  There's
no future in it."

She fingered her pendant.  "What are you, Luke Skywalker?  What gives
you the right to these powers?"

"I'm a He faltered.  "A farm boy, I guess."

"A family of Force-strong farm boys?" she asked sarcastically.

The high color drained from his face.  She must've struck a nerve.
"Think of it this way," he murmured, scraping the last morsel off his
plate.  "There will always be people who are strong for evil.  If the
only way to protect others is for a few of us to become strong in the
Force for good, isn't that important?  Even if your beliefs are correct,
and that means bringing someone else low?  People constantly sacrifice
themselves for good causes.  I didn't ask anyone to die for me.

Almost persuaded, she resisted his seeming genuineness.

"The Cosmos must balance."

"I agree.  The dark side calls constantly for aggression, revenge,
betrayal.  The stronger you become, the more you're tempted."

That made her hand tremble.  "Then if you, you loved someone, you could
easily hate them."

He glanced down at the generator and raised an eyebrow.

She forced herself to ignore the hurt in his eyes.  "No need for the
generator," she said.  "We could easily be eating in silence."

"Here's another balance." He pressed a hand to his dirt streaked
forehead.  "The mountaintops in my life are balanced by canyons.  I've
lost friends, family, teachers.  The Empire killed most of them.  If I'd
never even begun my Jedi training, they'd still be dead." He frowned.
"ActualW, I'd be dead too.  The day I met my first teacher, the Empire
struck our farm.  They butchered my Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru while I was
away.  Everyone who was home died.  Haven't they done that here too?  Do
you approve of the Empire?"

"That's a loaded question."

"Do you?" he pressed.

Of course she did.  Didn't she?  "The Empire has seized more power than
any government needs," she admitted.

"Yet it balances submission with privilege.  One advantage to living
under the Empire is a wonderful range of educational opportunities.
Bright children may study right at Imperial Center."

He made a wry face.  "I've heard that the brightest don't get to go
home."

How did he know that?  Some stayed on, offered lucrative employment.
Some vanished.  She'd preferred to go home.

"Let's say we learned to hold back a little.  Imperial leadership has
been good for Bakura, anyway.  It restored order when we were close to
civil war.  It has drawbacks, but I'm sure your people would tell you
that the Alliance has problems."

"They're the problems of freedom."

That stung.  "You frightened us when your battle group arrived.  The
Rebel Alliance's reputation is destructive, not constructive.

"I guess from an imperial point of view, it could be.  But we're not.
Honest."

He's no diplomat.  "Thank you for talking this through," she said.  "I
feel better-"

"I wish I did."

"-And more certain of myself," she lied firmly.  She reached into the
satchel, twisted her wrist, then slipped the bag over one shoulder.  "We
will work together against the Ssi-ruuk."

He made a hand-twisting motion.  She switched on the generator one last
time.  "Is there a chance we-Iould buy a few of those?" He pointed
inside the string bag.

She shook her head.  "This is Eppie's.  There are only a few of them
left on Bakura, property of the original families.

We've kept them secret from Governor Nereus."

"That's too bad."

"Yes, it is," Gaeri agreed.  "I'll take the hover cart out."

He clipped his lightsaber back onto his belt.

Luke walked her to the door.  He wanted to stroke her hand, reason with
her, erode her defenses with the Force.

Even begging seemed reasonable.  Instead, he palmed the door open and
then thrust his thumbs through his belt.

"Thank you," she said.  The stormtrooper guards watched as she pushed
the hover cart out and strode down the hall without looking back.  Once
she vanished around a corner, Luke dropped his hands.  He clenched them,
loosened them, and clenched them again.  His abilities had always opened
doors.  Doors into danger, both in space and in the brighter, darker,
wider spaces of his own soul, but he'd always had the freedom to walk
through.

Gaeriel had tried to slam this door in his face, but she hadn't
succeeded.  He'd felt the conflict within her.  She might not fight him
forever.

Then again, she might.  Exhausted, he shut the apartment door behind him
and strode up the hall in the opposite direction.  A roof access door
opened on his left.  He pushed through and rode the lift up.

By night, the roof garden could have been primitive, isolated forest.
Still air cooled his face.  Clusters of white tree trunks branched out
of protruding root wads, then swept up and ended in bright yellow-orange
twigs, damp but no longer dripping.  Two small round moons and several
dozen bright stars shone overhead, and night glims edged a stone path
between dark, mossy banks.

As he paced away from the lift shaft, the path branched.

Several meters down the narrow spur toward the complex's edge, he knelt
on a bench, rested his elbows on the restraining wall, and looked down.
The circles of the city stretched out around him, lit by hovering
blue-white street lamps at the center, then pale yellow, fading to
reddish Like a diagram of star types.  The comparison leaped into his
mind.  Salis D'aar's founders must have laid out the city for navigation
by star colors, with the finest homehke the Captisons' mansion-in the
zone that represented warm, hospitable yellow suns.

The moment of insight cheered him.  It wasn't wrong for a human to learn
to use natural talents.  If Gaeriel's religion were carried to its
logical end, everyone would have to be equalven identical-in all
respects, for fear of diminishing anyone else.

And his life was no longer his own.

He thought he could make out slow-moving pinpricks of light overhead
that would be ships in the orbiting defense web.  Locked in position
with other ships, joined by common orders and a common enemy.

Many of those pilots had life mates to return to or, at the last need,
to grieve them.  The stronger he became in the Force, the harder it
might become to find a woman who'd have him.

He opened his empty hands.  "Ben?" he whispered.  "Ben, please come.  I
need to talk with someone."

Not even a breeze answered.  Along the wall's surface, a black creature
the size of his smallest finger humped on twenty legs.  He concentrated
on the rhythms of those legs, focusing his spirit.  After it vanished
into a crack, he called again.  "Master Yoda?  Are you near?"

Foolish question.  Yoda was with the Force and therefore everywhere. But
he did not answer.

"Father?" he called hesitantly, then repeated, "Father," wondering if
Anakin understood.  He tried to imagine himself in Gaeri's place.  With
her home world threatened and her life in peril, into the crisis came a
man who frightened her.  A Jedi.

He felt someone approach.  Ben?  he thought, but the intensity wasn't
that of a master, and it carried the restless striving of a living
person.  Light footfalls hurried down the path.  Leia hesitated at the
branching, her white gown glimmering between vine-shadowed white trees.

"I'm over here," he called softly.

She hurried up beside him.  "Are you all right?" She pulled a blue
Bakuran knit shawl around her shoulders.  "I heard-well, I thought I
heard you call out through the Force."

She'd tracked him this way at Cloud City, too.  He sank down onto the
bench.  "it's been a long, rough day.  How was yours?"

"Uh," she answered, "good.  I left Artoo and Threepio with Prime
Minister Captison." A self-conscious excitement begged him not to
notice.  She tingled with eagerness.

Envious, he said, "Let it flow, Leia He loves you."

She glared.  "No use hiding anything from you, is there?

We went walking.  We talked.  We it's been hard to find time alone."

Luke smiled, feeling bashful.  "So this is what I missed.

Growing up without siblings, I mean."

Leia flicked the ends of her shawl.  "It's good to have a brother.
Someone to talk to."

"You also have Han.  Someone ought to pass on the family strengths," he
added glumly.  "It doesn't look like I'll get the chance any time soon.

She laid a hand on his shoulder.  "What's wrong, Luke?  Is it that
senator?"

"A Jedi feels no passion." Anyone who could manipulate his emotions
could endanger him, making him unable to calm himself-unable to control.
"But sometimes the Force obviously controls me, rather than the other
way around.  It favors life."

"It is her.  I was beginning to worry about you, Luke.

You've been so detached."

Her insight made him squirm.  The easiest way to distract her was to
rile her.  "You and Han," he said.  "Let me ask you something I've no
right to ask.  You're not opposed to having children some day, are you?"

"Hey!" She snatched back her hand.  "That isn't an issue."

"Sorry.  It's just that I've thought so much about it lately."

He had?  Amazing, what his subconscious would tell somebody else before
it informed him.  For a moment, he pictured himself as head of a clan of
young Jedi apprentices with mismatched green, blue, and gray eyes.  "But
a child who's strong in the Force will have a great potential for evil
too."

"Of course." Leia sat down and flipped the ends of her shawl into her
lap, then plucked a purple trumpet flower off a vine and sniffed it.
"That's a risk humans have always had to take.  it's perilous to bring
an intelligence into existence."

"Doesn't it make you wonder how our mother dared it?"

Her anger flared faintly, startling him.  "Oh," she said lightly.  "That
reminds me, I'm supposed to deliver a message.  I've seen Vader."

"Vader?" Luke's mind went blank.  "You saw Father?

Anakin Skywalker?  Vader doesn't exist any more."

"Have it your way, then.  Anakin.  But I saw him." -A sense of loss
wrenched- him.  Why had his father appeared to Leia, and not him?  "What
did he say?"

She stared past him over the complex's edge.  "I'm supposed to remind
you that fear is of the dark side.  He apologized to me, or tried to."

Luke stared out over the city.  "I only saw him once-just for a moment.
He didn't speak."

"Well, I don't claim any part of him, and I don't want him popping in on
me.

Luke mulled over his father's message.  Fear is of the dark side.
Gaeriel's fear of him: It came from the dark side, too.

"Hatred is also the dark side, Leia."

"It's not wrong to hate evil."

"Did his, urn, did anything he said, well, have anything to do with ah."
He stumbled to a halt.  "Oh.  I interrupted something when I called this
morning, didn't I?"

Even by dim starlight, he saw her cheeks flush.  "It's been hard to find
time alone," she repeated.

"I'm sorry.  But maybe Father accomplished something good, if he sent
you to Han for comfort."

"You can't say that.  When I saw him, looking normal like that, I .  . .
I realized that a normal person became what he was.  That I could, too."

"For the good side," he insisted.  He brush-kissed her cheek.  He'd
loved her, long ago it seemed, before they learned what she refused to
acknowledge.  "I'll see you in the morning."

"Hold on!" She straightened.  "You're not sending me away."

"Only for a while, Leia Go to Han," he murmured.  "I'll leave you
alone."

She stared into his eyes and took several breaths, plainly irritated.
Finally she sprang up and hurried off.

Luke glanced down at the circles of the city and up at a passing
repulsor bus's lights, then clasped his hands in his lap and bent
forward.  "Father?" he whispered.  The thought crossed his mind that
he'd made his peace with Anakin.

That would explain why he'd appeared to Leia instead.

He started one of Yoda's meditations, concentrating his will deeper than
himself.  Personal troubles vanished in perspective, and the strength of
the universe flowed through him.  He had a sister; he wasn't alone. Some
day, as he grew in the Force, real love would unite him with someone
else of his own kind.  Every emotion of either partner, every ripple of
pleasure or pain, would bounce back from the other, resonating until
sweet echoes faded.

He opened his eyes and unclasped his hands.  He hadn't lost Gaeriel yet.
He would help her as he could, and if she rejected him, he'd leave
Bakura with only faint regrets.

Laughing unmatched eyes and swirling skirts danced in his mind.  Who was
he kidding?

And what was he doing up here alone?  He stood up and walked to a drop
shaft.

Dev stroked the sleek new entechment chair .  or should he call this
something else?  Three dozen new chairs were under construction, to
supplement the energy flow Skywalker would give them, but this one was
special.  More of an upright bed than a chair, a motor reclined it from
zero to thirty degrees.  Instead of a catchment arc it had in-built
energy-attracting circuitry that would lie under Skywalker's back.
Larger restraints stood open along its sides and near its foot, and
other medical attachments enhanced its obvious design for the long-tem
survival of an occupant (they'd tested those parts yesterday).  All
silver and black, it glistened under brilliant cabin lights.  "It's
beautiful, Master Firwirrung."

"I'm sorry, Dev," Firwirrung sang low.  "I know this will hurt your
feeling"

"I wish it were real, Master.  But I know you need to test it.  Let's
begin."

Firwirrung nodded his huge V-crested head.

Dev had suggested most of the design features for initial installation
and restraint.  No catchment arc covered the bed, and it leaned back a
few degrees from vertical.  Cautiously he backed up to it.  His left
foot brushed an open binder.  It snapped shut around his ankle.  "It
works!" Dev exclaimed.

"Try the other," crooned Firwirrung.

Dev watched this time.  Out of a groove in the bed pr truded a flexible
black arch.  He eased his right ankle toward it ISnap.  That second
catch activated another cycle he'd suggested.  This one tipped the bed
back twelve degrees.  He relaxed and rode with it, arms crossed over his
chest.  As his torso touched another trip panel, a thicker restraint
circled his waist.  It held him down far more securely than the
restraints on the old entechment chair.

"Beautiful." Firwirrung swept closer and stroked the waistband with a
foreclaw.  "Is it firmly coupled?"

Dev tried to twist his body.  "Yes.  But loose enough that I've no
trouble breathing."

"The human form is so odd," Firwirrung whistled merrily.  Dev laughed
with him.  "Are you comfortable, Dev?  We can only guess at his size."

"Oh, yes."

"Left hand, now." He laid out his left arm.  Another broad restraint
swung rapidly and firmly into place.  Embedded in this one was a tangle
of life-function sensor relays that his thin scaleless skin would not
obstruct.  Behind Firwirrung on a black bulkhead panel, pale lights
started blinking.  Firwirrung pivoted around and examined them.  "Leave
the right free," he instructed.

How Dev wished he would really be enteched today.  He envisioned the
moment when he sparked to life behind eyes that would never close, but
saw everything.  lnside a new body that could do anything-and chose only
to please its masters.  Yesterday, they'd begun enteching immature and
overage P'w'ecks off the other ships, preparing for the assault.
Enteched P'w'ecks wouldn't last as long as humans, but numbers were
neededriefly.

Firwirrung touched a red panel.  Something stung the small of Dev's
back.  "That works, too," he called.  That mechanism was also critical
for long-tem confinement, as was the upper-spine beamer.  Now the
procedure would not depend on disabling Skywalker's nervous system
first.

"Can you move your feet?"

Dev peered down.  The angle of tilt held them off the gray deck tiles.
"I can't even feel them," he announced happily.

"Good." Firwirrung swept closer.  "Ah, Dev." He unhooked a clear tube
from the bedside beside Dev's left shoulder.  "I know how badly you wish
this were real.  I am sorry to tease you this way."

"My time will come." Dev shut his eyes.  He felt a little pressure at
his throat, then a thrust that barely stung.  He relaxed against the
bed, savoring the sensation, while Firwirrung moved to the other side
and repeated the motion.  He wished, oh he wished Yet an undercurrent of
fear lurked behind his longing.

His right hand trembled against his chest.

Hearing a whoosh, he opened his eyes to see Bluescale and Admiral
Ivpikkis stride in, followed by two P'w'ecks who dragged a limp human
prisoner by his head and arms.

Following Firwirrung's new procedure, they had already prepared him with
a paddle beamer.  That was the one who'd actually be enteched.  Dev
tried again to wiggle his toes and felt nothing.  Perfect.  For that
poor frightened human's sake, he hoped he could do his pan.

"Review for me," demanded the admiral.  "How will this differ from
standard entechment?"

Firwirrung pressed foreclaws together in front of his chest.  "We
believe that a Force-talented individual will be able to draw energy
from a distance-a short distance, in Dev's case.  If Dev is properly
linked to catchment circuitry, the other subject's energies will flow
through him, but Dev will remain unenteched and will be able to repeat
the procedure indefinitely."

"Not like the chair, then." Ivpikkis glanced at it.  Dev recalled how
amused they'd been when he first described human furniture.  P'w'ecks
were enteched lying flat on the deck.

"No," agreed Firwirrung.  "The actual subject need not be caught.  With
Skywalker's involvement, the subject will not even need to be within the
range of a tractor beamr so we hope."

"But for convenience's sake, we have caught and prepared this one.  Is
everything ready?" Bluescale's scent tongues flicked out of his nostrils
toward the prisoner.  The poor human was probably unclean.

"It is." Firwirrung turned his Vrest toward Bluescale, his right eye
toward Dev, and his left toward the P'w'ecks and their prisoner.  Then
he pulled down the main switch.

Dev's throat burned.  This time the servopumps injected not simple
magsol but a solution of magsol and other factors.  it should orient the
entire nervous system toward the bed's in-built catchment circuit,
drawing energy toward it.

This eliminated the necessity of a catchment arc.  First his neck, then
his head, then his chest and his limbs felt the pull, rapidly becoming
heavier as if gravity had shifted or the Shriwirr had reoriented.
Abruptly he felt as if his upright bed had tipped.  Firwirrung and the
others looked for all the worlds as if they stood on the nearest
bulkhead.  The biogravity illusion virtually convinced his eyes.  "I
feel," he said, "as if every nerve in my body were being tugged toward
the focus point.  It hurts a little," he admitted.

"That should not affect the catchment function.  Are you ready to try
funneling this human's energies into a battle droid?"

"I'll try." The next best thing to entechment might be granting that
gift to someone else.  Dev shut his eyes and reached down past the
discomfort for his center of control.

Deeply and humbly aware of his limitations, he flailed tl'rough the
Force toward the other human presence.  It seemed like forever before he
touched and embraced it.

Letting the catchment circuitry pull through him, he used the Force to
suck its energy into himself.  For an instant, he felt huge and heavy.
Twice as much pain pulsated in his nerves.  Then the extra weight
vanished.  Panting, he opened his eyes wide.  The prisoner lay limp on
the deck.

Admiral lvpikkis stroked one foreclaw with the other.

"Deck Sixteen?" he called.

From the bulkhead came the words Dev longed to hear.

"It works." Ssi-ruuk, P'w'ecks, and Dev cheered with equal enthusiasm.

"The next test," Firwirrung sang softly, "is whether we can force
Skywalker to do our will, not his own.  He is a far stronger Force user
than our Dev, if Dev is correct in his reckoning."

"He'd better be." Bluescale appeared to climb down the bulkhead/deck
toward him.  Dev's right hand clenched involuntarily as the huge blue
head bent close.  The eye swirled.  He fell in.

Then, to his surprise, Bluescale steped back.  "Try it," he whistled.

Firwirrung climbed down the bulkhead and held out a three-pronged knife
used to declaw the small meat lizards they called Fft.  He pressed its
handle into Dev's free right hand.

"Yes?" Dev felt no fear, only curiosity.

"Stab it through your other palm."

What could be more reasonable?  He struggled to twist his body against
the waist restraint, positioned the Fft knife, and drove it as deeply as
he could.  Bone crunched.  Red human blood welled out along the blade.
There was pain.

"Leave it there," said Firwirrung.

Dev rolled back into the ready position and waited for his next command.

"Right arm."

Dev snapped his free hand into place.

 Firwirrung pulled the knife out of Dev's palm, wiped it clean on Dev's
robe, then slapped a piece of synthfleshprobably from a captured
Imperial medpack-against each side of Dev's wounded hand.  Then he
swiveled his head back uphill to Admiral lypikkis.  "Do you think it
will work on Skywalker?" asked Ivpikkis.

"We have no reason to believe otherwise.  The will for selfpreservation
is strong in all humans, and you saw how completely we overrode Dev's.
The final test and most vital, of course, is how long a subject can
remain alive in this state.  We have only time for a brief simulation,
but several hours should be sufficient for any degradation of life signs
to begin."

Admiral lvpikkis twitched his tail and peered across at the bulkhead
panel, then down at Dev.  Dev managed a smile, Bluescale followed the
admiral out.  Firwirrung ordered one P'w'eck to remove the human corpse
and the other to remain with Dev.  "Alert me if any numbers change." He
rapped the bulkhead panel with his curled foreclaw.

Then he swept out.

Several hours.  Lying here, so close to genuine entechment.

So uncomfortable.  His nose itched, and he couldn't scratch it.  No one
had told him to.  His hand throbbed hard enough to help him ignore the
deep ache throughout his body.  To pass time, he recited poetry he'd
learned as a child.

Mentally he translated it into Ssi-ruuvi, then pictured it in his
special Ssi-ruuvi alphabet.

Too soon, he ran out of poetry.  His eyes felt as if they would fall
through his brain and his skull into the catchment circuitry.  Poor
Skywalker: doomed, like Dev, to survive without winning his own battle
droid.  Doomed by the same abilities.

Dev sighed and started counting pulse beats by the throbs in his left
hand.

He lost track between four and five thousand.  More time passed.  The
discomfort had long ago intensified to pain, and Firwirrung had not
returned to check on him.  Hurt and bewildered, he started counting
again.

He still couldn't scratch his nose.  No one had told him Do it yourself,
bonehead Now that he could try, the inability to reach it maddened him.
Why hadn't Firwirrung stayed?  This was cruelty. Maybe if he held his
breath long enough, he'd pass out and the dull-witted P'w'eck would
notice a change in life signs.  He inhaled until the waist restraint cut
into him, then trickled it out.  Empty, he closed his throat and held
on.

An intense electric shock jabbed across the arc between left and right
wristbinders.  He inhaled involuntarily.

He'd suggested that mechanism.  Irritated, he tried to pull his right
hand free: He pressed his thumb against his smallest finger and wrenched
his palm into the soft binder.  Not far enough.  He kept pulling.  Three
hundred heartbeats later, he gave up.  He rested.  He tried again.

The hatch whooshed.  Startled, Dev thrust his wrist back through the
three millimeters he'd managed.  Firwirrung entered first.  Without even
glancing at Dev, he stalked past the P'w'eck guard toward the bulkhead
panel.  Bluescale led another P'w'eck, who dragged a second prisoner.

"Excellent." Firwirrung turned around.  "All life signs steady. Describe
the sensation now, Dev."

"I hurt," he said thickly.

Bluescale blinked and stomped close enough that Dev smelled him.  "Legs,
too?"

He pulled his ankles deeper into their bonds.  "They move again.  But
they him.  They're too heavy."

"Ah." Firwirrung examined a readout and hissed contentment.
"Neuromuscular control returned in two and seventwelfths hours,
precisely on schedule.  This is excellent."

Dev swallowed hard.  "It hurts," he repeated in a cracking voice.

"That should not affect the catchment function.  Entech this woman for
us, Dev."

"You're not listening." Dev compressed his lips.  "It hurts.

"Hurts?" mocked Bluescale.  The alien turned slightly.

Abruptly recognizing the posture, Dev winced and braced himself.  A
muscular tail slapped his legs so hard Dev saw stars.  "Good," Bluescale
sang.  "We need you unwilling, human."

Firwirrung moved toward him, carrying an oddly shaped hypospray. "You're
right," he sang back to Bluescale.  "Surely the Jedi will not cooperate.
Now that our war effort depends on fail-safes for controlling Skywalker,
we'll try this instead of your talents.  Then the victory of our people
will not depend on the survival of any one of us."

"It could kill him." The tip of Bluescale's tail twitched threateningly.

"It will either kill him or force him to obey.  How much better to
maintain professional objectivity on this less valuable subject."

Less valuable?  Master, what are you saying?  Panic-stricken, Dev tried
to writhe away from the hypospray.  It burned his thigh for a moment. He
waited.  Then "Entech that woman," ordered Firwirrung.

Dev blinked.  What else were humans good for?  He stretched out for her.
As her essence plunged through him, there was more pain.  He heard a
scream.  A male scream that him his throat.  Then he opened his eyes
again, awaiting orders.

Bluescale pulled the Fft knife from his shoulder pouch.

Firwirrung honked.  "Not necessary," he said.  "I'd like to leave him
there for several days, to test the other life-support function"

"But you heard the admiral," Bluescale sang wryly through his nose.
"They want to begin on Skywalker immediately."

Several days?  Dev trembled and clenched his hands.  The left one felt
seared.  He'd probably chipped bones and sliced tendons.

Firwirrung's scent tongues flicked.  "How they stink when they're
afraid."

"They almost behave intelligently at times.  Wouldn't it be odd if they
had souls, when our P'w'ecks do not?"

"Not a chance." Firwirrung's callousness appalled Dev.

"Finish it."

"Look at me," ordered Bluescale.  The eye was black and lovely and
rounded, and it swirled.

His hand ached unbelievably.  As his foggy brain recognized the
sensations of a fresh but partial renewal, Master Firwirrung released
the last wrist restraint on the shining new bed.  Blinking, Dev tried to
stand upright.  He tottered between two P'w'ecks, fighting a strange
inexplicable weakness.  Something smelled bad.  Human.  He sniffed
himself.

Phew.

"Did it go well?" he asked Firwirrung.  Talking hurt his throat.  "Why
renewal, why now?"

"Ah, Dev." Firwirrung stroked his arm with an open foreclaw.  "It would
make you too sad, to remember coming so close to entechment and being
denied the joy."

Their kindness and forethought overwhelmed him.  "But it worked?  Did I
give him his battle droid?"

Firwirrung wrapped a foreclaw around Dev's head and pulled it against
his scaly chest.  "It worked.  Now we lack only one thing."

"Skywalker," Dev whispered.

Firwirrung shoved him away affectionately.  "Please go bathe, human."

CHAPTER 13

Governor Wilek Nereus marched into the operations room of his suite,
firmly controlling a sense of anticipation.  Ceiling, bare walls,
flooring and fumiture were black in the Ops Room for the easier viewing
of projections.  At the short black conference table, standing across
from Commander Thanas and beside the fraudulent "General" Solo, he found
Commander Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, self-assured in his
invulnerability.

"Is everything going well, gentlemen?" Nereus took the repulsor chair at
the table's head and waved his bodyguards back.  The others sat down.

Commander Thanas looked appropriately serious for a man whose career
rested on Nereus's next biannual report.

He was probably eager to redeem himself from the AIzoc blot on his
record.  "All fighters are repaired," said Thanas.

"The crews stand ready for our signal."

That attack would not come, if the Ssi-ruuk kept their word-not that
Nereus expected -them to.  If they took Skywalker and attacked anyway,
he and Commander Thanas had brought onto line a new weapon that should
take a heavy toll on battle droids.  "What about that new -ship-mounted,
ah  "DEMP gun," Thanas prompted him.  Obviously caught unaware,
Skywalker glanced over at Thanas and then down to his smuggler friend.
"It disables droids at some distance using electromagnetic pulse,"
Thanas explained.  "We've installed two prototype super-DEMPs on system
patrol craft, but they're untested."

Solo immediately requested DEMP guns for Rebel gunboats.  Nereus stroked
his chin and let Commander Thanas explain that no others existed.  While
they sparred, he slid a miniature medisensor out of his belt pocket,
laid it on the glossy tabletop, and aimed it at Skywalker.

Concern, not remorse, made him frown.  All readings indicated
near-perfect health.  The man had allegedly ingested a five-year-old egg
pod without knowing it.  Nereus needed to make certain the eggs had been
viable, and quickly-but a complete medical scan would rouse Skywalker's
suspicion, and the Jedi's ignorance was a critical factor to success.

A holographic projector whirred up to table level, creating an image
midtable between Skywalker and Thanas.  Surrounding a pale blue sphere,
silver and gold ship dots mapped out Bakura's defensive web.  Farther
out, the red Ssi-ruuk glimmered.

"You people use red for threat, too," Solo observed.

"Probably standard wherever people bleed red," Skywalker said softly.

Oh yes, they bleed red.  Nereus smiled beneficence and leaned back,
quietly touching keys on his recessed board and contacting his medical
department.

Fifteen minutes later, the others were still talking strategy when his
medtechs patched the complex medstation's powerful main sensors to his
handheld model, which still lay on the table.  He used directional keys
on his touchboard to focus a smaller zone between Skywalker's belt and
collarbone.

Two minuscule fourteen-hour larvae squirmed in the left bronchial
passage.  Primitive circulatory systems pumped for dear life.

There'd been three eggs in the pod, but one Olabrian Trichoid larva was
deadly.  Any good alien parasitologist knew that.

Solo, who'd pitched insults at both sides for two hours, finally
objected with a straight face.  "Commander Thanas, there's one thing
about this I don't like.  Look." He waved at the projected complete
maneuver.  `Go back three steps," he ordered the programming circuit.
Ship dots swirled backward.  "There," he said.  "Stop.  Do you see?
You've-"

Nereus cleared his private screen.  Solo paused.  Skywalker nudged him
to continue.

"You've got Alliance fighting pairs at every point of maximum risk,"
Solo insisted.  "Your projection isn't showing losses by subgroup.  If
you fed those in, there'd be a lot less silver dots in the `completion'
frame.  I don't like that."

Perhaps the smuggler had some grasp of tactics after all, Nereus
observed.  Commander Thanas, who'd been fidgeting with his souvenir
pocket knife, dropped it into a breast pocket and said, "Commander
Skywalker suggested I consider your forces my own.  lf those were my
fighters, that's how i'd deploy them to minimize overall losses." He
keyed his console.  "Show phase four, with projected losses." The
pattern changed.  "Now I'll program a switch of squadrons to replace
half of those key positions with regulars.  Fair enough, General?"

Solo spread his hands.

"There." Commander Thanas touched a key.  "Phase four, projected losses,
with squadrons switched."

A significant number of specks extinguished, both Imperial and Alliance.

Skywalker exhaled easily.  The cough would probably come in four to six
hours, depending on his general physical condition-about two hours
before massive thoracic hemorrhaging.  "Convinced, General Solo?"

"I suppose."

Skywalker folded his hands on the table.  "I think we can confirm it.
Alliance forces will spearhead each thrust.  We'll break the blockade
and cut off that cruiser for you to englobe.  Destroy one cruiser and we
might change their minds.  Destroy two He trailed off.  "Well, we'll see
what they actually throw at us.

"One more question." Skywalker addressed Commander Thanas.  "If the
Ssi-ruuk go on waiting for us, how long do we keep them waiting?"

Nereus cleared his throat for attention.  "Tomorrow evening," he said.
By then, young Jedi, you'll be dead.

"I'd like to move sooner," Thanas said carefully.  "The element of
surprise will work in favor of the attacking-"

"Tomorrow evening," Nereus repeated.  Commander Thanas would have to
redeem himself according to Nereus's plan, not his own wishes.  The
whole plan or become a slave miner himself.  Nereus would make that
clear when they met privately tonight.

"Very well," said Thanas.  "Commander Skywalker.  General Solo.  Until
tomorrow."

Nereus shook hands all around, keeping his gloves on.

larvae weren't transmissible at this stage, but the very idea nauseated
him.  Olabrian Trichoids used almost all higher animals as breeding
hosts.  He'd tried iiifecting the Ssi-ruuk already, but apparently they
destroyed enteched prisoners' bodies immediately.  Skywalker, he
guessed, might be kept around long enough to nurse a brood of the large,
voracious adultswhich emerged from a brief pupation already fertile.  If
the Ssi-ruuk didn't take Skywalker offplanet, of course, he'd have to be
destroyed tonight.  He might even volunteer, to head off a planetwide
infestation.  Young idealism sacrificed itself so nobly.

But Skywalker would almost certainly pass through Pad 12 at least once
in the next eight hours.

Luke felt Governor Nereus's stare follow as he and Han strode out of the
Ops Room.  Nereus expected never to see him again.

Once they passed the first corner, Han muttered, "You have got to be
kidding, trusting those people."

Luke answered out one side of his mouth.  "Reconsider Commander Thanas."

"Oh?" Han raised one eyebrow, then turned his head aside to stare down a
corridor.

Good.  They'd both better stay jumpy.  "Straightforward," said Luke.
"Wants to do a good job and is glad for help.  He's not Nereus's man."

``Empire's man."

"Mm."

"Do you like Thanas because he complimented you in there?" Han
suggested.

Luke smiled.  "No.  But that was refreshing."

"Compliments from an Imperial.  Right."

They slowed at the edge of a wide lobby.  Luke reached out through the
Force.  No one waited there.  Han kept one hand near his blaster as they
hurried across.

Once they left the Imperial Offices corridor Han frowned.  "Is it my
imagination," he asked, "or are you being just a little more careful
than yesterday?"

"I had word from an inside source that Governor Nereus plans to hand me
to the Ssi-ruuk.  Did you notice that he got a message or something
during that session?"

"Yeah," said Han.  "Finally going to be careful, uh?"

"I've been careful." Luke's exasperation didn't distract him from
watching shadows.  "And is it my imagination," he came back, "or are you
just a little more pleased with yourself?"

Han paused in midstep.  "What is this?  I suppose you're going to ask my
intentions toward your sister."

Luke took a careful look around, then dropped his guard and smiled at
Han.  "I know what your intentions are, friend.

She needs you.  Just don't let her down."

Han's crooked smile shone like an asteroid beacon.  "Not on your life."

Luke clapped his shoulder.  All they'd been through had already bonded
them like brothers.  Now, th Following footsteps snapped him back to
attention.  He slipped behind a pillar and unhooked his saber.  Han slid
in beside him.

Three sets of footfalls approached.  Luke stayed in his cover.  Han
raised an eyebrow.  Luke shook his head.  He moved around the pillar,
staying behind it as the trio passed: Nereus, followed by a pair of
stormtrooper bodyguards.

He'd felt so controlled, back in his office.  But something in his walk,
and the faintest hint in his Force-sense, nudged Luke to an unexpected
conclusion.  "He's starting to panic," Luke observed in a whisper.

"Panic?" Han wrinkled his forehead.  "Him?"

"it's just setting in." The trio's backs receded up the corridor.  "We'd
better watch him."

"That's nothing new." Han's hands relaxed at his sides.

Once they reached the apartment, Han disappeared into his room.  Luke
hastily encoded a message to Wedge Antilles, out in the orbital net.
Attack coordinated for tomorrow night.  Work with Governor Nereus's
forces, follow Thanas's orders, but keep your deflector shields up.
Smiling grimly, he sent it.  Han and Leia were headed for the Falcon as
soon as he located her.  She'd gone off alone after breakfast, but with
the attack this imminent, it was time to stand ready.  Luke would catch
the next shuttle to orbit and reboard the Flurry.

He would enjoy proving Manchisco's premonition wrong.

His stomach grumbled a more immediate message.  He ought to catch lunch,
but not here.  The food at Pad 12's cantina should be nontoxic.  `Wou
ready, Han?" Luke called.

Han stepped back out.  "Leia's not answering."

"Maybe she and Captison went someplace where the Imperials couldn't
listen to them."

"Possible," said Han.  "Let's get you to the troops.  Then I'm going
looking for her."

Prime Minister Captison had suggested a drive, and to Leia's surprise,
Senior Senator Orn Belden climbed aboard with a bulging breast pocket.
She assumed it contained his voice amplifier.  This time, the Bakurans
wouldn't be distracted by droids or Chewbacca.

Captison's liveried chauffeur steered a closed-cockpit government
speeder off the roof port.  Belden laid a finger across his lips.

Leia nodded understanding: Not yet.  "1t's a lovely city," she observed
lightly.  "in many ways, Bakura reminds me of Alderaan." She glanced up
at a layer of broken clouds.

"Some of its wetter regions, anyway.  Have you explored this quartz
outcrop for metals?"

Sitting beside her in the center seat, Captison folded his hands with a
knowing smile.  "Thoroughly.  Why do you think they planted the city
here?"

"Ah," said Leia.

Captison leaned back, looking relaxed.  "After a few boom years, the
veins began to narrow and the Bakur Corporation factioned.  My father's
element wanted to prospect other sites.  Another faction lobbied to
develop Bakura's other resources.  Still another-mostly
second-generation-wanted to bring in settlers at exorbitant fares, or
establish a set of luxury resorts."

"Once the galaxy learns about a newly opened habitable world, it often
becomes stAish."

"Which brings in a certain undesirable element."

Perhaps he meant rebels and smugglers, or gamblers and trinket sellers.
"It can."

Captison laughed.  "In many ways, Leia, you remind me of my niece."

"I wish my life had been as simple as Gaeriel's."

"She has been a good child," Belden wheezed from the back seat beside
Captison's bodyguard.  "It remains to be seen if she'll be a good
senator."

Prime Minister Captison tapped a window absently.  "She has abruptly
reached the disillusionment phase of new adulthood."

"I understand,' said Leia.  "I reached it rather young."

Captison's chauffeur kept the speeder between two others in a crosstown
lane.  Salis D'aar, like many sizable cities, funneled air traffic along
established routes.

"Oh," interjected Senator Belden, "please thank Commander Skywalker for
trying to help Eppie.  He'll know what I mean." Then he started talking
about mountain soil, namana fruit harvest, and juice extraction.

Leia waited, wondering when the men would feel safe enough to really
talk.  This could be her only chance to gain headway for the Alliance.

Five minutes later, Captison's chauffeur landed the speeder at a small
dome surrounded by gaudy repulsor signs that hovered several meters
overhead.  Leia reached for the entry hatch.  Captison laid a hand over
hers.  "Wait," he said softly.

Ten minutes after that, Captison's chauffeur and bodyguard took off
again in the government speeder while Leia stepped into the front
passenger's seat of a smaller rental craft, Hoth-white with ice-blue
cushions and console.  "Do you do this often?" she asked, amused but
pleased by their subterfuge.

"Never done it before." Captison steered out into traffic.

"it was Belden's idea."

"It's safe to assume that the speeder pool's not secured for talking."
The senior senator leaned forward between them and patted his bulging
breast pocket.  "This will help, too.

We are now inaudible."

Captison frowned and switched on a music channel.

Tuned percussion filled the cabin.  "You must understand we're taking
some risk speaking with you at all.  In public, we're even forbidden to
console you on the loss of Alderaan.

However, in private .

Not his voice amplifier, then.  "What do you have, Senator?"

Belden covered his pocket with one hand.  "A relic from pre-Imperial
Bakura.  Corporate infighting crippled our govemment, but it made our
ancestors into survivors.  This creates a bubble impenetrable by sonic
scanners.  Under the Empire, no faction has dared to manufacture more of
them."

Mentally Leia calculated the instrument's value at somewhere near the
Falcon's.  "Better not lose it, then.  Gentlemen," she said, clearing
her throat, "I'd be intrigued to know why the Empire hasn't pushed
Bakura into the Rebellion camp."

"Nereus has been subtle, I suppose," guessed Captison.

"Applying pressure slowly.  Like boiling a butter newt."

"Beg your pardon?" asked Leia

"They're too primitive to react to slow stimuli,' creaked Belden.  "Put
one in a pot of cold water, bring up the heat slowly, and he'll boil to
death before he thinks of jumping out.  And that's what'll happen here,
unless-" He poked Captison's shoulder.

"Easy, Om."

Leia glanced starboard and down into a hilly park.  "What would it take
to push you, Prime Minister?"

"Not much," Belden interjected.  "He's smarter than he lets on.

"Is there an underground, Senator Belden?"

"Officially, no.

A hundred members?  Ten cells?"

Belden cackled.  "Close enough."

"Are they ready to rise?"

Captison smiled sidelong and thumbed a steering rod to turn right.  He
seemed to be circling just inside city limits.

"Lovely Leia, this isn't the time.  We have Ssi-ruuk on our minds. We're
hoping that the Empire will save us, not ubdue us.

"But it is time,' Leia insisted over the background music.

"The Ssi-ruuk have united your people.  They're ready to follow a leader
to freedom."

"Actually," said Belden, "three years of the Empire have united our
people.  Nowadays they know what they lost when they lay down too
quickly, and that they'll have to cooperate to get it back and keep it."

"They believe in you, Prime Minister,' Leia urged him.

Captison stared ahead.  "And you, Princess Leia?  What is your true goal
here?"

"To bring Bakura into the Alliance, of course."

"Not to defend us against the Ssi-ruuk?"

"That's Luke's goal."

Captison smiled slightly.  "Ah.  The mission's defined objective depends
on who defines it.  The Alliance begins to mature."

One more round for division of labor.  "Prime Minister, how much power
do you and the senate truly have?"

Captison shook his head.

"If you could choose freely and without risk to your people," she
pressed, "which side would you wish Bakura to support?"

"The Alliance,' he admitted.  "We are displeased with Imperial taxation,
with offworld rule and sending our young men and women into Imperial
service.  But we are afraid.

Belden's right: We've learned to appreciate each other, now that we've
seen what it's like to be subjugated-to lose our identity because we
couldn't stand together."

"Isn't that worth fighting for?  Isn't it worth spending the lives of
free persons?  Prime Minister, I don't expect to see fifty," she said,
guessing at his age.  "But I would rather lay down my life for others'
freedom than die quietly in slavery."

Captison sighed.  "You're exceptional."

"All free people are exceptional.  Let me talk to your cell leaders,
Senator Belden.  Give your people a chance to fight for their freedom,
and they'll-" Out of long habit, Leia glanced over her shoulder.  A
double-podded local patrol craft followed ten lengths back.  "Those are
Imperials behind us, I think," she said quietly.

Captison checked a sensor screen and pushed his throttle forward.

Leia searched the instrument panel for communications equipment.  Han
would be on his way to the Falcon by now, enroute and unreachable.
"They're still on us.  Head for the spaceport."

"One more, coming up from below.  I can't turn south from this lane."

"Looks like an escort," Leia observed.  Captison swung the speeder
northwest in a long arc.  Then the escorts let him straighten out again.
"Where are they herding us?"

"Back across town Captison frowned.  "Complex, I think."

`Are either of you armed?" she asked quietly.

Captison slid one hand under his jacket, showed her a hold-out blaster,
then concealed it again.  "But that's going to be useless if we're
outnumbered.  Belden, can you lose the generator?"

"Under a seat, maybe." Belden's voice came muffled.

Leia thought quickly.  "It might be safer to wrap it in here, in my
shawl and drop it, rather than be caught with it."

"No," Belden said stiffly.  "It's too delicate.  Too fragile.

People are used to seeing me carry a voice amplifier.  I'll keep it in
my pocket."

The modal percussion pounded on.

Cloistered in a bare, tiny windowless room lined with recording banks
and communication setups, Threepio expelled a dramatic sigh.  "Every
time I feel certain they've come up with one last way of making us
suffer, they invent another.  They're so difficult to fathom."

Artoo-Detoo squalled disdainfully.

"I am not stalling, you mismated collection of crosswired nanochips.
There was nothing in that last recording that was not in any of the
others.  Six million forms of communication, and they find a new one.
Nonmechanicals are quite impossible."

Artoo stretched a manipulator arm toward the playback machine.

"I'll do it," blustered Threepio.  "You can't reach high enough."

Artoo thbb'd like a seven-year-old human with his tongue out.

Threepio removed one recording rod and inserted another, carefully
replacing the old one in the prime minister's array case.  "Even Prime
Minister Captison, an admitted droid hater, simply has to agree that we
serve a useful purpose now.  We've been on the job for seven hours
without so much as a break for lubricants." The speaker twittered and
chirped.  Threepio leaned his head closer.  "Quiet, Artoo."

Artoo, who was being quiet, thbb'd a little softer.

"There's something different on top of this one." At a human-inaudible
whine, a series of electronic bursts followed the Ssi-ruuvi birdsong.
His automatic scanners compared the code with millions of others. Before
the recording ended, "That's it!" he exclaimed.  "Artoo, run that one
again."

Artoo chirped wryly.

"Of course I can reach it better than you can.  Don't blame me for your
shortcomings." Threepio turned his upper body, pressed a repeat key,
then held the awkward position.

Automatic programming pret his left auditory sensor to follow the
Ssi-ruuvi language, his right auditory sensor to record the electronic
code, and a central processing unit to compare the two.  It noted a
decisecond delay, repeated tonal patterns, and inhuman labial/guttural
modifiers.

The recording ended.  Threepio ran it again.  Another circuit,
programmed to deduce logical variables out of context, supplied
alternate readings and compared them with similar statements he had
recorded during the years since his last memory wipe-a long, long time
ago.

"Excellent!" Threepio exclaimed.  "Now, Artoo.  We must begin at the
beginning and listen through all the recordings.

They'll provide Princess Leia with all kinds of useful information."

Artoo whistled.

"Yes, Prime Minister Captison too.  Don't get impatient.

Threepio tapped Artoo's dome "I realize this isn't your specialty. Think
of the hours I spent shipboard, functionless."

Artoo tweaked his memory.

"That's not funny." Threepio pressed the play key.  "Be quiet and
listen.  I'll translate for you."

The recordings began again, all seven hours at high speed.  Threepio
listened, and Artoo listened to Threepio.

Most of what was said was inconsequential: Realign your ship with the
squadron and suchlike.

But abruptly Threepio exclaimed, `Oh, no.  Artoo, you must call Master
Luke at once.  This is dreadful-"

Artoo was already rolling toward a communications interlock.

Leia slid out of the rented aircar into a cool, gusty breeze and stared
around the Bakur complex's roof port, mentally counting stormtroopers.
Eighteen, with weapons drawn.

This was no friendly welcome committee.  Now she wished she'd been able
to bring Chewieven though she wouldn't have, to please the Bakurans.
Belden bumped her and mumbled, "Be sure you give Commander Skywalker
that message, Your Highness."

"Get ready to move, she mumbled back.  She reached up one sleeve for her
little blaster.  She could probably take three or four before they
stunned her.  Flinging herself onto the permacrete rooftop, she started
shooting.

Five storrutroopers toppled before someone seized her right elbow from
behind.  She wriggled violently and almost won free before a white
gauntlet pried her blaster from her hand.

Hal" the battle is knowing when you're beaten.  Where had she heard
that?  Alderaan, she guessed, slowly getting to her feet with both hands
clasped over her head.  She wasn't beaten yet.  But it was important
that they think so.

Governor Wilek Nereus strode out of the lift shaft, followed by four
naval troopers in black helmets.  "Prime Minister Captison," he said
smoothly, "Senator Belden.  Going for a little drive?" He pointed at the
aircar, and two stormtroopers climbed aboard.

The trooper who'd confiscated her blaster took something away from Prime
Minister Captison.  Another seized his arms and locked on a pair of
wristbinders.  "You have just run out of good sense," Belden wheezed,
red-faced and already cuffed.  "This is a preposterous maneuver."

"Why so much effort to escape observation, if you're doing nothing
wrong?"

Leia stepped in.  "There is such a thing as a right to privacy,
Governor."

"Not when it endangers an Imperial world's security, my dear princess."

One trooper emerged from the aircar.  "Negative, sir."

"Take it apart.  You.  You, and you." He pointed at three other
troopers.  "Search them."

Leia stoically endured scanning and then a thorough physical frisking.
The trooper took her empty wrist holster and pocket comlink, then cuffed
her hands.  Another walked swiftly from Belden to Governor Nereus,
carrying the small gray box.  "What have we here, Senator?"

Belden raised his bound hands and shook a finger at Governor Nereus. "My
voice amplifier is a personal item.

Give it back."

"Ah.  Righteousness, maligned." Nereus smiled.  "I've suspected for some
time that you or your wife had possessed illegal devices, Belden - but
since you're so certainly innocent of wrongdoing, I'm sure you won't
mind our detaining you until my people ascertain the nature of this
instrument."

Leia groaned.  Belden's forehead shone wetly over scarlet cheeks, and
his breathing had become shallow.  He looked as if he might keel over.
At his age, these were danger signals.

Yet this incident could set Bakura aflame.  Butter newt, she reminded
herself.  Prime Minister Captison hurried to Belden's side, reaching him
just before one naval trooper.

"Governor Nereus, you have overstepped-"

"Guards," Nereus called, "these three are under arrest.

Suspicion of subversion will do.  Put them in separate parts of the
complex."

Leia stepped toward Nereus, deliberately drawing attention.  "This was a
pleasure drive, Governor."

Nereus lowered his stare.  "I made you a promise over dinner that
concerned subverting Imperial peoples, my dear.  Believe me, I keep my
promises.  When a speeder full of people goes silent on sensor fields,
it rouses curiosity." A stormtrooper stuck his blast rifle in Belden's
back.  "No talking," Nereus ordered.  "Interview each one separately."

Leia had to prove to Captison that she'd meant every word about
sacrificing herself.  She lowered her head and took a run at Governor
Nereus.  She caught him right at his generous midsection.

With a puff of surprise, he went down.  Leia climbed onto his chest,
wedged his head between her knees, and pushed her wristbinders onto his
nose.  "Get back, all of you, or we'll see whose head is harder."
Stormtroopers backed away, but she didn't spot the one who stunned her
from behind.

CHAPTER 14

an braked his speeder just long enough for Luke to vault out at the
spaceport gate, then he spun it around, raising a black cloud of dust.
He disliked leaving Luke out here alone, but Luke had insisted he'd be
fine.  The Flurry's shuttle was due any minute, and meanwhile, Luke
should have plenty of cover at the spaceport cantina.  Probably
reinforcements, too: Alliance pilots bunking in temporary scramble
shelters.  They'd sure outnumber the crew of a single Imperial shuttle
grounded close to the cantina, just outside Pad 12.  Anyway, Luke was
Luke, lightsaber and all.

Speeding north, he spotted smoke near the Bakur complex.  Several
seconds later, a glimmering face appeared in midair over his head-up
city map.  "Alert, all residents.  A curfew has just been imposed. Leave
the streets and the air.

Security forces will shoot to kill leaders and stun their followers to
incarcerate them.  The curfew will take effect immediately."

What was this?  A second face appeared.  "This follows the arrests of
Prime Minister Captison and Senior Senator Orn Belden on suspicion of
subversion, along with Rebel ringleader Leia Organa.  Imperial
leadership demands full cooperation.  Ssi-ruuvi invaders could attack at
any moment.  Any collaboration with outside forces will be punished
severely and immediately."

Leia, under arrest?  Han ignored the rest of the disembodied heads'
messages about shortened business hours and prohibited districts.
Obviously the Imperials were worried about causing an uproar.

But he had an uproar of his own to start.  He accelerated to full
throttle, muttering, "I'll get you for this, Nereus."

But how?  He didn't even know where Leia was.

Although filtered through the speeder's intake, the air smelled smoky.
He streaked to a landing on the Bakur complex's roof port, then took the
nearest drop shaft down.  As before, two stormtroopers stood guard
outside his apartment.  Their helmets swiveled as he strode inside past
them.

They probably didn't mean to let him back out.

Threepio stood inside, waiting with infinite mechanical patience.
"General Solo," he exclaimed.  "Thank goodness you've come.  Senator
Captison returned me here, but she took Artoo to her office.  His
restraining bolt-"

"Not now.  Find Leia."

"But, General, the Ssi-ruuk are coming for Master Lukeand then
attacking-immediately!"

"We know that.  He'll be all right-" Han skidded to a halt halfway
across the common room.  "Wait, did you say, `attacking'?"

"Within an hour.  We must-"

"How do you-no.  it'll keep.  Where's Leia?"

The tall droid straightened.  "She left us in Prime Minister Captison's
office, translating-"

"1 know where she left you." Han paced across the lounge pit, bouncing
off repulsor fields all the way.  "She and Captison have been arrested.
Have you warned Luke about the attack?"

"I've been trying, sir-"

"I left him at the cantina next to Pad Twelve.  Tap into the central
computer.  Find out where they've got Leia-now!"

"General Solo, Artoo is equipped for direct interfacing.  I am not.

Han's cheeks heated.  "Then stand there and punch the panels like a
human.  That's why they built you like one."

Threepio waddled to the main terminal.  Han watched over his shoulder
for a few moments, but Threepio worked too quickly to follow.  Han
checked the charge on each of his blasters and examined his vibroknife.
He glanced out the window, then peered into Leia's bedroom.  No sign of
disarray.  She hadn't been abducted from there.

"General Solo." Threepio's call rang out across the common room.

"What?" Han rushed the droid.  "Did you find her?  Did you find Luke?"

"I left Master Luke a message with cantina staff, but they were quite
rude, and I have doubts as to whether it will be delivered.  But
Mistress Leia-"

"Which detention area?  Where?"

"It appears that she was flown to a small installation in nearby
mountains.  Some kind of private retreat, I believe."

"Where is it from here?  Show me."

Threepio brought up a map.  Han noted the locationabout twenty minutes
northwest of town, in a hot speeder.

"Okay.  Focus close now." Threepio changed the display.  A security
fence surrounded one large T-shaped building with a long central hallway
and a broad recreation area.  Ten woodburning chimneys: Real nostalgia
stuff, except for speeder parking near the northeast corner of the
fenced grounds.  "Yeah," Han said.  "Hunting lodge and party house, I'll
bet.  Can you get me inside its security system?"

Threepio tapped more keys.  "I believe I have it."

"Shut it down."

Threepio posed with one hand touching his chin.  "If I may say so,
General Solo, shutting it down will put the entire establishment on
alert."

"All right.  Shut down anything that'll let `em see me coming from the
air.  And find out how many guards he's got out there."

"Thn." Threepio worked more keys.  "It looks like rather minimal
security.  If I may be allowed to speculate, I would guess Governor
Nereus is keeping most of his guards around himself for the duration of
the crisis."

"Smells like another trap." On the other hand, maybe Nereus simply
didn't want to bring the Alliance down his throat.  Maybe he only wanted
to space Captison, and he'd just as soon wash Leia off his hands.  Off
the planet, in fact.

Or maybe Threepio was correct, and he was just scared.

Sometimes it took a coward to spot a coward.

He drew his blaster and stalked toward the door.  "Let's go, Goldenrod.
We've got to get past two stormtroopers."

"Sir!  Take a minute to plan, this once!  Minimize your risks!"

Han hesitated.  "Minimize?  How?"

"Instead of blasting your way out, you might attempt a deception of some
sort."

"What did you have in mind?"

Threepio's metal fingertips pinged against his waist.  "1 do not have
the imaginative bent.  Your creative faculties might be brought to bear
on-"

"All right, shut up.  Let me think about this."

He counted his resources.  Two blasters, a vibroknife, and Threepio.

Yeah.  Threepio.  Assuming they got past the door guards, there was one
thing Han really could use: a master coder, to override palmprint,
retinal, and voice-ID security circuits.

They were as illegal as Lowickan Firegems, and impossible to make on
most worlds, because most worlds' master circuits were encoded against
droids.  "You're absolutely right," he told Threepio.  He hustled to the
nearest repulsor couch, dug into its control circuit, and levered out
its master chip.

"Here," he said.  "Wipe that, then imprint it with an Imperial override
code off the mainframe."

"Sir!" Threepio screeched like a horrified soprano.

"They'll melt us all down if I counterfeit  "Do it," Han growled.  "This
place doesn't have droids, so they won't have antidroid security. Should
be a piece of cake."

Still, he stood tapping one foot until Threepio handed over the
reimprinted chip.  He fingered it.  That smooth, sixcentimeter strip of
plastic and metal would get him into almost anything-including very deep
soup, if they caught him with it.  He slid it into his shirt pocket.

"General Solo, shouldn't we warn the populace about the imminent
attack?"

"You say Senator Captison brought you back here?"

"Yes, but-"

"You told her, didn't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then she'll take care of it.  Trust me." Han set his blaster for "stun"
(only out of respect for Leia's wishes, he told himself).  "Come on.
Here's the next step."

Less than a minute later, he sent the glide door open and stood back.
Threepio fled into the lobby, screeching gibberish, waving both arms and
swaying violently back and forth.

Mentally Han counted to three, giving the stormtroopers time to wonder
if they ought to shoot him down or hit him with their Owner.  Then, he
crouched low and crept to the door.  He could only see one trooper, but
that Imperial's attention was riveted to the droid.  Threepio spun in
circles, babbling in yet another language.  Han aimed carefully for a
weak spot in the body armor, fired, then sprang to the other side of his
doorway.  The other trooper fired back at a sensible chest level, but
the bolt zipped over Han's head.  He dropped the other trooper.

"Okay, Threepio.  Help, and hustle it." Han seized one guard by the
boots and dragged him into the apartment.

Threepio grabbed both troopers' blast rifles while Han maneuvered the
second one just inside the door.  "Hurry up."

He relieved one trooper of a utility cable and tied the pair together.
"It's a cinch we're not coming back here," he muttered.  Bakurans or no
Bakurans, he pried off Threepio's restraining bolt.  "There.  It's time
to split up.  I'll get Leia.  You make sure Luke got that message."

"But, sir-how will I get there?  Even on Alliance worlds, droids aren't
allowed to pilot speeders unaccompanied."

Han thought that over.  Should he drop Threepio at the Falcon?  Ask
Chewie to abandon ship and come get him?  Too much time.  Too dangerous.

Hah.  "Okay, Sunshine, you're about to play hero." He untied one
still-stunned trooper and yanked off his helmet.

"Help me with the rest of this stuff."

Threepio shuffled closer.  "Now, what-Oh, no.  Sir, please don't order
me

"They won't shoot at you wearing this.  I want you back at the Falcon."

Soon Threepio stood arrayed in full stormtrooper gear, and his
bewildered voice filtered through a lumpy white helmet.  "But, sir,
where am I to find a speeder?"

"Follow me.  And set that blast rifle just under `stun.

You're gonna be shooting at me."

"One more thing?" Threepio pleaded.  "Please let me have your comlink. I
must contact Master Luke."

Han tossed it.  Threepio caught it.  Then Han nodded.

"Go," he commanded.

He dashed up the hall toward the nearest lift shaft.  A backward glance
showed Threepio struggling to keep up, firing stun bursts as he came.
Han gave the droid time to close up, then sprang into the lift shaft.

After he emerged on the rooftop, things moved faster.

Smoke roiled up over one edge.  The Bakurans were really riled about
those arrests.  Several harried-looking people, walking toward the
nearest drop shaft, scattered as he leaped into an open speeder.  He
waved the code chip over its owner-recognition panel, and its engine
came to life.

Meanwhile, the clumsiest Imperial stormtrooper ever seen shuffled out of
the lift shaft, firing his blast rifle at anything and missing
everything.  Bakurans dove and flattened.

Han waited until Threepio levered himself into another speeder, then he
took off headed north, glancing back only once to make sure Threepio
didn't crash on takeoff.  Then he concentrated dead ahead, squinting
while the wind whipped his hair.

back there, hunched over a more private commnet terminal.

Luke had spotted only these two terminals in the building, and the
outdoor comm booth, while it had visual capabilities, wouldn't access an
uplink to orbit.

So he'd rather use the semiprivate hookup than sit out in the open at a
greasy orange tabletop, even if that meant waiting a few minutes.  He
was stuck until the shuttle to orbit arrived, anyway.  He wanted to
check in with Wedge, and find out how the defense web was holding-and
why his shuttle was overdue.  More of Nereus's maneuvering?  He glanced
out the cantina's west window.  The Falcon was only a quarter kilometer
away, but he couldn't see it for gantries and other parked ships.

Something scraped the grubby floor behind him-not one of Bakura's
ubiquitous repulsor chairs, but a plain, cheap, metal-and-cushion
affair.  Luke turned around.  The corner table stood empty.

Luke sat down facing out into the room, pecked in his clearance code,
and requested contact with Wedge Antilles: vocal/keyboard interface, if
possible.

Black letters appeared beneath the ones he'd punched in.

Capt.  Antilles unavailable, sir.  This is Lieutenant Riemann.  May I
help?

The cantina adjoining Pad 12 smelled like smoke and old grease.
Everything inside looked cheap, from stippled black floor to ceiling
panels.  Several of those flickered as if their power supplies were
giving out.  No automation, nothing even remotely modern.  Tour hawkers
would no doubt call it "quaint."

Luke glanced down at an open commnet hookup that lay at a central table,
then toward a corner table that hunkered behind a tottering divider.  A
hefty service-crew type sat Luke recognized the name, a young artist of
interplanetary stature who'd been forced by the Empire first into hiding
and then into fighting back. "What's the status of the defensive net?"
he asked softly.  "Have you monitored anything unusual during the last
few hours?" This would've been so much more convenient with Artoo to
relay.  He wondered if the droids had finished translating for Prime
Minister Captison.

His answer appeared.

The net's still holding, everyone's in his assigned orbit.  We've
monitored a lot of chatter on the Flutie bands in the last hour, but
those close-in gunships and that cruiser haven't shifted.

Something was afoot, even if the Ssi-ruuk weren't moving yet.  He asked
about that next shuttle up to orbit.

On its way down, sir.  Should land in about 30 minutes.

Luke thanked the lieutenant and signed off.

What could he accomplish in thirty minutehere?  At the back of his mind
he heard Ben Kenobi telling Master Yoda, "He will learn patience."
Determined to prove Ben correct, he made himself calm down.  Soon he'd
be back aboard the Flurry, and once Han located Leia and picked up the
droids, they'd join Chewbacca on the Falcon.  He pushed away from the
corner table.

As he was about to pass a booth clustered with strangers, his comlink
squeaked in his breast pocket.  He spun around and headed back to the
corner, where he pulled out the comlink.  "What is it, Han?" he asked
quietly.

"Master Luke," Threepio's voice exclaimed, "I'm so glad that I reached
you.  Mistress Leia has been arrested.  General Solo has gone to rescue
her-"

Luke slumped behind the booth divider and kept his voice low.  By
interrupting and repeating hasty questions, he found out where Han had
headed.  "And sir," Threepio added, "the Ssi-ruuk mean to attack within
less than an hour.  You must hurry.  Notify Chewbacca that I'm on my way
to the Falcon, but I'm disguised as a stormtrooper.  He mustn't shoot
me.

Less than an hour?  With his shuttle overdue?  "Where's Artoo?"

"Senator Captison took him, sir.  We'll have to return later for him.
Sir, if you think I could be more useful here on the ground during the
next few hours, instead of in space-"

"Head for the Falcon.  We'll talk later." Luke stuffed the comlink into
his pocket, then reached for the commnet board.  Should he send Chewie
with the Falcon up into the hills to help Han?  No, sometimes Han moved
faster than anyone expected.  They might miss him on their way back.

But sometimes Han blundered into situations that were too complicated to
handle with a blaster.  Luke bit his lip.

He had to help Han and Leia but he had to alert the Flurry -to get
aboard-before the aliens attacked.  That was his responsibility, as
commander.

Abruptly he straightened in the shabby seat.  Command?

Wait a minute!

He reopened the line to Lieutenant Riemann.

For a city under curfew, Salis D'aar looked good and lively to Han.
Small groups dashed from building to building, avoiding platoons of
storrutroopers.  A double-podded security craft swooped toward him.  He
dove out of the traffic lane, into a canyon between tall buildings and
groundcar ramps.  His pursuer followed, firing erratically.

Han braked, swooped into a narrow alley, then jinked an Immelmann
up-and-over back out into the canyon.  Security sped into the alley,
passing beneath him.  Han didn't see him fly back out.

As soon as he regained his bearings, he streaked out of the city and
dropped low over the western river.  Keeping low enough to catch fish,
and spitting distance from the huge white cliff on his right-hoping to
evade surveillance -he waited until the foothills looked tall enough to
offer some cover.  Then he zipped across the river and up a small
tributary stream.

Once he located the right valley, it didn't take him long to spot his
target, an ancient T-shaped log building with a dark green stone roof,
huddled inside a rock wall.  Planning two minutes ahead-Threepio would
be proud-he unlatched safety restraints and loosed his feet on the
control surfaces, getting ready to go overboard.  Nobody fired as he
approached.  He decelerated low over dark treetops.  The instant that he
judged he'd shed enough speed, he passed the outwall.  He jumped for a
clump of low bushes.  The speeder exploded with a resounding boom and a
roil of flaming smoke against the grounds' opposite wall.  By the time
four naval troopers converged on it, Han was slinking through a
temporarily unguarded door that hung from huge black hinges.

Only one door stood closed on the main hallway, with a skinny security
droid sitting beside it like an extra doorpost.

Obviously, the Imperials didn't bother to humor Bakuran antidroid
sentiments here at their private installation.  Han leveled his blaster
at the droid's midsection and fired once.

Blue lightning whipped around it and sparked off four rodlike appendages
at the top.  Han slunk closer.  It spluttered and smoked.

Minimum security, he observed, waving his chip key at the lock panel.  A
little too convenient.  If this was another trap They'd deal with it.
Threepio ought to be back at the Falcon by now. He wished he had his
comlink, but stray electronic signals would've brought down every
trooper on the grounds.

"Leia?" he called softly into the darkened suite.  "It's me."

Lights came on.  `Hey," said her voice high above him.

She stood perched on the seat of a repulsor chair directly over the
doorway.  "Good thing you spoke up.  I almost flattened you." She landed
the repulsor chair at the foot of an old-fashioned, nonrepulsor bed.
He'd never seen a repulsor chair do that before.  She must've somehow
reprogrammed its circuitry.

"Have they hurt you?" He muscled the burned-out droid inside before he
slid the door shut.  If nobody saw it, maybe they wouldn't notice it was
damaged.

"Not really.  As I understand it, Governor Nereus meant to make me a
present to the next emperor.  He has insisted that 1 will enjoy his
hospitality.  Lunch was delicious.  I've even got a fireplace." She
swept one arm around the rustic bedroom.  Rough, pale wood covered its
walls and ceiling.

"So you're just the guest who's not allowed to leave?"

"I won't be here long.  Let's get out of here." She balled her fists on
her hips.  "You, ah, found your way in.  I don't suppose you've thought
of a way of getting back out."

"Not yet."

She rolled her eyes.  "Not again."

"Look, sweetheart," he said thoughtfully, sitting down on the edge of
the bed.  "I jimmied the black box of a speeder and crashed it into
their wall.  As far as they can tell, I bailed out a long way back.
Let's lie low for an hour, let them check it out and look the grounds
over-"

Heavy footsteps approached outside the hall door.  Han sprang off the
bed.  "Can I get out up there?" He dashed toward the fireplace.

"Of course not.  Too narrow."

Too late.  The door whooshed.  Han seized a metal rod inside the
blackened chimney, jumped as high as he could, and pulled up his legs.

"Have you seen anything suspicious out this window?"

asked a helmet-filtered voice.  Han wedged himself between two scratchy
black stone walls.  He wanted to gain more ltitude, but didn't dare
attract attention by knocking down soot.  Smoky residue made his nose
and throat itch.  At the thought of that guard droid sitting right
inside the door, his hands got clammy.

"I haven't tried." Leia's voice defied the intruder.

"Right.  Stand aside." He heard slow steps-two pairand imagined a
scanner team checking for life-forms.  He wondered if stone blocked
their equipment.  He couldn't reach his blaster.  At any second, they'd
notice that droid.

"All right, you've run your check.  Now get out of here,' Leia said.  As
if in tribute to the icy menace in her voice, the troopers' bootsteps
beat a hasty retreat.  After a few seconds, she called from beneath him,
"They're gone."

"Stand back," he said.  Cautiously he got a grip on both walls, then he
straightened his legs and dropped.  For an instant, he saw her standing
with a horrified expression.

Then carbon dumped like a downpour, obscuring his vision.

"Some rescue," her voice observed.

"Suppose they'll be back?" he asked, stepping sideways on the stone
platform around the fireplace.  Once the soot settled, he could see
again.  What a mess.  The guard droid stood in a corner beside the door,
artfully draped with articles of clothing to look like furniture. Leia'd
moved fast, too.

"Yes," she answered.  "1 think lying low is out of the question." She
ducked through a small door and reemerged carrying a large white towel.
"Stand still.  I'll do what I can."

One minute later, she dropped a black towel onto the floor.  "You're
clean enough for now.

Han had been staring at her repulsor chair.  "Hey," he said, "I've got
an idea."

CHAPTER 15

aeriel stood outside Eppie Belden's door and straightened her freshly
pruned bundle of cloud berry spikes.  Each fragrant blossom could have
produced a succulent fruit, but too many spikes on a vine made the fruit
tiny and sour.  The symbolism-some blossoms, some lives cut off to allow
a few to grow strongergave her small comfort.  Would Eppie understand
that her husband for over a century had died in Governor Nereus's
custody?  Or would he return again and again in her perception, like
Roviden?

Eppie's caregiver opened the door.  "Good morning, Clis."

"Hello, Gaeriel." Clis stepped aside with a queer expression on her
round face.  "Come in.  Quickly."

"Something wrong?" Gaeriel walked past Clis toward Eppie's favorite wing
chair.  No one sat in it.  "Where is she?"

Gaeriel asked, alarmed.

"In the study."

"The study?"

"See for yourself."

Gaeriel strode through the dining area to Om Belden's office.  A work
screen silhouetted a small, hunched figure.

"Eppie?" Gaeri cried.

The figure turned around.  Eppie Belden's wrinkled face glowed with the
intensity of a small bird's.  "You know anyone else who's likely to be
here?"

"She's been like that all morning," murmured Clis.  "Go on in.  She's
been asking for you.

"And for that young man." Eppie paddled her repulsor chair away from the
work screen.  "Who was he?  Where did he come from?"

Stunned almost beyond the ability to articulate, Gaeri sat down on top
of a packing crate.  There weren't any other chairs in the office. "He's
a .  Rebel, but a dangerous one.  A Jedi.  One of them."

"Oh, ho." Eppie's feet swung under her chair.  "Our teachers have taught
us a lot of wisdom down the years, but also a load of guff." She pointed
a bony finger.  "You should judge that Jedi by what he does, not by
rumors or morality tales.  Tell him to come back and see me again, in
any case.

Her head turned.  "Go make a nice arrangement out of Gaeri's flowers,
Clis."

The portly caregiver left the door.  Eppie slapped a control that shut
it.

"Eppie, you're you re well!"

"You're here to tell me about Orn, aren't you?" The wall of her
preoccupation thinned, and Gaeri glimpsed her fresh grief.  Full
realization hadn't set in.  Eppie was working while she could, the
better to grieve later.  "Thank you anyway, love.  I heard.  No one else
thought to notify me, but I've been plugged in all morning.

"But-"

"I haven't watched the news for years, so you assumed I hadn't heard? Be
careful of your assumptions, Gaeriel."

"But he Orn Eppie's shoulders slumped, transforming her into a wizened
old woman. "I'll miss him, Gaeri.  Bakura will miss him.  Let the
Imperials call it a cerebral hemorrhage, but I know he died for Bakura,
as I should've."

"Should've?"

"Confession is good for the soul, child.  But I'm not ready to tell you
everything.  Spme of it's not for young Imperial ears." She spun her
repulsor chair and touched a work station control.  A screen full of
symbols translated itself into a news media picture.  `Fires, and
strikes, and running street battles in Salis D'aar.  I wish I were
eighty again."

"Eppie, what did you do?"

"Only what that young manxcuse me, that terribly dangerous young
Jedi-showed me to do.  You're a lot of good things, Gaeri, but
reconsider your intolerance."

Gaeriel gaped.  "Then something was done to you?"

"I won't burden you with my past.  Let's get on with the future."

"Your past may be my future."

Eppie's keen blue eyes blinked at her.  "I hope so.  And I hope not."

Gaeri reached out a hand.  "You're going to wear yourself out. Shouldn't
you lie down for a bit?"

Eppie shook her head.  "I've missed years.  Can't waste minutes now.
Bakura's rising.  I want to be in on it."

Gaeriel steadied her hands against a tremor.  "Rising?"

"Against Nereus, of course.

"But we need Governor Nereus and his forces.  We're going to be invaded
any minute.  The Alliance talks about freedom, but Bakura was .  .  .
was crippled by chaos.  The Empire saved us from tragedy."

"We will never be free from tragedy, Gaeriel.  Each of us must be free
to pursue her own tragedy."

Gaeri crossed her ankles and stared.  How could this lucid philosopher
be the mind-sick woman she'd helped nurse since before she went off to
Center?

"Even after a defeat," Eppie murmured, "it's possible to have a full and
happy life.  I wish Orn and I had realized

"Anyway," she exclaimed, drawing herself up, "there's work to be done.
Are you for me or against me?"

"What-what are you doing at that work station, Eppie?"

"Are you going to turn me in?  Look at this!" She swiveled back around
and tapped controls beneath the screen.  One key brought up an image of
flames rising near the Bakur complex.  Another showed stormtroopers
chasing down armed civilians.  Automation, claimed another screen, had
gone haywire at the repulsorlift coil production plant.  "Salis D'aar is
furious.  Om's dead, your uncle arrested, the Rebel princess in custody.
What are you going to do about it?"

"If we fight each other now, the Ssi-ruuk will have us piecemeal!"

"That's why it can't be done wrong.  Those people on the streets are
only the distraction.  You and I, and a few others on the inside, will
run the real rebellion.  We could accomplish plenty before the aliens
actually attacked."

"They're attacking in less than an hour.  I've warned Governor Nereus.
There's no time."

"No one ever told you that I used to be a circuitry guerrilla, did
they?"

Gaeri gaped at the thought.  How could she even consider collaborating
with Eppie and the Rebels?  The Alliance was impractical.  Naively
idealistic.

Her own tragedy.  If fate guaranteed her life an ending, what tragedy
did she choose?

A triumphant one.  Gingerly she handled the fragile new thought.  She
couldn't deliver Eppie Belden to Wilek Nereus.

And there's your answer, she told herself.  There wasn't a single
Imperial officer, bureaucrat, or professor that she'd ever admired the
way she loved Eppie.

Then this was her decision.  She loved Bakura, not the Empire.  "I'm
with you," she said softly.

Eppie seized her hand and squeezed it.  "1 knew you had more sense than
you were letting on.  It's a hard decision, girl, and it'll cost you but
congratulations.  Now let's see what else we can do at that repulsorlift
coil plant.

"You sent the automation haywire?"

Eppie's smile smoothed half of her wrinkles and deepened the rest of
them.  "That plant's worth all the rest of Bakura to the Imperials.  If
production shuts down, even during wartime, they'll send every trooper
left in Salis D'aar to restore order.  That leaves the Bakur complex for
meand a few friends."

Gaeri's blood tingled.  "I can help you better from my office.  I've got
one of the Rebels' droids stashed away there."

"Wait." Eppie rummaged in a drawer and drew out a tiny bit of metal and
plastic.  "You know about that allegedly secure stormtrooper channel?"

Gaeri nodded.

"Orn wanted you to have this a long time ago, but he couldn't trust you.
Use it now.  It'll let you give the stormtroopers a few commands before
they come for you."

Gaeri closed her hand around it.

"Well, go!  Run!" Eppie slapped her shoulder.

Gaeri flew her aircar back to the complex, dodging security patrols and
steering between trouble spots and firefighting crews.  The Rebels'
droid, Artoo Detoo, stood right where she'd left it, beside her desk,
spinning its dome and beeping unintelligibly.  Gaeri groaned.  "You must
be trying to tell me something.  But I can't understand any of that.

Aari?"

"Here," exclaimed her aide.

"Dump all the information you can get from Nereus's office net, even if
it means compromising our security.  Everything's about to break apart."

"Will do." To Gaeri's amusement, the droid rolled to a terminal and
plugged in, too.  Evidently it had a good deal of perception and
volition programmed into it.

"Here, Senator." Aari had delivered a screenful.  Nereus had ordered
stormtroopers across the city to quell three demonstrations, and sent
his top intelligence man to the coil production plant in Belden's
district.  Intell officers shot first and interrogated survivors.

Gaeri clenched a fist.  She must try to free Uncle Yeorg, and that Rebel
princess as well.  But first, no Captison had ever dallied when turmoil
wrenched Bakura.  She handed Aari the chip.  "Install that.  it'll give
us the stormtrooper frequency."'

Aari raised one black eyebrow.  Artoo Detoo beeped and trilled.  Even to
Gaeri, it sounded excited.

Her own hands shook.  They'd catch any unauthorized user on-line and
change all security codes within minutes, but this would be her memorial
to a brave old man.

"You've got it," Aari announced a moment later from her adjoining desk.
Working her main bank, Gaeriel accessed factory data for the namana
juice extraction plant fifteen kilometers down the seacoast-a safely
irrelevant, nonmilitary distraction-and then she dumped it onto the
troopers information banks, replacing their data for repulsorlift coil
production.  When they tried to move in on Belden's factory, they would
possess all the wrong information.  They'd be totally lost, and that
might give Belden's people enough time to .  .  .  well, she wasn't sure
what Eppie was up to, and she didn't want to know.

But she did call the repulsorlift plant supervisor on a conventional
frequency.  She warned him he had troopers on the way-and that Bakura's
resistance had begun.  It might not be wildly revolutionary action, but
it would confuse the Empire for a few minutes longer.

"All right, Aari.  Pull the chip."

Aari dove for her tool kit and removed the illicit Imperial chip.  "I'd
better melt this."

"Right." Now that she could think of trying to free Uncle Yeorg, she
realized that she knew only one person who could possibly help.  She
cleared her terminal, then bent close to the droid.  She felt ludicrous
talking to it.  "Artoo Detoo, can you help me locate Commander
Skywalker?"

Chewbacca stalked slowly around the Falcon, on watch.

She was ready to take off, all systems operational-for the moment-and
looking good from the outside, which was to say that she hunkered close
to the rough-glass white surface, so battered and streaked that a casual
observer would doubt that she'd ever lift again.  He eyed each ship and
gantry, every parked Iandspeeder and building he could see.  There was
no sign of Luke.

Finally the whine of an open-top speeder approached.

Chewie slipped around the hull and took up a position from which he
could fire without being seen.  Seconds later, the speeder landed within
range.  A stormtrooper climbed out clumsily.

That looked like trouble.  The trooper didn't challenge him, but
shuffled forward with his arms hanging oddly.

Either he couldn't call out, or he chose not to.

Chewie had just gotten the Falcon lift ready.  He wasn't taking chances
on some high-handed Imperial slapping a lock on her hatch.  He pulled
his blaster, set it for "stun," and fired off a shot.

The stormtrooper came on, tottering.  Chewie fired again.

This time, the trooper fell.  Tempted to let the intruder lie, he
decided the armor might be useful.  He dragged the surprisingly heavy
body up the Falcon's ramp.  The main hatch slid down into position with
a hiss.  Crouching, he gripped one side of the white helmet with each
massive paw and lifted it off.

A golden head gleamed inside, repeating in a tinny, highspeed voice,
"uke!  Master uke!  Master Threepio!

Now he'd have to run all those diagnostics again.  Disgusted, Chewie
kept peeling off armor.

Luke glanced one last time at the cantina's cracked chrono.  In five
minutes, if his shuttle hadn't arrived, he'd join Chewie on the Falcon.

He eyed a slab of unevenly cooked, greasy, mysterious meat.  "I guess
I'll have one of those, with whatever you can put on it,'' he said. ``To
go."' He would eat with Chewie.  "Oh.  You'd better make it three." The
sooty orange countertopunoccupied-suggested Pad 12's nearest cantina was
often empty this close to noon.  Isolated clusters of Bakurans sat at
scattered tables, murmuring and glancing around.  "Arrest," he'd heard
from one, and "dead" from another.  "Belden" and "Captison" buzzed from
table to table.  He'd also heard "ledi."

The sooner he left, the better.

Quick footsteps approached along the wall outside.

Alarmed, he reached out through the Force, so he felt Gaeriel before the
main door swung open.  His senses came alive, focusing tightly on her
presence.  She hurried through, followed by an Artoo unit .  his, he
realized, remembering Threepio's message.  Artoo beeped and whistled
incoherently, and Gaeriel's sense buzzed with shocked excitement.

She hurried over, skirt whisking the dirty floor.  Luke pushed away from
the orange countertop.  "What's going on?  How did you find me?"

"Your droid brought me to the commnet terminal you'd used most recently.
Haven't you heard?  They're about to attack.  Uncle Yeorg's been
arrested." Her eyes stayed wide.

"Your princess, too:"

"Yes, I've heard.  I'm trying to get to my carrier-"

Artoo's insistent warbles rocked the little droid from side to side.
"Artoo, wait.  I'm not getting any of that." Closing out Gaeriel for the
moment, he reached into the distance for his sister's feelings. Farther,
farther

"There's a curfew in effect," insisted Gaeriel, "and-" A server strolled
past, obviously listening.  She continued more softly, "Orn Belden
keeled over when they tried to lock him up, and died half an hour later.
The city's in turmoil."

"Poor old Belden," he murmured.  In that instant, he found Leia.  Very
busy, very excited.  Han had obviously found her.

Artoo pushed closer to him, extended a probe and shocked his left calf,
still beeping.  "Artoo!" he exclaimed.

Gaeri looked both ways and whispered, "This is your moment, Luke.
Bakura's with you.

He glanced up at her, a new hope striking wildfire in his imagination.
"Why were they arrested?"

"Governor Nereus found a DB projector," said Gaeriel.

"Sedition carries the death penalty, Luke.  The city's going crazy.
You've got to get Princess Leia and Uncle Yeorg free."

She glanced around as if finally noticing her surroundings.

"But what are you doing here alone?  Didn't I warn you?"

"Yes.  I didn't want to endanger anybody.  I can protect myself, but
you'd better not stay more than a few minutes."

He glanced around, half-expecting stormtrooper helmets at the windows.
"Let's have Artoo try to find your uncle.  Can you interface the
governmental mainframe from a public commnet?"

"I should be able to."

Luke grabbed a bread knife off the nearest table.  After two seconds of
prying, Artoo's restraining bolt popped free.

Gaeriel's wide eyes looked scandalized.  Trying to pacify her, he said,
"Artoo, put Gaeriel on your recognize-andobey program.  And her friend
Eppie Belden," he added on impulse.  "Okay?" Artoo tweeted up the scale,
approving.

"Good.  Now see if you can find Prime Minister Captison."

Artoo rolled toward the corner table.

"Not much good without translators, are they?" Gaeriel asked.

Luke followed Artoo.  "I understood some of that.  He's an astromech
droid-a pilot's aide, I guess you'd call him-but you'd be surprised what
he can handle groundside." Luke glanced at the kitchen doors.  The cooks
were taking an awfully long time.  "Han's already gone looking for
Leia," he said.

"Luke ." Gaeriel clasped his arm just above the elbow.  Warmth and
determination flowed through that touch.  "Come back when it's over.
Talk to me.  There's no time now, but we've got t"

Luke tugged free.  A vague sense of aggression arose in the kitchens.
Almost instantly, it resolved into three distinctly alien presences and
one that mystified him-human, but alien-scented.  He covered his
lightsaber with his right hand.

What was that about not endangering other people?

And hadn't he wished Gaeriel needed rescuing?  He drew his blaster
left-handed and flipped the grip toward her.

"Can you shoot?" he murmured.  "There are Ssi-ruuk in the building.  I'm
sorry I can't help your uncle now.  Take it," he urged.  She closed her
hand around it uncertainly.  "Have Artoo get word to the Flurrv, up in
orbit, and tell them what's happening.  Then find your uncle.  Get out
of here.

Now."

Fear throbbed out of her.  "I'm not hiding behind Jedi abilities.  I
want to help the Rebellion."

Exasperated, he stretched out a hand and steadied himself to use the
Force on her.  "No one else has any trouble letting me The front and
side doors blew open simultaneously.  The muzzle of a heavy blaster
rifle appeared through each one.

Then a white-armored stormtrooper.

This time, Luke guessed they weren't on his side.  He seized Gaeriel's
shoulders and swept her behind him.  The handful of Bakuran customers
dove under tables.

Three Ssi-ruuk pushed through the kitchen door, large smooth-scaled
creatures with long, muscular tails to balance massive upper bodies. Two
of different sizes were glossy brown, one intense blue.  The heads
looked birdlike, with huge toothy beaks and all-black eyes.  Each wore a
shoulder bag slung across its body under one forelimb.  They towered
over the frightened service staff.  Artoo froze in position beside the
corner table.

Luke had to narrow his perception to keep Gaeriel's revulsion from
pulling him under.  Cautiously, he stretched toward the aliens.  Their
feelings leaked into the Force, strengthening the dark side.  He'd felt
less hostility in Jabba the Hutt's ravenous Rancor.

He held his lightsaber down at his side.  "What do you want?" he asked,
sweeping the Force against that hostility, probing for weaknesses.

A human in striped robes stepped around the counter after the aliens.
"Fortunate one!" he hailed Luke, squinting.

"You are the Jedi, Skywalker.  I will translate for you."

Luke recognized Dev Sibwarra from the hologram recording.  He focused
deep into the Force, drawing on all Yoda had taught him.  He was at
peace.  He was peace.  "I am Skywalker," he said.  "How did you get down
here?"

"Quietly.  Subtly." The young man whistled to the aliens, then flattened
long brown hands in front of his chest.  The left hand moved stiffly.
"Governor Nereus dispatched a shuttle to us, then ordered the orbital
net to allow it through on official business .  which is to receive you.
You are to be the guest of Admiral lvpikkis, as you begin a new kind of
life you have only dreamed of before.  Give my companions your weapon,
and come gladly with me."

In person Dev Sibwarra looked younger, perhaps fifteen.

Luke reached out with the Force And recognized him a second time.  This
boy had also sent the dream warning.  Luke felt his strength in the
Force, twisted and bent backward.  He'd been brainwashed or hypnotized,
altered so deeply that his thoughts were no longer his own.  Luke
couldn't hate him.  He must try not to kill him in self-defense, either,
because the boy was young enough to apprentice-if Luke could win him and
heal him.

"Thank you for your invitation," Luke said quietly.  "I would rather
stay here.  Ask your masters to sit down.  We will talk."

"They do not sit, my friend.  We would be honored to accept your
companion too, as our guest.  But you must hurry." Gaeri's cheeks
whitened as the blue Ssi-ruu stomped forward, but she stood her ground.
It reached a clawed forelimb toward her shoulder.  Something black
slithered out of its nostrils.  She gasped and brought up Luke's
blaster.

"Back," Luke ordered.  The alien's head turned.  A deep black eye
focused in his direction, and the nose-tongues flicked toward him.  He
channeled Force energy into his words.  "Get away from her." The eye
seemed to swirl like' dark storm, beckoning for attention, sucking at
his will.

Unquestionably this one, or another like him, kept Dev Sibwarra leashed.

Dev whistled at the blue alien, sounding surprisingly like Artoo.  The
big blue Ssi-ruu's forelimb dropped from Gaeri's shoulder.  He clicked
and whistled in a deeper, more flutelike voice than Dev's, with greater
range and a more resonant tone.  "He says that a female's companionship
will doubtless bring you comfort," Dev translated, "and I sense that
your feelings are strong for her.  Please ask her to cooperate.  We must
hurry."

Artoo rocked back and forth, chirping electronic fury.

Luke wondered what he was telling the Ssi-ruuk.  Two stormtroopers eased
forward, blocking Artoo's path to the door.

Luke called to the troopers, `You have no business with this woman. It's
me they want.  Let her leave."

"The Fluties want her," answered a trooper's filtered voice.  "This
time, the Fluties get what they want."

Luke ignited his lightsaber and got a solid, two-handed fighting grip.
"Not necessarily."

Dev backed away.  "Stun them!" he cried to the stormtroopers.

Four blast rifles leveled at him, black holes framed by white helmets.
Luke crouched and turned his body sideways, presenting a smaller target.
"Get down I" Gaeri dropped prone.  She hadn't used his blaster.  Just as
well: From all signs, she'd lose a firefight.  Apparently she knew it,
too.  This wasn't her element.

Standing ninety degrees apart, the troopers opened fire.

Luke stretched deeper into the Force, willingly dependent on the energy
that surrounded him.  He felt his body whirl and his saber leap, and
vaguely sensed energy bolts splashing on gritty cantina walls.  He eased
closer, dodging tables, toward a point between his attackers.  Suddenly
the blasts stopped coming, as the Imperials realized they were sighting
past Luke at each other.

He stretched out with the Force, touched two hostile minds, and leaped.

Blue-white stun bolts crackled through the air beneath him.  Troopers
dropped on both sides.  Luke spun back toward the aliens.  He felt slow,
still slightly sluggish from the Emperor's attack.  He coughed, then
caught his breath.

"Artoo," he shouted, "get her out of here.  Get help."

Artoo rolled toward Gaeriel.  She lurched up to her hands and knees and
then edged toward the front door.

Dev Sibwarra spread his hands.  "Friend Skywalker, you rob her of
incomparable joy."

"She prefers her freedom."

"Freedom?" Dev arched his eyebrows.  "We offer you freedom from hunger."
He waved a hand over a stack of abandoned plates, raising a cloud of
flying insects.  "From disease, from-" Luke felt a whiskery swirl of the
Force brush his body.  "Ah," Dev exclaimed, and his voice sounded
genuinely Friendly.  "Is it true that your entechment has already
begun?"

Luke stepped backward.  "What?"

"Your hand.  The right one."

Luke glanced down.  Repaired back at Endor, the prosthetic hand looked
entirely lifelike again.  "This was not my choice."

"Is it not better than the biological hand?  Stronger, less apt to pain?
See how you hope to rob so many humans of real life.  Real happiness."
Dev sidled toward the wall.  The Ssi-ruuk had pulled off their shoulder
bags.  Each held a paddlelike object that had hung outside.  What had
appeared to be handles projected forward, while the aliens grasped
rim-guarded grips.

Luke stepped sideways.  "Dev, warn them I can't stun them with a
lightsaber.  I'll have to kill them if they come at me.

"You mustn't!" Dev cried.  "If they die here, away from a consecrated
world, it is eternal tragedy.  They certainly will not kill you if they
defeat you.  Swear that you won't kill them."

"No," Luke insisted.  "Warn them.

Dev whistled frantically.

The aliens sighted on him.  Gaeri had crawled closer to the door, but
not close enough.  They'd get her unless he attacked first.

Then it was time to use the Force for defense.  Hers.

CHAPTER 16

The alien raised a paddle.  A thin silver beam shot out of its narrow
point.  Confidently Luke stepped toward the beam and swung his saber
into it.

It didn't deflect.  It only bent slightly.  Before he could react, the
beam swept through him.  It left his midsection tingling.  Relieved that
it didn't do worse, he adjusted his grip on the lightsaber.  The second
alien moved out from behind the first and added his beam, aiming low,
shooting for his legs.  The first shot hadn't injured him noticeably,
but a second might.  He pivoted aside, setting one brown Ssi-ruu in
front of the other.  One beam snapped off.  The other tracked him,
closing.

Big Blue stepped to one side and projected a beam down the room's
central aisle, halving Luke's space.

"No!" Gaeri raised up onto her elbows and shot at the blue alien.  Her
blaster bolt missed.  The alien trained its beamer at her.  Silver light
illumined the hollow of her throat.  She gave a little cry, crumpled,
and lay still.

Luke charged the small, V-crested brown and swung his saber at its
mysterious weapon.  The Ssi-ruu lost a foreclaw with his paddle-beamer.
Fluting wildly, he spun away from Luke.

"Don't!" Dev wrung his hands.  "Don't harm them!"

"What has he done to Gaeriel?"

"She's not harmed.  She'll recover."

But she wasn't moving.  Unless Luke killed or disarmed them all, they'd
abduct her.  The larger brown stomped toward him, muscular legs pumping
like pistons.  Even if he destroyed its weapon, it could physically
crush him or Gaeri.  Luke flung the saber in a long spinning arc.  The
big brown Ssi-ruu fell headless as the saber spun back into Luke's hand.
"Stop!" Weeping, Dev dashed toward the fallen alien.

Big Blue projected his beam through Luke again or, rather, where Luke
had been.  Luke somersaulted over the beam, thrust out a hand, and tried
to wrest the weapon away.

That pulled the Ssi-ruu's forelimb toward him.  The beam focused at the
top of Luke's right leg.

It collapsed, nerveless.  Staggering, Luke tried to jump backward.  He
struggled to balance, to regain full control of the Force.  The weapon
scrambled nerve centers, then.  Gaeriel was probably conscious.  "Artoo,
drag her out of here!" he cried.

As the little droid rolled toward her, both aliens pressed their
advantage.  They swept forward, backing him between beams against an
upturned table.  He caught a whiff of their weird acrid odor.

He leaped left-legged almost into one alien's arms and swept up the
saber.  As he did, he relaxed deep into the Force and spun without
thought.  The hum of his saber didn't change pitch as it sliced through
the blue giant's weapon.  Big Blue dropped both halves and backed away,
whistling energetically.

One more weapon down.  Artoo reached Gaeri, seized her by the leather
waistband of her belt, and dragged her toward the front door.  Luke
hopped crookedly onto the nearest orange tabletop.  His numb right leg
twisted as his full weight landed on it.  That `11 probably hurt, later.
He had to use the Force to stay upright.

Artoo's shrill whistle spun Luke around.  Dev aimed an Imperial blaster
upward at his body, a classic stun shot.

Luke loosened one hand from his saber and Forceyanked the blaster from
Dev's hand.  It sailed to him with slow grace.  Easily he spun and
sliced.  Two halves of the weapon clattered onto the table.  Now, urged
his inner sense.

He reached deep into the Force and felt for the hypnotic control that
twisted Dev Sibwarra to the aliens' will.  The shadow of something
enormous darkened most of Dev's memories.

The boy had tremendous strength in the Force, though.

Luke wrapped his will around the dark, roiling blockage and blasted it
with Light.

Dev tottered backward against another table.  In an instant, his mind
had flooded with horrific recollections.  His anger coalesced, small and
stunted but as fierce as a P'w'eck invasion army.  Disoriented, he
blinked.  The monstrous Skywalker had suddenly become fellow human.  He
didn't feel depressed, just furious.  He couldn't need renewal unless He
stared up at Skywalker, who still stood on the tabletop, and caught a
glint of keen eyes and the grim set of his chin.

Dev stroked his throbbing, clumsy left hand, remembering how he'd
injured it.  Firwirrung!  His master had bound him with tender loyalty
over years of abusive manipulation.

Dev opened his eyes wide to the world, forsaking his squint.

He'd never felt such agony or regret, yet so glad to be human.  Despite
everything they had done .  had done he was battered but whole.

`Are you all right?" whistled Bluescale.

A shiver shook him.  He remembered everything now, including the speech
habits he'd picked up during his imprisonment.  "I'm all right.  Are
you, Elder?"

"Tell the Jedi to hurry along with us.  Promise anything."

Realization flashed through him: The Ssi-ruuk meant to reduce humankind
to breeding animals and energy sources.

They would lie, kill, torture, and maim to achieve domination.  They
deserved nothing but hatred.

Luke Skywalker called down from the tabletop, "Hate is the dark side.
Don't give in to it."

Had the Jedi plunged him through depression into total release?

"What?" asked Master Firwirrung.  "What is he saying to you?"

Confused, Dev answered automatically.  "He apologized for killing one of
our kind, Master."

"Tell him to precede us outside.  He must hurry."

Dev looked back up.  In human speech, he said, "They want you t A
piercing siren echoed through the cantina.  Abruptly Dev remembered the
most terrible moment of his childhood, a civil defense scramble alarm.
Invasion under way.

He snapped back to the present and stared at his masters, stricken.  Had
Admiral lvpikkis attacked the orbiting ships after all?  He'd promised
that the Ssi-ruuk would withdraw if Skywalker came with them.  One more
link in their twisted chain of lies!

Luke glanced out the far window, thoughts roiling.  The Ssi-ruuk had
probably hit that big saucer-shaped orbital station.  That would've been
his first strike, if he were invading.  Beyond the fence surrounding Pad
12, the gantries hadn't roIled away, so he still couldn't see the
Millennium Falcon.  Chewie probably waited on board.  Han would be
trying to spring Leia from custody (or by now, Leia might be trying to
free Han).

Artoo rolled back in without Gaeriel.  He hoped Artoo had left her
somewhere safe.  And how badly had he wrenched his numbed leg?

Dev's confusion also worried him.  This young potential apprentice
carried deep scars on his psyche.  Yet he'd proved his strength.  His
sufferings under the darkness might make him more loyal to the light.
Luke glanced down at Dev again.

Abruptly the room tilted.  He flailed and fell.

Caught up in his own thoughts, Dev almost missed the swift sweep of
Bluescale's tail.  Struck on the head, the Jedi collapsed.  His
lightsaber flew loose, sliced through the table, and into black
flooring.  There it hung diagonally for an instant.  Then the pommel
dropped.  The green blade sliced back up and lay hiss-humming.

He stood motionless, maintaining the masquerade of obedience, but his
mind shrieked, Skywalkeri Can you hear me?

Bluescale stalked forward, pointing his beamer at Skywalker's upper
spinal cord.  Dev forced himself to hurry close and simper, "Well done,
Masters.  What can I do?  Is he stunned?"

"Mild concussion, I think," whistled Bluescale.  "The human skull is
surprisingly fragile.  You may carry him.  He seems subdued."

"Oh, thank you." Dev guessed at the right amount of enthusiasm to pump
into his voice.  He knelt and pulled Skywalker's arms over his shoulder.
Skywalker, he projected again, are you all right?

The Jedi did not answer.  The buzz of his thoughts had shut off.  He
must be truly unconscious, then.  The aliens had won .  .  .  for the
moment.  Dev struggled to his feet.  His anger boiled every time he
remembered another abuse.

They popped to the surface of his memory like foul bubbles.

He couldn't let the Ssi-ruuk win-and not just for the sake of the
galaxy.  They owed him a life.  A personality.  A soul.

"Good," said Bluescale.  "Now help Firwirrung."

Staggering already, Dev let the smaller alien lean on his shoulder.
Firwirrung wobbled forward, covering his wounded forelimb with the
intact foreclaw.  The double weight sent new spasms down Dev's weakened
back.  He bit his tongue.  He was supposed to be brainwashed.  The
Ssiruuk saw humankind, like P'w'ecks, as livestock experimental animals
soulless.

Bluescale bent and seized the lightsaber.  What about the female?  Dev
guessed Bluescale wouldn't want to carry her.

Skywalker's resistance had saved her, at least.  With only Dev able to
carry, the Ssi-ruuk wouldn't go looking for her.

They must even leave their beheaded comrade behind.

Bluescale led toward the kitchen doors, letting them swing back and bump
Dev He lost his balance and almost dropped his burden against a hot
cooking surface.  The ends of Skywalker's hair shriveled over its
intense heat.  By the time Dev had recovered his balance, the hissing
green blade had vanished.  Bluescale dropped the silent saber handgrip
into his shoulder pouch, clipped the pouch around his body again, and
proceeded between kitchen machines with his beamer drawn.  Firwirrung
stumbled against Dev Dev racked his memory for an appropriate reaction.
"Are you in pain, Master?" he asked softly.

The alien grunted.

Bluescale held the rear door for Firwirrung.  Outside under a pall of
spaceport dust stood the Imperial shuttle.

Those now-stunned stormtroopers had flown it to the Shriwirr, then
ferried the party planetside.  The sirens had taken effect; Pad 12 and
the others clustered around this cantina looked almost deserted.  Two
P'w'eck guards still stood beside the shuttle, hidden from observers by
its drooping wings.

"Help Dev secure the prisoner," Bluescale whistled.  Dev limped up the
ramp.  The Jedi's cylindrical droid attempted to roll up after him,
railing at them in Ssi-ruuvi.  Two P'w'ecks shoved it over the ramp's
edge.  It landed with a crash and a final impotent threat.  Dev pulled
Skywalker into' a rear seat, insisting to himself that he had not given
up hope.  The P'w'ecks snapped wistbinders onto the Jedi and then drew a
flight harness around him.  Unwatched for the moment, Dev checked again
through the Force for life presence.  Even unconscious, Skywalker's mind
seemed warmer, brighter, louder than other humans'.

What to do?  If the Ssi-ruuk worked their will on Skywalker, humankind
was doomed.

Dev clenched his hands.  That shot a paroxysm of pain up his left
forearm.  Was he strong enough to strangle the Jedi, while Firwirrung
and Bluescale tried to fly the human shuttle?

Perhaps he could, but he recoiled.  That would be a Ssiruuvi trick.
Skywalker was all Dev might have wished to be, if his mother had
survived to apprentice him to a master.  He couldn't kill Skywalkerxcept
at the last moment, to keep the Ssi-ruuk from absorbing him.

If that happened, Dev wouldn't have long to grieve for Skywalker.  The
Ssi-ruuk would kill him instantly.

Yet humankind would live free if he and Skywalker died.

Agonizing, he buckled into his own seat.

"How's it going up there?" Leia called softly.

"Almost through." Han perched on her reprogrammed repulsor chair
directly over the bed.  Delicately holding his vibroknife in one hand,
he cut a broad oval in the wooden ceiling panel.  A pale stream of
sweet-smelling sawdust fell glittering onto the white bedcover. "There!"
he exclaimed.

He struck the ellipse with the palrn of both hands, and it popped
upward, showering him with more dust.

"You're sure you can fit?" she asked.

The chair rose.  His head and shoulders vanished, then the rest of him.
A moment later, his head and arms reappeared.  "Looks good up here," he
said.  "Stand back." He touched the chair's controls.

It crashed onto the bed.  Leia gripped te blaster she'd stuck into her
belt and waited for a guard to open the hall door, but none did.  She
climbed onto the bed, muscled the chair upright again, then switched it
on.  She rose in stately grace toward the hole Han had cut, then seized
his arms and let him pull her through.  They left the chair hovering.

A crawl space crossed the building from end to end, its low sloping roof
tapering to both sides.  Dim daylight cast hazy rays in a large dusty
room at one end.  "Vents at each side," Han murmured.  "Speeders are
parked outside, around the corner to the right." He pointed toward the
light.

"Walk softly.  They'll hear you.

"No.  Seriously?" she asked, loading her voice with sarcasm.  She led
forward on hands and knees, careful to set her weight silently on beams
and joists.  This attic felt more ancient than any human habitation
she'd ever been in.  She made the right turn around a thick wooden
pillar, then crawled up to the vent.  "Knife?" she whispered over her
shoulder.

Han drew the vibroknife and sliced cautiously through the large vent's
snap bolts.  "You take that end," he directed.

"Pull it toward you."

She pried inward with her fingernails until it jutted out far enough to
grip, then together they pulled it free and set it silently in the dust
beside a desiccated pile of insectoid exoskeletons.  Han crouched,
peering out the new hole, almost invisible in his sooty camouflage.  She
crouched closer.

Several speeders sat halfway between the lodge and the outwall, with
five troopers lounging around them.  She eased sideways so she could see
and point a blaster out the hole at the same time.  He did the same.
"Ready?" she asked.

"Now," he whispered.  She squeezed her trigger.  Got one.

Got two.  Another fell.  The fourth and fifth dove behind a grounded
speeder.

"Here goes nothin'." Han plunged through.  Blaster bolts whined.  Leia
spotted the trooper shooting at Han and dropped him.  The other kept his
head down.  Han jumped up and ran for the near speeder.  A flash of
light clipped his left foot.

She leaped, rolled to break her fall, and then sprang to one side.
Another blaster bolt scorched the ground where she'd landed.  She
whirled around and shot back, but the trooper ducked.

The roar of a speeder caught her attention.  She zigzagged toward it and
scrambled on board, then grabbed an acceleration rail.  Something stank
like burnt boot leather.  Instantly, Han wrenched the throttle and
lifters.  They soared over the compound's walls.

"Did they get you?" she shouted over wind noise as moody green forest
passed underneath.  The view south stretched over foothills, city, and
emerald plains toward a hint of blue ocean.  Smoke rose from several
sources midcity.

"Don't think it burned through the sole," he answered tightly.  She eyed
his sooty, wind-whipped face and recognized pain.

She could do nothing till they reached the Falcon.  He was obviously
functioning.  "Life with you's never dull." She stroked his scratchy
chin.

He managed a smile.  "Couldn't have that," he called.  The wind blew his
words back at the forest.

Leia glanced away.  The speeder's roar seemed to change pitch.  No, it
was another one.  "Han-"

"We've got company," Han interrupted.  "Over there."

"There's one on my side, tono, three of them!"

They were surrounded.  "So it was a trap.  Han grimaced.

"They can shoot us down and get rid of us for good."

"Escaping arrest," Leia agreed aloud.

"Hang on!" Han spun the speeder in a tight arc back up into the
foothills.  Two more Imperial craft appeared in front of them.  Han
pulled back on the altitude control, climbing and turmng simultaneously.
Leia twisted around in her seat and fired at one speeder.  She felt like
a trapped animal with the pack closing in, and nothing to fight with but
her teeth and fingernails.

Her stomach swooped up through her midsection as Han flipped the speeder
through the top of the arc.  "No good," he shouted.  "They've got hot
military models." Something bright and noisy, a streak of laser-cannon
energy, passed beside them on the starboard side.

Shedding altitude at a dizzying pace, Han steered for the treetops.
"When I say jump, jump.  Hide behind some rocks or-"

"Han!" she exclaimed.  "Reinforcements!" A pair of tiny X-winged
silhouettes dropped out of the cloudy blue sky.

X-wing space fighters had twice the speed and firepower of those
landbased speeders.

Instantly Han pulled the speeder up again and pushed for altitude.  "The
minute they spot `em-"

Sure enough, the Imperials scattered.  "Wish we had a comlink," Leia
muttered.  "They almost act like somebody sent them here.  Maybe Luke?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," Han muttered.  He steered down the drainage
toward the wide river.  An X-wing swept into position at his three
o'clock, and the other came in at nine o'clock high.

Leia waved.  Inside the slanting cockpit, a slim blackgloved hand waved
back.

Their escort looked incongruous this close to a green planetary surface.
Leia recalled Yavin, and the hidden groundside Rebel base where she'd
waited for the first Death Star to attack.

Where the river curved southeast, just north of Salis D'aar, both
fighters soared again toward space.  "They don't want to be seen this
close to the city," Leia observed.  "It'd alarm the Bakurans."

"Glad somebody's thinking,' answered Han.

Thanks, Luke.  It was still just a guess, but Leia felt confident about
it.

"Shortest route to the Falcon is right through downtown," Han observed.
"If the locals try to stop us for violating curfew, they're going to
have a rough time."

Salis D'aar's ground routes, including a high bridge connecting the
white cliff with the western side of the broad river, teemed with slow
vehicleprobabW families moving their worldly goods north into the
mountains, curfew or no curfew.  Leia wished momentarily that they could
stop by the complex.  She hated leaving the Ewoks' bracelet behind, but
it wasn't worth risking her life.

They met little air traffic.  "Anybody who could fly out already did,"
Han guessed.

"Where are the droids?"

"Artoo's probably still in Captison;s office." Then he explained what
he'd done with Threepio.

She laughed, picturing his arrival at the Falcon.  "I only hope Chewie
didn't blast him before he spoke u

"He's got my comlink.  I'm sure he took care of himse Shreds of dusty
smoke covered the spaceport from hundreds of blastoffs. Han steered down
into the murk and landed practically on top of the Falcon.  It wasn't
guarded, except by one lone Wookiee.  "Where's Threepio?" Leia
exclaimed.

Chewbacca snorted and snarled.  "You what?" Han answered.  "Chewie,
we've got to dump his Flutie-talk program ojito the Falcon's computer!"

Chewbacca howled, sounding apologetic.

"Yeah, I should've.  Well, fix him up."

Chewie had blasted him.  Too late for regrets.  Leia dashed up the ramp
behind Chewbacca.  "I hope it's fueled," she exclaimed as she dropped
into her high-backed seat.

Chewbacca bellowed.  "Topped up and ready for a trip to the Core," Han
translated as he hobbled into the cockpit.

"Do what you can for Threepio, Chewie.  Leia, strap down."

Leia's seat began to vibrate.  The engines' roar mounted.

"Chewie, wait!  Any new modifications?" Han shouted.

His partner woo-woofed from behind her.

"Oh." Han sounded appreciative.  "That should come in handy.  Where did
you patch it in?"

Chewie reappeared in the corridor, rolled his eyes at the overhead
panels, then answered.

"You sliced out what?"

"Now what?" Leia asked.

"Ah, he got a Bakuran tech to give us more power to energy shields, but
that increased the hyperdrive multiplier.

As soon as we're out of here," he insisted, leveling a finger at Chewie,
"that goes back to specs.  My specs."

All Leia wanted now was speed insystem.  "Falcon's coming up," she
snapped.  "Let's move it."

CHAPTER 17

ow the left leg."

Obediently Gaeriel wiggled her toes.

The Imperial medic frowned, pressed Gaeri's head back with inexorable
professional gentleness, and reexamined the faint burn across the hollow
of her throat.

"Some kind of nervous-system ionization, I suppose.  That's what I'll
put on the report."

She coughed.  "May I go now?"

"I'm sorry.  We've been asked to keep you here a little longer, under
observation."

"What's going on?  I heard a siren."

"They've struck at the orbital stan on."

Then it had begun.  She gazed around the bare room.

Four white walls and a distant ceiling, no windows, one door.  The
emergency patrol had brought her back to the complex on a repulsor
stretcher.  Before that, her most vivid memory was of Luke advancing
toward four armored stormtroopers.  Then the civil defense alarm.  Then
the droid dragged her outdoors to safety, and she'd lain alone for a
long, long time, until the emergency patrol reached the cantina.  By
then, Skywalker and the Ssi-ruuk had vanished in the Imperial shuttle .
and she could almost move again.

But it was over, humankind doomed.  They'd taken Luke.

She couldn't imagine even a Jedi with enough power to singlehandedly
resist whatever they hoped to do with him.  Would they try to make him a
superdroid?  Maybe they would fail.

But even if they didn't, she'd rather die here on Bakura than a
Ssi-ruuvi prisoner.  Her depression hardened to resolve.  Nothing and no
one could threaten her now.

The medic slipped out.  Gaeri slid down from the bed and limped to the
door.  All her muscles seemed functional again, but her movements lagged
behind her intentions.  She touched the door's sensor panel.

Locked.

They couldn't mean to hold her here long.  The room didn't even have Now
that she'd thought about comfort facilities, she wished she hadn't.  She
considered Eppie, running a revolt from a keyboard in a shabby
appartment.

Would she have time?  The Bakur complex sprawled across the heart of
Salis D'aar, with dozens of entrances: How did she mean to get control
of it or did she?  She only needed control of Wilek Nereus.  Commander
Thanas and the space forces were already offplanet, defending Bakura Her
thoughts spun to a dejected halt.  There'd be no defense against the
Ssi-ruuk now.

The door opened.  Two naval troopers stepped through.

"Come," ordered one.

Gaeriel followed him past a medical station and up a hallway.  Soon she
realized where they were taking her, and she resisted the temptation to
bolt.  She'd always managed to avoid Governor Nereus's private office.
She'd heard disturbing rumors.  And then there were Nereus's subtle
attentions.

The lead trooper opened the governor's door and motioned her inside. She
walked in calmly.  Better to die on Bakura, but die fighting.

Governor Nereus sat at a desk with a polished, off-white surface.  Faint
brownish veins on it made concentric circles, like tree rings, but it
didn't look like wood.  He silently motioned her to a chair and watched
the troopers leave.

A framed tri-D on the nearest wall caught her attention first: a huge,
snarling carnivore.  Its four long white fangs looked eerily
substantial.

"The Ketrann," said Nereus.  "Of Alk'lellish III."

"The teeth.  Are they real?"

"Yes.  Look around you."

Above and beyond the tri-D hung others like it, with here and there a
simply arrayed full set of teeth.  his is your collection, then?"

"Predator species.  I have seventeen worlds, including the Bakuran
Cratsch." He tapped a clear cube at one corner of his desk.  "On that
wall-" He pointed left at another set of tri-D images.  "Intelligent
aliens." She thought of the Wookiee Chewbacca's huge canines and
frowned.  "And the most dangerous predator." He tossed her a
multifaceted crystal.  Inside gleamed two pair of human incisors.

She wanted to throw it at him, but resisted.  She might cause more
effective damage later.  "I hope you can add a set of Ssi-ruu teeth
soon." She tried to sound cool.

"Yes, interesting that they have beaks with teeth." He cleared his
throat.  "I prefer taking specimens from individuals I have hunted down
myself, of course.  The Rebel princess seems to have left my hospitality
for the moment.  She must be punished for defying orders.  My dental
specialist is not gentle."

Fiend, she thought at him.  She'd play along, and she'd be the snake in
his picnic basket for now, but Wilek Nereus would pay for his crimes.
She swallowed hard to choke down a cough.  This was the wrong time to
catch a virus.  He opened his hand, and she tossed back the crystal.

"Admirable diplomacy, Senator.  Outstanding reserve under pressure.  Did
you get a good look at the weapon they shot you with?"

Gaeriel described it while Nereus passed the crystal from hand to hand.
As she finished, she thought of Eppie Belden again.  If this Ssi-ruuk
attack failed, Eppie would need another opportunity.  "Governor, please
reconsider allowing a public funeral for Senator Belden.  Bakura need"

"It does not need any more public gatherings.  No.  The curfew stands."
He stared, abruptly giving her the impression he was waiting for
something.

"What did the Empire do to Madam Belden?" she asked, to distract him.

He arched a thick eyebrow.  "Did the Empire do something to her?  Let me
check my records." His fingers skated over an inset desktop panel. Gaeri
leaned forward.  "What do you think of my desk?" he asked.  "A single
slab of tooth ivory."

That was a tooth?  A meter and a half in diameter, it implied a
monstrous mouth.  "Sea-going creature?" she asked at a guess.  The urge
to cough was getting stronger.

Nereus nodded.  "Now extinct.  Here we are.  Ah." He smiled slowly.
"Madam Belden was scheduled for termination.  Her husband agreed to
permanent incapacitation as the price of keeping her companionship."

Gaeriel clenched her hands.  Orn Belden had .  agreed to let the Empire
.  .  .  ?  She didn't want to believe it.

She was suddenly thankful Orn Belden had died, so she couldn't ask him
if it were true.

"And evidently she submitted to protect him.  Oh, yes," he added,
studying his screen.  "1 had forgotten specifics.  We used a tiny
creature native to the Jospro sector, which parasitizes the neocortex of
the brain.  It scars the region, suppressing long-tem memory to a
comfortably moderate extent.  Easy and painless to introduce, and she
and her husband could go on keeping company.  Quite the loving couple,
for their age.  Go ahead and cough, my dear.  Your forehead is turning
pink."

"I don't need to." She gulped.

He folded his hands on the ivory desktop.  "How much of that meal did
you share with Commander Skywalker?"

The pit of her stomach turned to lead.  That meal "What do you mean?"
she asked.

He flipped one hand.  The gesture looked careless and calculating, but
his fingers quivered.  "When Skywalker's apartment guards reported that
you'd gone inside, I naturally began tracing signals attributed to your
ID number.  I intercepted your request for a meal, sent to your quarters
good try, my dear, but you failed.  I had the main dish inoculated at
the kitchens.  Your actions, like your questions, mark you as a Rebel
collaborator."

What had Nereus done?  Was she going to die?  Was Luke?

Surely he wouldn't have told her what he'd done, if he simply meant to
kill her.  Once she'd steadied herself, she asked numbly, "What is it?
Another parasite?"

He smiled slowly.  "The Olabrian Trichoid lays pods of three eggs in
ripening fruit.  Larvae hatch in a host's stomach, then migrate to the
lungs while the host sleeps.  They remain there for a day or two, while
they grow and the mouthparts develop.  Then they start nibbling toward
the heart.  That takes a varying length of time, depending on the host's
size and physical condition.  They pupate in a nice, large pool of
slowly clotting blood-You're pale, my dear.  Would you like to put your
head down?"

She seemed to feel something growing inside her.

"Don't worry.  The larva is extremely susceptible to pure oxygen. You're
almost instantly curable-for about the next hour." He touched a key on
his desktop.  "Medic.  Bring kit cee-dee twelve."

"So I got it instead of Skywalker?" At least Luke stood c" chance, up
there.

"No," he said mildly.  "Remember, three eggs in each pod.

He definitely carries two.  I had wondered about the third egg.  Be
proud of your friend, Gaeriel.  Through him, the Ssiruuvi fleet may
become infested.  I can almost guarantee that no natural predators of
Olabrian Trichoids travel with the Ssi-ruuk.  If we can hold them off
for one day, we have won.

The door slid open.  Her medic hurried through, carrying a breath mask,
a pony bottle, and a specimen jar.  "This will only take a minute,
Gaeriel." Nereus folded his hands on his desktop.  "Cooperate with the
medic."

She eyed the bottle, wondering what it held besides oxygen.  "Only if
you breathe it first."

Nereus shrugged.  "I'll take some of that, if you don't mind," he told
the medic.  After he'd drawn two deep breaths, he smiled toothily. "Your
turn, Gaeriel."

She waited until the medic sterilized the mask before she let him press
it to her face.  The gas had no odor.  She inhaled again, then stared up
at the medic's eyes.  "Keep it up," he said, "until you Abruptly she
gagged.  The medic held the mask down firmly.  She choked, shut her
eyes, and spit out something awful.  Then she staggered backward to her
seat as the medic dumped something out of the mask into the jar.  She
felt queasy.  Luke, she moaned silently.  Just as she'd feared, he might
die before the Ssi-ruuk could use him.  Perhaps Nereus had saved
humankind, after all-but at what cost?

Now that he was doomed, she regretted every harsh word.

"Bravely done." Nereus clapped his fingertips.  "Naturally, it is
inconvenient that you know what happened to Madam Belden."

Gaeriel concentrated on swallowing.  "Perhaps not, Go" ernor.  Some
kinds of knowledge need to be disseminated, if you mean to frighten
people with them."

`Well played, indeed!  I like you better and better.  Once we defeat the
Rebels, I may pardon you.  I may go so far as to make room for you on my
personal staff.  But you've known that I'd like that all along.  Haven't
you?" He rested his chin on one hand.

Repulsed, she gripped her knees.  "May I have a drink of water?"

He called for one.  Once she'd sipped it, and the medic had left
carrying his specimen jar, she said, "1 understand there's going to be a
battle.  May I observe from your war room?"

"No need to go anywhere." He fiddled with his desk console.  A small but
detailed hologram of near space appeared over his desk.  He bent down,
reached into a desk compartment, and raised a sealed bottle of namana
nectar.

"To celebrate the Imperial victory," he said with a flourish.

Celebrate, she echoed bitterly, vowing not to taste it.  Her throat
burned already.

Dev's heart rate accelerated as they approached the orbiting Imperial
defense web.  This time, no Imperial troopers on board would guide them
through it.  Peering out the shuttle's main viewport, Dev could see
slower shuttles docking with orbiting ships.  Humans were scrambling for
battle.  Directly in front of him, Bluescale, Firwirrung, and the others
warbled among themselves.  They sat on the shuttle's deck, curled around
the front seats.

If human fighterships blasted this shuttle, that would settle the matter
of Skywalker.  Still, he doubted it would happen below the defense web.
All the defenders would be looking outward, trying to keep Ssi-ruuvi
gunships from breaking through to the planet's surface.  Besides, this
craft looked like any other Imperial ship, shuttling its crew to an
orbiting cruiser.

Something flashed in front of them.  An instant later, pieces of one
human fighter blasted out of the flash zone.  It must've been
maneuvering to attack them.  Through the new gap in the defense web
poured squadron after squadron of battle droids, opening an alley to the
Shriwirr.  Human fighters swooped in and started picking them off, but
the battle droids kept coming.  Dev guessed that Admiral lvpikkis would
have launched simultaneous strikes at several points, to direct the
defenders' attention away from this shuttle.

Once Skywalker lay helpless and Firwirrung pulled the main switch, they
could entech humans from nearby ships, and even planetside, and energize
all the battle droids they could need to complete the invasion.  Through
his inner vision stabbed the agonizing memory of lying on that table
himself.  He glanced at the motionless Jedi.

"Dev?" Firwirrung's huge black eye appeared over the back of his seat.
"Are you all right?  You don't look happy."

"Oh," Dev exclaimed hastily, wishing Ssi-ruuvi faces showed readable
expressions.  "I'm concerned for your wound, Master.  He had no right to
do that to you.

Firwirrung blinked triple eyelids.  "It is a wound of honor.

But our prisoner does not seem to please you."

Dev's fingers twitched.  If he betrayed his state of mind, they'd renew
him instantly.  Worse, they'd separate him from Skywalker.  The perfect
answer sprang late into his mind.

`He hurt you, Master."

Firwirrung slowly nodded.  "I see." He turned and whistled something too
softly to understand.

The Jedi gave every impression of unconsciousness, slumped with his
mouth hanging open.  Dev ran a hand over his head.  From warmth in the
Force he found where Bluescale had struck him.  It was healing already.
Again doubt clamored at him.

Skywalker?  Dev thought tentatively.  Are you aware?  Can I help you?
What can I do?  His only answer was the pulse of the galaxy.

Dev bit off a fingernail.  A flight of battle droids flashed upward past
the shuttle.  Defending it, he realized.  He could almost picture
Admiral lvpikkis stroking one thumbclaw with the other.

Entechment circuitry worked only on conscious individuals.  There would
be a few seconds, at least.  You 11 have to move quickly, he thought
hard at the helpless Jedi.  They're not going to create any openings.

Entechment.  He shuddered.  He'd longed to escape his own will.  He'd
cooperated with his own enslavement.  He'd hoped to share it with all
humankind.  He glared at the back of Bluescale's head.

The Shriwirr's underside swept across the viewport.  The idea of licking
Ssi-ruuvi footclaws again, for any length of time, made him bristle-but
it wouldn't last long.  Soon he'd be free or dead, or both.

Metal blast doors closed behind them.  Seconds later, the shuttle landed
roughly on the deck of a docking bay.

Skywalker did not flinch.

Dev stayed in his seat while medics helped Firwirrung out the nose ramp.
He caught himself drumming his fingers, and pressed his palms flat to
make himself stop it.  A brainwashed slave showed no anxiety.

The medic's scaly head peered back up the ramp.  "Unconscious?" he
whistled.

"Minor head injury," answered Dev "1t has kept him immobile.

The medic made a disgusted clacking noise.  "Our knowledge of human
anatomy is limited.  We'll need you to stay with him."

Chilled, Dev realized they might cut him apart to see how Skywalker was
built.  "Here, Master," he said.  "Let me carry him."

"Good," grunted the Ssi-ruu.  "We only brought one stretcher."

Dev unharnessed himself, then Skywalker, then cautiously ran a hand over
the injured spot.  At least, he thought it was the spot.  All evidence
had faded.  It took him several minutes of fumbling in a crouched
position, battling fettered arms and dangling legs and the weight of the
Jedi's compact, muscular body, before he reached the open hatch.

Clustered around the shuttle in an immense landing bay, a dozen Ssi-ruuk
stood waiting.  Dev forced a grin, expecting a cheer.  Silent instead,
they watched him struggle.  His deck shoes clicked down the ramp.  They
probably enjoyed the spectacle of one human slave, bearing the fate of
humankind on his shoulders.

Staggering under his load, Dev followed the medic across the landing
bay, then between the bulkheads of a cargo airlock, and then up a long,
bright corridor.  He heard a clacklack behind him and wondered how many
followed.

Things looked more and more hopeless.  He almost wished he had strangled
the Jedi while he had the opportunity.

No, he didn't.  Not while there was one chance of saving him.  He'd
found a friend, after all these years living with enemies.  For
reawakening his humanity, he owed the Jedi a chance to fight.

Up a lift, around several corners, toward the entechment lab.  It ought
to be nightshift-dim by now, but the yellow overhead light tubes burned
at full brilliance.  Dev stumbled and almost dropped his burden.
"Carefully!" snapped a voice behind him.

"Yes, Master." It wasn't difficult to sound exhausted and repentant.  "I
didn't mean to.  He's all right." Dev's back might not be, though.  He
took penitential satisfaction in that pain.

He followed the medic inside the spacious lab.  The new entechment
platform bed stood against a bulkhead near the old, standard chair.  Now
he dared to turn around.  Two others followed in.  The rest would stand
guard.

Firwirrung already waited beside the control panel, assisted by another
medic and by two P'w'ecks.  That made five Ssi-ruuk and two servants
against Dev and one unconscious Jedi.  "Ah.  Dev," whistled Firwirrung.
"You are strong Well done."

Manipulative prisse: Now he recognized it.  Clinging to the hope
Skywalker was conscious, Dev let him slide to the - ground.  "No,"
exclaimed Firwirrung.  "The new apparatus will hold him upright.  Here,
I shall help you.

Dev crouched and raised Skywalker over his shoulder again.  Now's the
time!  he exclaimed.  Theyll have you trapped, if you don't move now!
Skywalker did not respond.  Souowing, Dev steadied the Jedi.  A medic
released his wristbinders and Firwirrung pressed him against the table.
Restraints snapped around his ankles and waist, but his arms dangled
away from the trip panels.  Firwirrung pushed them into place.  The bed
tipped backward with its captive.

The hatch slid open.  Dev turned, then froze in place.

Bluescale swept in, shut the hatchway behind him, and then marched to
Dev's side.  "The Jedi human will be unconscious for some time, you
guess?"

Dev spread his hands.  Ssi-ruuk used the empty-claw gesture for
confusion, too.  "It will be difficult to wait, Elder."

Bluescale turned his massive head to fix Dev with one hypnotic black
eye, then whistled what Dev had dreaded to hear.  "You are in desperate
need." Two other aliens slithered toward him, beamers drawn.

"Wait," exclaimed Firwirrung.  "Dev has served us well.

Let us reward him." He stroked the old entechment chair.

"Sit down, Dev There is time.  I will place the IVs and lower the
catchment arc myself, exactly as I promised."

Dev's tongue felt like pillow stuffing.  His fawning hadn't convinced
any of them.  How hideously had he acted all these years?

"Don't you smell yourself?" Bluescale sang softly.

So that was how they'd caught him.  Seizing his last free moment, he
jumped for Skywalker.  His good hand and his aching one closed on the
helpless Jedi's throat.  "I need nothing," he cried.  "You'll never-"

Lights went out in the chamber.  Words died on his tongue.

CHAPTER 18

The weak-minded little P'w'eck Luke had been controlling honked
confusion with the rest of them, ealizing its tail had crushed the
control board and extinguished cabin lights.  Luke only hoped that he'd
also disabled the abominable alien machines.  He could tell the aliens
from Dev by their presences, even in the dark.

One potent individual tramped toward a power-locked hatchway.

Luke had already unlatched his bonds with the Force.

Easily throwing off Dev, he leaped down.  His head no longer hurt, but
his right leg had no feeling.  He leaned left.

"Dev," he cried, "get under something.  They'll trample you."

"Right!" Dev's voice sounded giddy with elation.

Feeling Dev shift between determination and fear had been the hardest
part of staying still for the last several minutes.  He wished he hadn't
given up his blasterr else that he had another, to arm Dev.

From a safe spot near the bulkhead, Luke stretched out his right hand
and visualized his lightsaber.  It had to be close.  Less than a second
later, its satisfying weight arrived.

"Are you down, Dev?" he cried over the cacophony of deep Ssi-ruuvi
whistles.

Muffled answer: "Yes."

"Good." Luke extended the saber's blade.  The chamber lit eerie green,
and the aliens' alarmed whistles rose to shrieks.

Two black eyes reflected the saber a moment before it sliced below them.
Another alien bellowed.  Luke spun and decapitated it.

Big Blue-it was him, at the hatch-finally kicked it in and escaped.
Another followed him into the bright corridor.

"Now what?" Dev shouted.

"Stay low!" Three mechanical shapes that resembled Artoo appeared in the
hatchway.  The first droid rushed him.

He sliced it diagonally with the saber and reached for the others with
the Force.  They weren't true droids, but marginally alive.  One fired a
pair of stun bolts at him.  He deflected one bolt back toward his
attacker and the other at its partner.  Both overloaded and switched
off-but the weird stench in the Force, like the presence of a soul half
decayed, only faded slightly.  He'd caught the same stench from the
battle droids, and the ship itself.  The cruiser reeked in his senses,
permeated with stolen human energies.  It might burn heavy fusionables
for ordnance and thrust, but its control systems had to be powered in
the hideous Ssi-ruuvi way.

Dev crept out from behind the grim chair.  Glimmers of dark side energy
lingered around it from thousands of victims' terrorized agony.  "You
all right?" Luke asked.

Dev's pale brown skin looked olive green by the saber's light, and he
gripped a paddle beamer with both hands.

"That was wonderful."

It wasn't too soon to launch Dev's apprenticeship.  "Two of your
Ssi-ruuk died."

t,..

"1 know," he groaned, "but how else-"

"ExactW.  You have to fight, but you mustn't like it." He hoped Yoda
didn't laugh aloud, hearing him say that.

Dev chewed his upper lip.  "Now what?"

"Stand back." Luke spun on his strong leg and sliced once, twice, three
times through the chair and its dangling machinery, then again through
the upright table.  Pieces crashed to the deck, denting its tiles.  He
returned the saber to rest salute position.  "Are there more labs like
this?"

He felt Dev wilt, eyes haunted and wide.  "Theyve nearly completed
another thirty."

Thirty) "It'd take us too long to ruin that many.  No more operational?"

"Not that I know of.  And I assisted with

"We'll assume this is the only one, then." Perspiration ran down Luke's
face, even with his mind relaxed into the Force.  "Are onboard control
systems powered by human energies too?"

Dev's frown deepened.  "I don't know.  I'd never thought about it.  It's
possible."

"1 can feel it.  Can you take me to the engineering sector?"

"Yes."

Holding the saber low, Luke sidestepped toward the outer bulkhead.  He
slid along it and peered into the corridor.  "There are six more droids
active out there, but no Ssiruuk."

"They're scared to death of you."

"Why?"

"They don't want to die off one of their home worlds.

That's why they force slaves and P'w'ecks to do all their fighting." Dev
edged up behind him and whispered, "Be careful."

`Just stay behind me." About to relax into full control, Luke realized
he was already there.  He stepped into the hatchway, holding his saber
ready.  An energy bolt sizzled toward him.  Dev cried out and jumped
back.  Luke's saber swept up and returned the energy.  The droid
sputtered dead.

One down.  The other five were undoubtedly programmed to fire
simultaneously) came the blasts.

Luke's saber whirled.  The droids dropped, smoking and throwing sparks.

Dev whistled soft admiration.

"I'll teach you to do that." Luke's right leg tingled and ached.  He
must've wrenched it worse than he thought when he jumped onto that
table.

"Do it soon," Dev said earnestly.  "1 want what you have.

"Engineering deck first," Luke murmured, satisfied.  Dev's
apprenticeship looked official.  "Stay close behind me."

They crept up a bright corridor.  "Left," Dev whispered.

Luke whirled across the passage to draw the fire of anyone guarding it.
Unchallenged, he pressed on, calmly listening in front and behind, using
the Force to refresh tiring muscles and take the bite off increasing
pain in his right leg.

"Now right," Dev whispered.  "Drop shaft."

Luke shook his head.  ``We'd be helpless inside.  That big blue one's
probably still on board.  Are the decks connected by stairs?"

"Ssi-ruuk can't use stairs," Dev murmured.  "Neither can P'w'ecks, the
smaller ones.

"More slaves?" His voice caught, and he cleared his throat.

"Yes."

The Ssi-ruuk would probably never accept other races as equals.  "Any
other links between decks?"

"1 don't know," Dev admitted.  "I've only used power lifts."

Luke stretched out into the invisible world again.  A web of weak living
energy surrounded them, punctuated here and there by the brighter
Force-gleams of sentient beings.

He found a vertically sizeable empty area ahead.  "Come on, he murmured.
Unable to find a hatchway, he cut a way in through the bulkhead.  A
spiral ramp, cramped for humans bviousW designed for P'w'eck or droid
use-led up and down.  It sounded and felt empty.

"Go ahead," Luke whispered.  Dev pushed one leg through, then his head,
then he vanished into the rampway.

Luke followed.  Dev pointed downward, so Luke led down into the spiral
ramp.  His right leg didn't bend easily.  The muscles tightened and
stayed tight.  Behind him, Dev's pain sense echoed: He'd injured his
back and left hand.

Dozens, maybe hundreds, of souls must be slaved to the Shriwirr's
drcuitry.  He couldn't bring even one back to life but perhaps he could
release a few of them to rest peacefully.

After a long hunched walk, Luke asked through gritted teeth, "How far
down is Engineering?"

"Eighteenth deck." Dev indicated a symbol on the bulkhead beside a
narrow hatchway.  "We're at the seventeenth, now.

Luke led around several more turns of the shaft, then paused at a
hatchway.  "Here?"

"This is it."

Luke felt inside the circuits on the other side of the hatch.

Again he found a center of life energy set to power nonliving circuitry.
He sent a pulse of excitement into shreds of human will.

The hatch slid open.

He stumbled out, saber ready, into another empty corridor.  As Dev
sprinted past him, he spun around and sliced into the power center.  The
tortured sense of tethered presence winked out.

One more freed.

Dev examined writing on a bulkhead.  "I think this is it," he said
softly.

"You haven't been down here before?"

Dev shrugged.  "No."

"All right." From behind another bulkhead, the half-dead Force stench
wafted out.  Luke was about to step under an illuminated arch when he
caught a glimmer above it.  He leaped backward.

"What is it?" Dev asked.

Luke traced power flow up a bulkhead, overhead, then down the other
side.  "1 don't know," he answered, "but the life power is linked to a
strong amplifier." He sliced a flap off the breast of his tunic, dropped
it onto the deck, then blew on it.  It skittered forward.

Sizzling blue energy burned it to charcoal.

Sh'tk'with's blue foreclaws framed the security board.

"There," he exclaimed to the P'w'ecks behind him.  "We've found them.
Stun trap outside Engineering.

He flipped a coil.  "Progress?" he asked Firwirrung, who was working
frantically in a second lab.

"Finished," answered his colleague.  "1t won't keep the Jedi alive as
long as the original would have, but I'll make another, better, before
he deteriorates too far."

Although wounded, Firwirrung seemed determined to atone for his
disaster.  He and his P'w'eck aides had completed a secondary table from
one nearly finished chair and spare parts, a fresh means to start
harvesting immediatelyif Sh'tk'with could subdue the Jedi.  Victory
still beckoned.

Sh'tk'with called Admiral lvpikkis's lifeboat over an outside coil.
"We're about to close in on them.  I left three gangs of P'w'ecks under
full compulsion on Deck Sixteen.  I predict we can start launching
battle droids the moment we succeed."

"Good," came his answer.  Ssi-ruuvi picket ships still surrounded the
Shriwirr, protecting it under Admiral Ivpikkis's command.  "All our
other cruisers have launched their full complement," lvpikkis sang.

"Firwirrung thinks he may be able to combine Sibwarra's energies with
the Jedi's."

"Hold both of them alive.  You may exact a pride price on Sibwarra once
we take Bakura."

Sh'tk'with yanked off his shoulder pouch.  Hefting his beamer, he
whistled at his cowering P'w'ecks.  "Follow!"

Han had his hands full getting the Millennium Falcon where Commander
Thanas wanted her, and the Ssi-ruuk had moved nine picket ships into
engagement vectors.  The Falcon dipped and dove while he chased down
droid fighters and poured energy into their miserably strong shields.

They came at him so thickly that he managed to fry a few with the
Falcon's engine blast.  Chewbacca was trying to fix Threepio, and Leia
kept the lower turret hot.  But where was Luke?  "Somewhere in space,"
Leia had insisted.  "But not on board the Fluny," they'd heard from
Tessa Manchisco.

Three TIE fighters swooped overhead.  Han balled his fists.  Those TIEs
might be on his side, but he didn't trust Commander Thanas one minute
longer than the Fluties lasted.  Caught in the middle of an invasion
maneuver, the aliens weren't even using their trooper scooper-no sign of
tractor beams anywhere.  One big Ssi-ruuvi vessel had already launched a
dozen landing craft.  Sluggish and underpowered, those had made a poor
first ring of offense.  He couldn't tell if the Imperials' new DEMP guns
were working, but he wanted one.

His vector took him close to a big Flutie cruiser, one of three slowly
moving in on Bakura.  Eerie two-tone jamming mornentarily drowned out
offship communications.  "Any progress?" he asked Chewie over the
private comlink.

Chewie howled an affirmative.  "Good.  Hurry it up.  Leia, where's
Luke?"

"Right there!  On board that big cruiser." Leia's voice, carried on both
of Han's headphone channels, seemed to sound between his ears.
"Quick-put out word to our forces that it's not to be attacked."

The cruiser they'd just passed under?  Han switched extra power into
rear deflectors and dodged fire from its picket ships, then blasted one
picket to atorns.  "What's he doing there?"

"I can't tell," Leia answered.

"Lookit that," someone exclaimed, once he could hear the intersquad
frequency again.  Shuttles and escape pods popped off the Ssi-ruuvi
cruiser like snap rivets from a stressed coolant vane.

"You were right," Han observed to Leia.  "Luke's in there."

Luke eyed the charred shred of fabric.  "They're none too sure of
security."

"Stun trap," said Dev.  "It'll put down a Ssi-ruu, right through that
hide.  I think it'd kill you or rne."

Luke located the power link at shoulder height on a gray bulkhead, just
out of saber reach beyond the arch.  Because life created the Force,
every circuit that used this unclean energy was easy to find and
control-and he was getting better at it as he went.  He touched this one
gingerly with his mind and found a weak, exhausted will supplying power.

Tired as he was, his first impulse was pity.  Quickly and cautiously he
showed it what he needed.  Then he offered release.  The will seemed to
blink.

"Quick, Dev!" Luke jumped through the arch.  Brandishing his paddle
beamer, Dev followed.  Blue energies singed his flapping hem.

Luke hesitated.  "Just a minute." He must keep his promise.  Carefully
he flicked his lightsaber into circuitry.  The pitiful will touched his
mind, leaving gratitude as it fled.

The stun traps occurred at six-meter intervals.  Luke chafed at each
delay, and each energy required a different persuasion.  As he tired,
his sense of urgency grew stronger.

They reached a junction.  Their corridor went forward, slowly curving to
the right, but another narrower opening branched right sharply.  A
yellow light rod gleamed down the center of its arched ceiling.  Across
the main corridor from that junction, a wide metal hatchway loomed shut.

Ambush, Luke's senses shouted.  Cautiously he stepped around the corner
to the right, pressed against the bulkhead, then turned to listen behind
the broad metal hatch.

He thought he felt someone Dev's choked cry whirled Luke around in time
to see the broad hatch shoot up into the ceiling.  A P'w'eck leaped
through, seized the boy from behind, and brandished a claw at his
throat.  Dev ducked and fired his paddle beamer over one shoulder.  The
P'w'eck collapsed, leaving a thin trail of red blood across Dev's neck.

Guided by his subconscious, Luke whirled and slashed behind him.  Two
more P'w'ecks had appeared as if from thin air.  They fell wounded and
shrieking, but others lurked in an opening where he'd seen no hatchway.
They pelted him with diffuse blue blaster bolts.  They were still
shooting to stun.  His saber deflected bolts onto bulkheads and alien
flesh.  Dev cried out and fell to the deck.  Luke hadn t seenor
feknything hit him.  "Dev?" he shouted.

The massive blue Ssi-ruu dove toward Luke through the broad hatch,
warbling and whistling.  It fired a steady silver beam.  Dodging, Luke
raised his saber and bent the beam toward a P'w'eck in the narrow
hatchway.  It collapsed, forelimbs flailing.  The blue one came on
across the junction, watching Luke but not the deck.  From up the
curving corridor, Dev crawled on elbows and knees toward the blue giant.
Luke dove across the yellow-lit hall and ducked the silver beam.  The
blue's will daunted him, even from a distance.  It rnight not perceive
the Force, but in Luke's senses it cast a huge dark shape with the same
savor that tainted Dev's memory-crippling shadow.

Dev lunged up from the deck.  From behind Big Blue, he fired his paddle
beamer into the base of its tail.  The alien twisted its upper body
toward Dev and fell limp legged.

Luke dashed forward, brandishing his saber.  Ducking the silvery beam,
Dev pressed his paddle to Blue's head and fired.  The creature honked,
then screamed.  The scream ended in a gurgle.  Dev zigzagged his beamer
across its head.

Clattering noises retreated up both curving corridors.  Luke relaxed,
coughing a little.  Deep in his throat, something tickled.

Dev sat down on Big Blue's flank and kicked it.  When it didn't move, he
cradled his left hand under one arm and let his beamer dangle.  "1 faked
that hit.  It seemed safer to play dead than to go on fighting," he
rasped, panting.  "I didn't seem to be helping you at all." The trickle
across his throat was darkening.  Luke touched the wound.  "It's not
deep," Dev insisted.  "Just a claw mark."

Big Blue lay still except for a narrow black tongue that drooped,
quivering, from one nostril.  "Is he stunned?" Luke asked.

"Dead." Dev stared up into his eyes.

Luke saw pain, guilt, and triumph.  "Who was that?"

"He controlled me." Dev stared at the gray deck tiles.  "But Firwirrung
was my master-the small brown with the V on his head, the one whose
foreclaw you cut off.

to power their Firwirrung is the really dangerous one.  We're all dead
if he catches you.  Everyone.  Everywhere."

"Why?  He didn't seem to be in charge."

"No, but he runs the entechments.

"Have they always enteched droids?"

"They've enteched older P'w'ecks for centuries.  But humans last
longer," Dev explained.  "He means to force you to entech other humans
from a distance.  The Ssi-ruuk want to enslave the whole galaxy.  There
are I don't know how many more ships, waiting out there to hear when
Bakura falls."

"This is just a scout force?" Luke asked, alarmed.

Dev nodded, and Luke sensed his shame.  "Believe me, Firwirrung's ready
for you.

He'd helped.  So that was the story, at last.  Luke shut his eyes.  No
wonder Dev had tried to strangle him, rather than let the Ssi-ruuk have
their way.  "Well." Luke choked another cough.  "Let's get the job done
before more of them show up."

"Are you all right?"

Luke coughed again That reptilian odor irritated his nostrils and
throat.  "Something I'm breathing must bother me.  I guess you're used
to it.  Come on, let's go."

Engineering was a jumble of controls and conduits, but Luke had no
trouble finding the master display panel.  This locus created a gargoyle
imitation of life so powerful, so abominably twisted, that he flinched.
A hundred intermingled energies seethed at his subliminal senses.
Freshly enteched energies writhed frantically within the numb, frayed
ribbons of others' nearly spent volition.

Luke swung his saber through the console with a deep sweep of his
shoulders, then shifted his body and reversed the stroke.  The gargoyle
cacophony fell silent.

He took a long slow look around, breathing deeply and cautiously.  The
chamber and the ship felt clean at last.

Had he just stranded himself onboard?

Light rods glearned behind gray conduits along the ceiling, so emergency
power existed.  Now he had to trace energy flow on the boards like
anyone else.  "Dev?  Can you read any of this?"

After a hurried consultation, they decided that the ion drive and
hyperdrive still operated-but he'd blown the,, i linkage between Bridge
and Engineering.  "That's amazing, murmured Dev Luke stared around at
glowing displays.  Not stranded in a dead hulk, then, but the Shriwin'
was cripple& He coughed again.  They had life support, weapons, and
communication.

No medpacks, though.  Nothing for strained leg muscles, and no breath
mask to filter out whatever was irritating his lungs.  He'd have to
tough it out till he could get off the Shriwirr.  Again the thought
crossed his mind that he'd just as soon not be stranded here, especially
if the Ssi-ruuk lost.

"Let's get to a shuttle," he said, pushing off from the control panel.

Dev led him to three giant shuttle bays in turn.  Every flyer pon and
escape pod crane lay empty.  They couldn't even find the hijacked
Imperial craft they'd ridden up from Salis D'aar spacepon.  Abandon
ship," Luke muttered.  "Escape the terrible Jedi and his mighty
apprentice."

Dev swept out his arms.  "Then this is our lifeboat.  I'll take you to
the bridge."

Luke's cough rattled phlegm in his chest.  "It'll have to do," he said
reluctantly.

"Sorry about the DEMP guns,' Han crowed at Commander Thanas.  Both had
misfired, disabling the patrol craft, and he wasn't sorry at all.  Good
thing he hadn't gotten one for the Falcon.

"Casualties of war," Thanas answered over the command channel in Han's
left ear.  "As is Commander Skywalker, it seems.  I am sorry.  I admired
his capabilities."

"What's going on?" Leia's voice demanded.

"Governor Nereus just sent word.  The aliens kidnapped him.

"Don't count Luke out," Leia said tightly.

Han sniffed the air.  Was that hot wiring?  Hold together, baby!

Thanas's brassy voice softened.  "Your Highness, unless all the Ssi-ruuk
retreat, we are now specifically ordered to destroy that cruiser."

"What?" exclaimed Leia.

Prickles rose on Han's neck.  Only a quartet of Ssi-ruuvi picket ships
prevented Thanas from doing it.  His Dominant had plenty of firepower.
"Why?" he asked.

"Contagion, General.  I wasn't told specifics, and I don't make a habit
of questioning orders.  The consequences aren't worth it."

Leia broke in from the lower gun turret.  "Question this one.  Leave it
alone for now, Commander." Hah-she didn't believe that contagion line
any more than Han did.  Governor Nereus just wanted revenge.  Han
spotted a thread of smoke curling out of one bulkhead and shut down the
offending circuit.  Crosswired like a city map, the Falcon could
function with several boards out.

Commander Thanas's voice hardened as he addressed someone else.
"Squadrons eight through eleven, sweep up those escape pods."

Leia protested, "But they're defenseless."

"We don't know that," Thanas answered coolly.  "Some cultures arm their
escape pods."

"Standard Imperial procedure?" Leia challenged him.

"Kill the wounded to cut medical costs?"

"You don't seem concerned about the drone ships.  Those are living
energies."

"Enslaved," Leia snapped.  "Irrevocably.  Killing them only frees their
souls."

"I agree," chimed in Captain Manchisco from the Flurry.

She was helping an Imperial patrol craft harass an alien light cruiser
into range of the Dominant's tractor beam.

"And the aliens, Your Highness?" Thanas's voice insisted.

Leia sounded as if she were clenching her teeth.  "We are fighting for
the survival of the Bakuran peopleund probably others, Commander.
Self-defense justifies a lot.  But never a massacre of the helpless."

Thanas didn't answer.  On Han's scanners, a squadron of large Ssi-ruuvi
fighters converged on the Dominant.  Its turbolasers blasted two away.

"Good try, Leia," Han muttered.  He cut in the comlink override.
Abruptly, a swirl of lights blinked on his computer panel and Chewie
bellowed over the comlink.  "Great, Chewie," Han exclaimed.  "Get to a
quad gun!"

"What?" cried Leia.

"Threepio's running again.  Just don't ask what happened to him.  He'll
bless us with the whole story as soon as we let him.  He gave the Empire
a Flutie translation program, but now we've got one too."

Leia groaned.

"How's Luke?" Han fired into another swarm of droid ships, targeting the
leader.  Twice now, they'd thought they'd gotten them all.  Twice, some
other cruiser launched a swarm.

"Still all right," she murmured.  "He just dealt with a major
concentration of that zombie energy." The lower quad gun fired as she
spoke.

"Sweethean, forget the drones.  Concentrate on your brother.  You'd
better warn him what Thanas just said."

"I'm trying!"

"Get Threepio to try transmitting on their frequencies, or something."
Han ground his teeth.  Luke had walked alone into Jabba's palace.  He'd
singlehandedly rescued Han, Leia, and Lando, literally out of the
Sarlacc's sandy maw.  Despite those delusions of grandeur, maybe he did
know what he was doing.

What am I doing?  Staggering on one good leg and one that cramped every
time he set weight on it, Luke finished a circuit of the Shriwirr's
bridge.  Consoles curved inward from deck to ceiling, marked by
unfamiliar symbols.  Several freestanding displays marked crew stations,
but there were no chairs, benches, or stools.  One long curved panel
served as a viewport.  "Do you know how any of it works?"

"I can read you the controls.  That's about all."

"It's a start," Luke muttered.  Something nagged at the back of his
mind.  Uneasy, he stepped away from Dev and ignited his saber.

Dev whirled around.  "What is it?" he whispered loudly.

"1 don't know." Luke paced toward the nearest concave bulkhead, then
edged toward the hatchway, ducking his head.  "Probably nothing."

"1 doubt that."

Dev had left the cockpit hatch open.  Luke slipped forward.  Behind the
bulkheads, he felt-thought he felt-an alien approaching.  "Dev," he
called, "take cover.

A P'w'eck dashed through.  Luke sliced off its foreclaw, blaster and
all.  Then he glimpsed a pale metal gas grenade dangling by a chain from
its neck.  He cut the chain, thrust out a hand, and Force-flung the
canister back out the hatch before whacking the bulkhead panel to slam
it shut.  Behind came a muffled whump.  Wailing, the trapped P'w'eck
backed across the bridge.

"Talk to him." Luke adjusted his grip on the saber and took shallow
breaths to prevent the distracting cough.  "Tell him I don't want to
hurt him anymore.  If he'll help us, we stand a better chance of using
this ship."

Dev crept out from behind a control island and burst into chirps and
trilling whistles.  The P'w'eck hesitated, then dove for his blaster.

Luke grabbed it out of the air.  "Tell him nobody else is coming till
that gas clears out of the corridor."

Dev chirped.  The P'w'eck shook his head again.  Luke wondered if he
dated try to interrogate the alien.  He wasn't sure how.  The creature
didn't think in Standard.

Luke tossed Dev the P'w'eck's blaster.  "Is there any way to tie him up?
Keep him from slowing us down any funher?"

Dev frowned, leveled the blaster, and shot the alien cleanly through its
skull.

"Dev!" Luke exclaimed.  "Never kill when you don't need to!"

"He'd have murdered us the instant we Ignored him.

We've got a few minutes.  Let's use them!"

"Watch it," cried a strange voice in Han's right ear.  Han increased
power to starboard shields.  Combined Rebel and Imperial forces had
almost closed an arc around two more alien cruisers, but the aliens
resisted.  Black space sparkled with ships, shields, and energy as the
Ssi-ruuk concentrated firepower on Rebel ships that occupied key attack
poin just as he'd anticipated.

"Dominant to Falcon.  Close up that gap at oh-two-two."

The Dominant had shot away its attackers, but it drifted to low
starboard.  Han smiled, guessing its lateral thrusters had gone down
again.  Maybe Luke would be safe a little longer.

He spun his own ship to face solar north.  The gap in question was big
enough to send a Star Destroyer through.  "Got it covered," he answered
Commander Thanas.  "Red group, and the rest of you.  Follow me." After
the Falcon like a flock of chicks sped four X-wings and five TIE
fighters.  Each wing kept to its own side of the Falcon.

"Dominant," came an exclamation over the clear channel, "They're
counterattacking!  Too much firepower at my-"

Silence.  Han cracked his knuckles.  He hated it when youngsters cashed
in.  But as losses mounted, Ssi-ruuvi ships vanished faster.  The human
forces would not be taken easily.

Something hit an Imperial patrol craft.  "Falcon to Digit Six.  Are you
all right?" The patrol craft didn't answer.  Wobbling, it accelerated to
ram the small alien cruiser.  An hour later, Han was still dodging
collision debris and approaching exhaustion.  Thanas drove his pilots
hard, but the battle was his.

A sensor lit.  Massive communications had abruptly started to flow
between Flutie ships.  Han punched up Threepio's translation program on
a sideboard screen.  With Captison's copy of the program, Commander
Thanas probably expected to know if the alien commander ordered retreat
but that the Allies wouldn't.

Han's sideboard screen flashed a single message, endlessly repeated by
the Fluties' command ship.  Disengage, fitil retreaL Disengage, fiLll
retreat.  Disengage Han slapped his control board madly, cutting
Imperial ships out of his transmission channels.  "Rebel ships," he
ordered, "the Fluties are getting out.  Full shields-watch the
Imperials.  All squadron leaders, get your ships away from Imperial
fighters.  Manchisco, you're in the Dominant's range.  Get out of it!"

"They're retreating?  What about Luke?" Leia exclaimed.

"Is he still on board?  We can't fire on that cruiser."

Han drained weapon power into the shields.  "And we're not shooting at
the Imperials first." There wasn't much future fora smuggler with a
conscience.  Evidently the Alliance was stuck with him.  "We don't know
who's in control of Luke's cruiser," he added.  "I see four picket ships
still on it, riding close." It was the only big Flutie ship not
retreating.

All across space, oddly shaped ships were shrinkIng.

The Falcon shuddered from beam lamps to hyperdilve.

Han leaped back from momentarily ionized controls.

Chewbacca snarled in his ears.  Light splashed the starfield in front of
him, a second blast from the Do'ninant.  Han blinked.  "Fluny?" he
shouted.  "Manchisco!  Manchisco, are you there?"

The Fluny was static and debris.  "They got her," Han exclaimed.  Our
only cruiser.  Clear skies, Manchisco.  He clenched a fist at Thanas and
mentally thanked Chewie for hiring that Bakuran tech to add power to the
Falcon's shields.  He would've taken the Dominant if he could've, and if
his conscience, down there at the lower quad guns, would've let him
shoot first.

Leia seemed to speak in the middle of his head again.

"Well, General, you're in charge."

Han keyed the command frequency back on.  "Thanks for nothing, Thanas,"
he shouted.  Over to intersquad.  "That's it -you all saw it.  The
Empire just broke off our truce.  We're back at war, us against them.
Remember the Death Star.

Form up with the Falcon."

"Falcon, this is Red Leader.  We're about a thousand kay out from you
and we've got TIE fighters on all screens."

"Dogfight it, then," Han barked.  "Wedge, where are you?"

That biggest Ssi-ruuvi cruiser revolved crookedly, still defended by its
pickets.  He couldn't begin to guess how to protect Luke or if he even
dared.  Luke might've scared off the whole crew, but maybe not.  And he
certainly didn't command those four picket ships.

Meanwhile, another big egg-shaped cruiser labored to turn.  A third
jumped into hyperspace too quickly to have made calculations, fleeing
blindly.

"Behind the planet from you.  Or I was," answered Wedge's voice. "Barely
heard you on satellite relay.  Wait-" After a few seconds, he spoke
again.  "There's a lot of TIE fighter activity over at
eight-niner-two-two.  You might check to see what's up."

"That's the Dominant!" Leia exclaimed.  "Go the long way around!"

Headache turned to nightmare as Thanas destroyed Rebel squadrons and Han
slowly rounded up the survivors into a loose double squadron.  He eyed
the wallowing Ssi-ruuvi cruiser.  "Leia?  Tell Luke there's trouble out
here."

"I'll try!"

CHAPTER 19

aeriel whooped as the Ssi-ruuvi fleet fled, but within a minute, all the
silver Alliance ship dots overnor Nereus's projection turned red.  One
by one, they began darkening.  She gasped and sprang off her chair.
"They're not!"

Wilek Nereus rolled his nectar goblet's stem between his hea'vy fingers.
"Not what, Senator?"

 "Turning on-attacking-the Rebels!" Not only that, but she had to assume
that the retreating Ssi-ruuk still held Luke prisoner, and he was dying
without knowing it.  She drew a deep breath, hoping her attempt to
gather her wits looked like a dramatic pause.  "Sir," she started over,
"on behalf of my constituency, I wish to lodge a formal protest over the
forces' conduct, which I assume follows your orders.  The Alliance
people risked their livsome spent their livehelping us repel the
Ssi-runk.  Is this gratitude?"

"Your constituency?" Governor Nereus's bland smile affected only the
edges of his effeminate lips.  "You've already been in contact?  Have
you been taking telepathy lessons from someone?"

She ignored the implied, repeated accusation of collaboration and set
her chin.  "My people have been grateful for Rebel assistance.  They
would not wish to see us A comlink beeped.  "Yes?" Nereus called.

"Sir, our sensors show thirty people gathered at the intersection of
Tenth Circle and High Street, with more approaching."

"What are you bothering me for?  Suppress it,' he snapped.  Again she
glimpsed a tremor in his fingers, instantly controlled.  Governor Nereus
cut the connection and then sipped from his goblet.  "Rebel assistance
is already in the past.  Now we must take thought for the future.  What
would Bakura suffer if Imperial Command learned that we accepted aid
from Rebel forces?"

She clamped her jaw shut.  Eppie Belden was raising Bakura, preparing
civilians for the troopers' return.  She mustn't think about Luke
although if she'd helped instead of hindered him, Bakura might already
be free of Imperial rule.

But how could Bakura have repelled the Ssi-ruuk without Rebel and
Imperial resources?  What insane trick had fate played here?

Nereus picked up his multifaceted crystal full of human teeth.  "My
dear, you've not tasted your nectar."

She wondered if he was threatening her.  "My throat hurts."

"I understand.  That must have been uncomfortable.  I apologize.  You
were not the intended recipient."

"Is there nothing you won't-" Stoop to, she thought, but said, "do, for
the Empire?"

"You have always supported the Imperial presence.  I have heard you
speak eloquently of the benefits Bakura reaps through its affiliation
with the Empire."

"Yes, I spoke that way I learned the language well." The language of
treachery.

"You will remember that your offworld education was subsidized by the
Empire."

"For which I and my family have thanked you repeatedly."

"You have not yet begun to repay that debt.  Now that I've had time to
consider, I am certain that there is room for you on my personal staff."
He slitted his eyes.

If Eppie's revolt succeeded, that threat would be empty.  If the
revolution stalled, though, she might serve the Bakuran underground in
Imperial uniform.  What had Leia Organa endured as an Imperial senator?

Governor Nereus studied the projection of near space, smiling.
Noticeably fewer red Rebel dots "menaced" the system now.

"Did you order Commander Thanas to kill them all?" she asked bitterly.

Nereus swept dust that she couldn't see off his ivory desktop.  "Yes.
For the safety of your people.  Commander Skywalker is another matter.
The larvae will be beginning to migrate again.  They require a plentiful
blood supply in which to pupate.  The aorta is sweetly close to the
bronchial tubes.  He won't suffer long.  He is an excellent physical
specimen.  It's my guess that the aliens will take him with them, as
they retreat.  They should preserve his body for one day, long enough
for adult Trichoids to emerge and infest the Ssi-ruuk.  Trichoids are
short-lived, but they survive by sheer numbers.  We are free from the
threat of entechment, Gaeriel.  You and your constituency should thank
me."

Nothing-not her habit of diplomacy or her fear of Wilek Nereus or even
her deliverance from entechmentcould entIce her to thank him for
murdering Luke Skywalker this way.  And Senator Leia Organa, and all the
Rebels who'd come to help Bakura.  Once Bakura understood what had
happened, Governor Nereus would need an Imperial legion to put down the
resultant uprising .  and thanks to the Alliance, he could not call down
that legion.  She ought to feel victorious.

Hollow desperation made her shiver.  Luke had saved her from the
Ssi-ruuk and their captive human, but she couldn't help him in return.
That disrupted the Balance of her life.

She fingered her pendant and dared to think of the gravest extreme:
civil war, long and bloody, Bakuran lives against Imperial technology,
unless .  perhaps .  she and Eppie could rid Bakura of Wilek Nereus. She
steeled herself to stay with him and hope for a chance.

Han didn't need a cruiser's threat board to linow they were losing. He'd
managed to gather several X-wings and an A-wing into a moderately
effective forrnation, but no matter how he and his shipmates used the
Falcon's armaments, one arc at a time Commander Thanas closed a tight,
classic globe.  System patrol craft and TIE fighters hung in all
directions, drawing Rebels out of the Dominant's dead zone into tractor
range.  Though Commander Thanas's damaged flagship drifted on minimal
thrusters, its turbolaser batteries had already swung toward him.  The
Falcon's power banks were all but exhausted.  He needed to shut down all
systems and let them recharge.

"All right, Leia," he said over the comlink.  "Admit it.  That `bad
feeling' of yours was the smart side of the Force." He feinted toward a
TIE fighter.  Its big brother, a carbonstreaked patrol craft, matched
his vector.  He backed off.

"We're all dead, every ship in the battle group, unless somebody comes
up with something brilliant and fast."

Leia answered from the lower gun turret, "There must have been something
we could've done." She sprayed a weakening energy burst from her quad
guns.  "Some way we could have-'  "You're dealing with imperials.  Every
one that's high up enough to give orders is only in it for number one."

"We're starting to leave Luke out of the equation," she insisted again.

"Maybe he is out," Han answered soberly.  "Thanas's drift vector is
going to take him right past that Flutie cruiser."

From the upper gun turret, Chewie roared angrily.

Something in the pattern in front of him sparked his memory of a gaming
table long ago and far, far away.  Something brilliant.  "But if we
could take the Dominant, our fighters might be able to break out and
scatter."

Leia's turret suddenly felt chilly.  "Sure.  How?"

"Look where that Imperial patrol craft's hanging, the one about sixteen
degrees north.  If we dropped back about twenty degrees and rammed it,
it'd squirt out of formation and hit the Dominant hard aft.  The
Falcon's the only ship we've got left with enough mass to carry it off.
Thanas deserves his behind cooked."

"Carrack-class cruisers have their generators just aft of midline."

"Exactly.  Ka-boom."

Leia felt strangely detached.  "Count on you to try a carom shot.  Can
you get nav computer confirmation on that course?"

"Just did.  With full power to front shields until the last possible
moment, we could do it.  Of course, hitting the patrol craft that hard
would finish the Falcon."

"Of course." Leia tapped two fingers on her firing controls.  Luke?  she
pleaded toward the drifting cruiser.  She sensed nothing in return but a
harried flicker.  Busy.

She heard a soft click.  "Listen up," Han announced in a genuine
general's voice.  "Form up behind the Falcon and get ready to break for
open space.  Get home as best you can.

Don't try hyperspace jumps unless you can pair up with somebody with nav
computer capability."

That would take years, but they'd make it.  Leia cleared her throat and
added, "Scatter the fire of Rebellion.  It will flare up everywhere the
tinder is dry."

"Poetic," muttered Han.

"lnspiration is three tenths of courage." Somebody protested over the
intersquad frequency.  Leia didn't stay to listen.  She unstrapped and
climbed up/sideways out of the gunwell's artificial gravity to the main
level.

"Have we nearly finished?" Threepio asked brightly as she passed the
gaming table.

Leia didn't want to hear the odds of surviving this maneuver.  "Yes.
Nearly finished."

"Oh, good.  My servomotors won't stand much more of this bashing about .
.  .  Princess Leia She swung into the cockpit.  Han glanced at her,
frowned, then waved one soot-streaked hand gallantly at the copilot's
seat.

Little gestures like that-not pillows or berry winemade her love him.
"Thank you."

"Chewie wants to ride it out in the turret," he explained.

"I understand."

"Only takes one to execute a ram anyway, Han muttered.  "Sorry, old
girl."

Leia opened her mouth to complain.

"Not you.  The Falcon." He started shunting power away from all systems
except a few: thrusters, she guessed, fore shields, and the upper gun
turret.  Again she tried to touch Luke.  Again, the harried flicker.

"Okay," he said.  "That's programmed.  Now we get you to the escape
pod."

"Oh-ho, no," she retorted.  "Not unless there's room for two.  Or
three."

"You can't ram on autopilot, and we need a gunner.  Kiss me for luck and
get clear.  The Alliance needs you."

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

"Go on, move," he said.  "You're valuable."

"Valuable, schmaluable.  I'm not running away.  I'm a Skywalker, too.
Maybe this is my destiny."

"All right, you're valuable to me.  Chewie," Han shouted.

"Get down here and get the princess int Chewbacca's answer roared
through her head.  "He means `no,"' Leia said primly, but she laid a
hand on Han's shoulder and squeezed, thanking him without words.
Wouldn't this be perfect justice-Vader's daughter, ramming an Imperial
ship for the sake of the Alliance?  Even if the maneuver failed, she'd
achieved a victorious kind of symmetry.  Finally, she could think about
Darth Vader without flinching.

Watch this, Father!

Two TIE fighters broke formation and swooped up at them.  Possibly their
scanners showed no power to the lower turret.

But their scanners had no way of determining this was no stock
freighter.  Han flipped the Falcon one hundred eighty degrees.  Chewie
snarled gleefully and picked them off.

Leia adjusted her hand on Han's shoulder.  He squeezed her fingers
before lunging again for the controls.  As the Falcon approached the
patrol craft from behind, the patrol craft almost doubled its rate of
fire.  Either it had brought another bank of laser cannon online or
Commander Thanas had figured out what Han had in mind.  Han added a
twisting maneuver to the ram program.  A display indicated seventeen
seconds to impact.  They had to survive that long.  A massive energy
bolt breezed past the Falcon's belly.

Chewbacca growled.  "Tickles," Han translated.  He switched off fore
shields, so that impact would transfer more energy to the patrol craft's
mass.  "Look out, Thanas."

While Dev examined one freestanding bridge station, Luke finished a
deep, rasping cough.  If he weren't so busy, he'd try to heal himself.
He glanced at the deck and twitched his right leg, still unable to shake
a sense of impending disaster.  Maybe the unseen future was closing in.

Ever since he'd glimpsed Han and Leia's future sufferings at Bespin,
he'd wondered if he would foresee his own death.

He reached out to check on Leia Her determination to face certain
destruction caught him off guard. Hurriedly he searched her
consciousness and found Ramming?  in the Falcon?  Luke tumbled down to a
sitting position on the deck and ignored Dev's questions.  Ignored his
body, the Ssi-ruuk still on board, and ever'anything else.

He had only seconds.

His itching chest demanded another cough.  He had to get out of this bad
air!  He sent his awareness questing across space in another direction
for a presence he knew only fainfly: Commander Pter Thanas, aboard the
Dominant.

Thanas leaned over his pilot's station as Luke seized the edge of his
consciousness.  Thanas's thoughts, will, and worldview surrounded him.
This battle was only a game, but a game he must win, or finish his life
in in a slave mine?  That explained plenty!  Luke eyed the pilot's
velocity control slide.  Full speed ahead would blow the Dominant out of
offensive formation and cause heavy darnage to already crippled
thrusters.

Full speed would also bring him into striking range for the Shflwirr.
Thanas wanted that.

Abruptly Luke lost contact.  He doubled over, coughing, trapped by his
weakening body on the hard cold deck of the Shriwirr.

"Sir?" Thanas's pilot looked up worriedly.  "Is something `wrong?"

Pter Thanas blinked.  For some reason, the image of Luke Skywalker had
sprung into his mind.  Dismissing it, he made a difficult decision.  He
must destroy the threat of contagion, no matter what it cost him.

Smoothly he shoved the control slide forward.

sudden alarm and his effort, now his exhaustion paralyzed her.

Han shouted into his microphone, "Red group, Gold group, form up on me.
We've got `em between us!"

Out the viewport, Imperial forces shifted.  Farther away, four X-'wings
and an A-wing hadn't made it through the gap before it closed.  Her eyes
weren't focusing properly.

"Where's that patrol craft we were going to ram?" she asked.

Her hands shook.

"About ten kilometers to starboard."

Chewie's cry sounded exultant.

Lake?  She gripped her armrests.  What's h'ppening to you?

Leia leaned toward Han.  "Kiss for luck?" she asked.

"Sure." Those lips would be the last thing he felt.

He was about to touch them when she jerked back.

"Luke!" she exclaimed.  Chewbacca cried full-alert.

"What, Chewie?" Han spun toward the fore scanners.

They claimed that the Dominant was plunging forward at irrational speed.
"We must've taken another hit," he exclaimed.  "They've ionized our
scanners again."

Chewie bellowed: Change course!

Han slapped the full sensor array back on, then seized main controls.
The Falcon's cockpit grazed the patrol craft so close that it bent
lateral antennae on both ships.

"All squadrons, follow us!" he cried.  "There's a break in the
blockade!" He spoke aside to Leia, "We'll get these Rebel regulars out
of the danger zone, then double back to finish the Dominant."

She didn't answer.

Leia thrust her head against the back of her seat and concentrated on
breathing.  As plainly as she'd felt Luke's Luke covered his watering
eyes and took several shallow breaths.  It irritated him to think that
Thanas didn't care who won.  He'd like to blast Pter Thanas and his
forces out of the universe.  The Ssi-ruuk, too.  Yes, he was losing his
temper.

He no longer cared.  He simply wanted to stop coughing.

The Dominant kept closing, growing perceptibly larger in the viewport.

"Dev, is this cruiser armed?"

"I assume so." Dev reached down a hand.

"Find the Another cough racked him.  "Find the weapons station." Luke
let Dev pull him up off the deck.

"Are you all right?"

Luke wasn't.  He teetered dangerously close to the dark side, but he
didn't care about that either.  Leave me alone, Yoda.  "I need a breath
mask."

"It wouldn't fit.

"I know.  I've got to try something." He had barely enough energy to
focus his attention deep again and regain control.  Strength flowed up
to match his anger, dark and empowering.

Gasping, he flung the energy aside.  In the Emperor's throne room, he'd
touched the dark side's power.  He could have destroyed Darth Vader
shared the throne, ruled the galaxy and been destroyed with the second
Death Star, if he hadn't thrown away his lightsaber.  Would he sell
himself for a lesser temptation?

He stared out the vie'wport.  The Dominant blasted another X-wing.  I
trusted you, Thanas.  I trusted you.  He'd had such hopes for the man.
Had he read the Force wrong?  And Leia and Han may have escaped for the
moment, but until the Falcon's energy banks recharged, they couldn't go
far.  He had to save them.

He could save them easily, if he There will always be people who are
strong for evil.  His words to Geeri came back to him.  The stronger you
become, the more you're tempted.

Alien presences snagged his attention from above, on another deck.

"I found weaponry!" Dev cried.

Luke cleared himself of fear and desire and relaxed again into the
Force, willfully ignoring the siren call to quick strength and power. He
had renounced the darkness.  That, not Thanas, was the enemy; and it
lived inside him.  He reached Dev's side.  "Can you get me a battle
display?"

"I can try." Dev stepped to another station and started jabbing keys.
"You've got an ion cannon on line, I think.  Try aiming it with that
wheel key.  Hurry."

Luke glanced up at the overhead panel.  The Dominant would be in range
within minutes.  "Let's try a ranging shot."

He swiveled the keyboard into line with Dev's battle array.

"First target." He rolled the wheel key and fired.  Nothing happened on
Dev's screen.  He relaxed deeper into the Force and shot again.

"There!" Dev pointed at a visible trail through battle debris.

"1 see it." Now a little to the left, widen the beam again, and One of
the Shflwirr's Ssi-ruuvi picket ships imploded.

The remaining pair broke formation and shrank into distant points of
light.

Now, it all came down to self-defense.  A duel between crippled cruisers
Something clicked overhead.  Luke lunged aside and ignited his saber.
Down to the deck dropped a brown Ssi-ruu and three P'w'ecks, each armed
with a paddle beamer.

Without pausing to think, he swung two-handed.

Dev skittered backward.  "Master!" he shrieked.

Fiiwirrung swept away from the Jedi and brandished his crippled stump.
"Traitor!" he sang.  "Betrayer of all you held dear!"

Dev held the P'w'eck's blaster on target, but he couldn't shoot
Firwiming.  They had shared a table.  He'd slept at the edge of
Firwirrung's nest, a pet at its master's feet.  His eyes watered.  What
to do?

"Traitor!" Firwirrung bellowed.  "Ungrateful beast!"

Wrong-handed, the Ssi-ruu swept a silver beam mercilessly and accurately
through Dev's shoulders.

Dev crumpled.  He fell on his back, bitterly regretting his relapse. Too
late, too late.  He craned his neck, almost all he could move.  The
Ssi-ruu spun toward Luke.  "Look out!"

Dev cried.

Again Luke's thoughts threatened to betray him.  Your hatred has made
you powel, spoken in the Emperor's cracking voice, spun a web through
his memory.  He needed power-now.  Sweeping his saber blindly, he
dispatched the third and last P'w'eck.  As Dev fell, the Ssi-ruu aimed
his paddle at Luke.

By sheer force of will, Luke snuffed out anger and fear.

Aggression, too: Quick power brought temporary triumph, but it seduced
and betrayed the wielder.  i will not turn!  Not if I die for it.  He
leaped into a short suspended somersault and grabbed both edges of the
overhead trapdoor, knowing the big Ssi-ruu would have him in another
moment.  He could do no more on his own.  This was the end.

A simultaneous flash from all status screens almost blinded him as he
dropped.  Expending the dregs of his power, he hung in midair for a full
second.  Sheets of energy swept the bridge deck.  Commander Thanas must
have struck.  Luke curled up and let himself fall.  Bulkheads, decks,
and instruments sparkled before they went dim.

Then all lights failed, even status screens.  He hit the deck and
bounced gently upward again.

Gravitics blown too?

He sensed Dev's presence, but not the alien's.  Cautiously, coughing in
darkness that only the viewport illuminated, he settled back onto deck
tiles.  The Shriwirr's forward momentum gave it some natural,
directional pull.  "Dev?"

"Here," croaked the boy, from the direction where artificial gravity had
been.

Luke felt himself slide toward one bulkhead.  He grasped something huge,
hot, and scaly that reeked as if steaming.

"Where?" he asked.  "Dev?"

"Here.  My deck shoes and clothes little."

Luke groped along the alien body and found a human form lying close by.
Painfully hot, it slid toward the bulkhead with him.  "My eyes," moaned
Dev "My head's hot.  It's burning."

"Are you in any other pain?" Luke asked urgently.

"1 can't feel anything below my shoulders, where he clipped me."

insulated me a

"There's almost no light in here," Luke said, "1 don't think you're
blinded."

"Bridge - probably hit.  Shield overload."

Luke's shoulder struck a bulkhead that stopped his slide.

He and Dev lodged in the corner.  He reached up and found the underside
of a console-.  At least they'd stay here for a while.

Had the Force betrayed him?

He gulped and coughed.  He'd resisted the dark side.

Darkness favored death.  Commander Thanas's blast had killed the
V-crested Ssi-ruu, but at what cost to Dev?

I'm tired, Yoda.  I don't have time for philosophy.  Let me rest.

He hunched forward, coughing uncontrollably.

"Are you all right?" Dev asked.

Residual heat from the deck and bulkhead stifled him.

Leia, he called.  Leia?  Too weak to make contact, he projected his
slight, returning strength into the youngster.  At first, he could only
tweak Dev's pain perception.  Dev sighed, relaxing tangibly.

As Luke lent power to Dev, he felt his focus strengthen.

"Dev," he urged.  "Open your mind to me." As he'd shown Eppie Belden how
she might heal herself, he gave Dev that knowledge.  "Draw on your
strength," Luke insisted.  "You can do it.  I've got to get us off this
ship"

A horrendous cough interrupted him.  Automatically, he turned the
healing focus onto his chest.

Two greedy pinpoints of life gleamed with primitive instincts: Eat.
Cling.  Reproduce.  Survive.

A blast of understanding underscored his panic.  He tried to touch minds
with one of the pinpoints, but it had no mind.  It ate its way
instinctively toward blood.  It was chewing through a bronchial tube
toward his heart.  Reduced to a single instinct, hlmselfurvi"e!-he
curled toward the bulkhead.

Leia clenched the armrests of her cockpit chair, frightened nearly numb.
The star field dipped and swirled in the viewport.  She stared at the
Ssi-ruuvi cruiser, which drifted directionless like a huge blistered
egg.

"The kid bought us breathing room," Han muttered.  "I've almost got
everybody out of the globe.  Is he okay?"

"No!  We've got to help him!"

Han's head turned sharply.  "He's not dead, is he?"

"I can't feel him any more." She let him hear her desperation.

Han glanced at the sensor boards and examined the alien cruiser. "Thanas
scored an awfully good hit.  All power's gone.  Hull's breached.  She's
leaking air."

"But it's Luke.  He could be shielded by some kind of energy field or
obstruction." She couldn't relinquish hope.

"Can we get in close?  Sneak on board?"

"Maybe." Han worked controls, stirring the stars.  "I'll try to get
closer.  Maybe a docking bay-" He swooped at an edge of the Imperial
formation.  From the dorsal quad gun, Chewie scored a lucky hit on a
patrol craft's energy banks.

Waves of debris followed the Falcon away.  So did the rest of the Rebel
forces.  "There!" he exclaimed.  "Now let's get behind that cruiser,
where the Dominant can't fire on us.

"Rogue Leader to Falcon," announced Wedge's voice over the intersquad
link, "we're clear to run at the Dominant."

"Wait!" Leia exclaimed.  "Bully Commander Thanas into changing course so
he can't hit the Ssi-ruuvi ship again, but don't destroy him.  The
Rebellion could use an Imperial cruiser."

"Spoils of battle, Your Highness?" Wedge chuckled.  "Will do.  If
possible.  Somehow I doubt the Empire will let us have her."

"Yeah,' muttered Han.  "Nice thought, but he's certainly got a
self-destruct."

"Wedge, just give Commander Thanas a clear message," Leia insisted.
"We're not stooping to his tactics."

The egg-shaped cruiser loomed closer.  Han steered low along its
surface, looking for a place to dock the Falcon.

We're coming, Luke, Leia thought.  A terrifying stillness hung where his
presence had been.

CHAPTER 20

gloom settled over Gaeriel like a sticky gray rain cloud when Commander
Thanas's Dominant d the alien cruiser.  Governor Nereus laid a heavy
hand on her shoulder. "Come, Gaeriel, you knew that he could not
survive.  If he returned to Bakura, the plague that followed would make
destruction by the Death Star look like a quick, pleasant end to
civilization."

She slipped out from under his hand.

Still gloating, he sat down at his ivory desk and summoned a quartet of
stormtrooper guards.  "Soon, Imperial peace will reign on Bakura.  A
single pivotal troublemaker remains to be dealt with."

She braced herself to leap before the storrntroopers could fire, but he
raised a hand.  "You overestimate your importance." He touched his
console and ordered, "Bring up the prime minister."

Uncle Yeorg?  "No!" Gaeriel exclaimed.  "He's a good man.

Bakura needs him.  You can't-"

"He has become a symbol.  I have tried to be lenient with Bakura, and it
betrays my good intentions.  I give up.  I must operate like any other
Imperial governor, branding the terror of the Empire on Bakuran hearts.
Unle" He stroked his chin.  "Unless he, or another representative of the
Captison family, would publicly ask Bakura to accept me as his
successor.  You could save your uncle's life, Gaeriel.  Tell me you'll
do so, within three minutes, and he'll survive."

Conscience jabbed her from both sides.  She couldn't allow Governor
Nereus to execute Uncle Yeorg, but neither could she ask Bakura to lie
down for Wilek Nereus.  Again she braced herself to jump him.  Two
troopers raised blast rifles.

"Bodyguard training." Governor Nereus smiled.  "They're watching you."

Gaeri stared around Governor Nereus's office, taking in plaques, tri-Ds,
and crystals.  Teeth, parasites, what other loathsome interests did he
keep hidden?  "You say you'd let him live.  But would you?  Or would you
infect him with some parasite, like Eppie Belden?  That's not alive."

"Orn Belden thought so."

Another trooper entered, pushing her manacled uncle with the business
end of a blast rifle.  Yeorg stood straightshouldered, looking taller in
her eyes than Nereus could, for all the governor's bulk.

"One offer, Captison, one minute to accept," Nereus announced.  "Get on
the tri-D.  Tell your people to lay down their weapons and submit to
Imperial rule.  To me, as your designated successor.  Or die here with
your niece watching."

Yeorg Captison didn't hesitate.  He pulled his shoulders back, creating
dignity out of an old, torn Bakuran uniform tunic.  "I'm sorry, Gaeri.
Don't watch.  Remember me bravely."

"Gaeriel?" Governor Nereus licked his upper lip.  "Will you make the
broadcast?  Perhaps I could sweeten the pot-"

At that instant, the trooper beyond Uncle Yeorg buckled and fell.  A
piercing electronic whine rose from all five troopers helmets.  Gaeri
leaped for the nearest incapacitated trooper, seized his rifle, and
waved it in Governor Nereus's general direction.  Evidently he'd
hesitated.  His ornamental blaster remained in his crossdraw holster.

All five stormtroopers writhed.  Even from a distance, the whine hurt
her ears.  What was going on?  "Take off your blaster, Nereus," she said
shakily.  Whatever this was, it looked like her chance.

"You don't even know how to find the safety," he answered, but he kept
both hands on the ivory desktop.

Clumsily, Uncle Yeorg seized another helpless trooper's blast rifle with
his fingertips.  His wrist-bound grip looked ineffectual, but at least
the trooper didn't have the rifle any more.

Governor Nereus's command console flashed and went black.  The door slid
open.  Eppie Belden marched in with a spring in her step surprising for
a woman of 132.  Her round-faced caregiver, Clis, slunk behind.  Eppie
brandished a blaster with competent ease.  "Hah," she exclaimed.  "Got
em all." She strode straight to Governor Nereus and lifted the blaster
from his holster, then disarmed the other stormtroopers.  "Clis," she
ordered, "get a vibroknife and cut Yeorg out of those binders." Clis
hustled out, pale and obviously ill at ease in a confrontation.  Gaeri
sympathized with Clis.  It was Eppie's bravura that startled her.

"You," Eppie snarled at Governor Nereus.  "If those hands move, you're
dead.  Do you understand?"

"Who are you, old woman?"

Eppie laughed.  "Start guessing, youngster.  I'm Orn Belden's revenge.

Belden: Nereus's lips formed the word.  "You can't be here," he cried.
"Scarring of the neocortex is permanent."

"Tell that to Commander Skywalker."

Governor Nereus's cheek twitched.  "Skywalker is dead, by now!  They'll
eat him alive.  lnside out-"

Eppie seemed to shrink.  "Coward." She leveled her blaster at his chest,
silencing him.  He pulled a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his
fists.  The tableau held for several breaths, then Eppie lowered the
blaster slightly.  "I'm giving you to the Rebels," she growled.  "I'd
had it in mind to let Bakura set up a revolutionary tribunal, but if
you've killed the Rebels' Jedi, I have a guess they'll take a stiffer
revenge out of your lousy hide than Bakura would."

Gaeri wished Eppie'd just kill him nowbviousW she had the guts to do
it-but evidently Eppie had other ideas.

Gaeri glanced out the office window.  Another stormtrooper lay writhing
on the greenway path.  Stili another wrenched off his lumpish white
helmet and flung it aside, then knelt, covering his ears with his hands
and shaklng his head.

"Where were you, Eppie?" Gaeri asked.

"Close by, in the complex," she muttered.  "Is it true, what tie said
about Skywalker?"

"We don't have any confirmation that he's dead, but `Governor Nereus
infected him.  How did you do this?"

She waved a hand, taking in Nereus's command center and the limp
stormtroopers.

Eppie stared at Nereus.  "A couple of dozen old friends who are still in
high places, with good access codes," she said.  "An alien invasion
force that kept most of his troopers too busy to watch their backs.  And
one new ally." She called back over her shoulder, "Come on in."

Through the doorway rolled Luke's droid, Artoo-Detoo.

"When the emergency patrol took you away," said Eppie, "he got to a
master terminal and called me in.  I sent out a friend to fetch him.
This little guy's worth his weight in reactor fuel on the master
circuits."

"You took off his restraining bolt?" Nereus's hands twitched at his
sides.

"You ought to lock him up," Gaeri whispered.  "He's losing his grip."

Eppie flicked her blaster's safety on and off.  "1 almost wish he'd try
something."

Curled up in the darkness, Luke could think of only one thing to try. He
breathed slowly and focused his attention on the pinpoints of living
instinct inside his chest.  He touched one.  Neurologically primitive,
its only response was to flinch and go on eating.  They were obviously
parasites.  He sensed their ravenous hunger.

As panic threatened to immobilize him, he thought of the smell of fresh
blood: sweet, warm, faintly metallic.  He extended the thinnest thread
of a probe toward one creature.

Recognition: Some minuscule awareness understood.  He imagined
mouthparts pulling free and a head turning toward him.  It was
desperately hard to project the smell while judging its effect on a
primitive, alien awareness.  He brushed the second creature with the
scent.

All around his point of consciousness, his own heart thudded.  He
swirled the scent-illusion away from them a few millimeters, tempting
them to follow.  One awareness dimmed out and forgot the scent.  He
brushed it again with the tempting odor of life.  It hummed recognition.
It drew closer.

He couldn't concentrate on both individuals.  His body wanted to cough,
and within seconds, something was definitely in the way.

He inhaled cautiously and then exploded, hacking.

Something spewed out of his mouth.

One wasn't enough.  Virtually exhausted, he crafted the scent-illusion
again and stroked the remaining creature.  Its attention flickered for
an instant, then faded.  He thrust again into its perception.

This time, he snagged it.  Slowly, slowly, he led it along a dark
bronchial tunnel.  It radiated fierce hunger.  He tried not to gag or
choker swallow.  Slowly he sipped a deep breath around the creature,
inhaling until his aching lungs strained.

Then he let go, retching and coughing.  This creature caught on his
teeth.  It squirmed, making a gruesome mouthful.  He spit it out and
then flailed blindly for it in the dark cabin.  Something squashed.  He
couldn't find the other creature.

He lay limp on the deck tiles, too tired to feel triumphant, and shut
out the external world to perform a focusing exercise.  Slowly his
despair lifted, then he remembered Dev They had to find a way off the
Shriwirr.  Without power, and possibly still under attack, it could
break up around them.

He couldn't.  Sleep beckoned, and so did the Jedi healing trance.  His
eyes ached.  He could shut them for a few moments.

A glimmer on one bulkhead caught his eye.  Was he hallucinating lights
in the corridor?

"Luke?" called Leia's voice.  "Luke!"

Disbelieving, he pushed up off the deck.  "Here!" His throat burned.  He
must've scratched it bloody.

A pocket luma swept into the Shriwirr's bridge, followed by  slim arm.
The rest of Leia wore a breath mask, shipsuit, and magnetic boots.  Han
and Chewie followed.  Her luma shone like life itself.  "How did you get
on board?" Luke asked her.

Leia hurried closer.  "They left the landing bays open.

They're gone.  The ship's dead, except for you."

"Where'" Luke began.  Then he spotted Dev The boy lay stretched out
beside him, tangled in his long robes.  His chest rose and fell slowly.
Massive red energy burns traversed his exposed arms and face.  His
eyelids covered sunken gaps.

Beside him on the deck tiles wriggled a creature as long and thick as a
finger.  Short legs waved wildly at the light.  Its fat, striped wet
body tapered in green and black stripes toward a pointed end.  Audibly
disgusted, Leia squashed it flat.

"Thanks," Luke whispered.

"Relax, kid." Han knelt and raised him over one shoulder.

Luke swallowed.  "Bring Dev."

"You've got to be kidding Ieia!" She was already trying to hoist the
unconscious youth.  Chewie pushed in and cradled DeV like a doll. "Let's
move," ordered Han.

Safely on board the Falcon, Leia knelt beside Luke's bunk and rested her
head on his shoulder.  Delicately he accepted the link to her strength.
He bathed himself in healing energy that felt clean, warm, and familiar.
When he swallowed, his throat no longer burned.  Soon, he could breathe
without wanting to cough.

Where had he picked up those nauseating parasites?

He sat up.  "I'll rest later," he insisted, "really rest."

"You'd better," Leia murmured, "but we haven't got time now.  We've
still got the Dominant to deal with.  Its repair crews have probably
been busy."

"What happened to it?" Luke gulped at the thought of Pter Thanas.  Had
he doomed the Imperial commander to slavery?

"It blew out its lateral thrusters again, so it can't steer.

And signals coming off Bakura are crazy.  There's a revolution going
on."

Luke slid to his feet.  The right leg still ached, but not as badly.
"I'm ready," he said, but he let Leia support him.

They shuffled to the cockpit together.  Leia helped him fall into a
seat.

"Hey, youngster," Han greeted him.  "You look pretty good for a dead
man." Chewbacca whuffled agreement.

Luke cleared his throat experimentally.  "Thanks." He pointed at the
subspace radio.  "Anything on there about Geeriel Captison?"

"Maybe," said Han.  "Some groundside group claims it's got Wilek Nereus
in custody.  They're barricading themselves inside the Imperial offices
sector of the Bakur complex." The Dominant appeared to sweep underneath
the Falcon's hull; an illusion, of coursethe Falcon, not the Dominant,
was maneuvering.  "Threepio worked on maxiititzing energy bank recharge
while we were on the Flutie ship.  I think we can deal with Thanas the
way he deserves.

Then we'll worry about Nereus."

"Easy-" Leia inteected.

"Wait," Luke said a little louder.  In Commander Thanas's place, he'd
order the huge, valuable cruiser destroyed, rather than let it fall into
Alliance hands.  He couldn't spot a single TIE fighter.  They'd probably
scattered, afraid to be caught in the shock waves of a Carrack-class
cruiser's final explosion.  Confirming Luke's guess, a babble of Rebel
voices announced that the Dominant had lost shield generators.  Not
lost.  He shut them down, Luke guessed.

"Here goes!" Han swung the Falcon around to deliver a death blow.

"Wait!" Luke repeated.  "We want that ship.  Even damaged, it'd be a
lucky catch." Luke leaned toward the pickup.

"All forces," he ordered, "this is Commander Skywalker.

Cease fire immediately.  Alliance forces, confirm on this channel."

"What?" asked Han.  Three younger pilots also protested.

Luke repeated his order, then he tried to thrust the Force across the
distance to touch Commander Thanas once more.

He couldn't.  Even though he'd cast out the parasites before they chewed
into his heart, he was too weary from using the Force.  If Thams elected
to destroy the Dominant, Luke could do nothing.

Except Out into the Force he projected calm.  Peace.  Peace was
possible.

And this was Thanas's last chance.

Pter Thanas flinched as Skywalker's order went out over the subspace
radio.  During this battle something had reawakened in him, something
that cared.  Something he'd buried years ago, at AIzoc III.

Nereus wouldn't hesitate to send him back there, too.  He glanced at a
red-barred compartment.  It hid a lever labeled "self-destruct." Another
compartment, halfway across the bridge, held its mate.  Fulled
simultaneously, they would blow the Dominant's main generator.  The
blast would incinerate everything around it.

His career was over.

He turned to his aide, a stiff-backed five-year man.

"Abandon ship," he ordered, "all hands." Crew members might get far
enough away to escape destruction.  Bridge crew, however, must remain.
Such was standard Imperial discipline.  Those levers had no time delay.

The young aide shifted from one foot to the other, awaiting his next
order.

Thanas stared at his black boots, spotlessly polished on' polished deck.
At Bakura, as at AIzoc III, he'd received unethical orders from a
superior officer he did not respect.

These could be his final moments, sacrificed to an uncaring Empire the
legacy of a dead emperor.

Or he could recant and admit that he'd misspent his entire life.

Then again, he remembered Governor Nereus's parting orders.  Coolly he
straightened and looked around the bridge.  His crew was visibly bracing
for a last act of heroism.

"Communications," he barked, "give me a channel to Skywalker.  Wherever
he is.

"Done, sir."

Pter Thanas faced the communications station and laid a hand on his
blaster.  Someone on this bridge would be watching him.  "Commander
Skywalker," he called, sliding off the safety.  "I must warn you of
something.  Any contact you have with humans endangers their lives.
Nereus ordered me specifically to ensure that you did not return to
Bakura.  He says you now carry some kind of infestation or plague."

"I've taken care of that," Skywalker's voice answered, "before it could
spread.  Remember, I am a Jedi."

He should have expected that.  Still, Skywalker's voice sounded weak.
"Truly?  Or is that just for show?"

"I'm on board the Falcon with my closest friends.  I wouldn't be here if
I had any doubt."

Thanas glanced around the bridge.  "Very well.  If I surrendered the
Dominant to you Motion caught his peripheral vision.  A crewman sprang
to his feet, lunging for his belt.  Thanas spun and stunned him: the
imperial Security plant, here to make certain the warship didn't fall
into enemy hands.

"Commander Thanas?" asked Skywalker's voice.  "Are you there?"

"Slight distraction.  If I surrendered the Dominant, would you guarantee
that you will release my crew members, who conducted this battle under
my orders?"

"Yes," Skywalker said hoarsely.  "We'll send all imperial personnel to a
neutral pickup point, and let them return to their homeunless any want
to defect.  You must give each one that choice."

"I can't do that.

"I'll arrange it."

Thanas gripped a railing.  What kind of traitor handed over imperial
property and gave Imperial personnel the chance to jump ship?

The kind of traitor who still owed Tair slave miners a debt he could
never repay.  Perhaps the Alliance would be more lenient than that
colonel had been back at Aizoc In.

"Done," said Thanas.  "Take me to the Alliance and deal with me as you
will."

Skywalker exhaled heavily.  "I accept your ship.  And, temporarily, your
person.  Shuttle over to my "-he seemed to hesitate-"my flagship. Please
bring a medical corpsman.  I'll see that he's released as well."

"Are you ill?"

"I said I've taken care of that.  i have another human on board who was
badly burned.  I think he could make it, if he got help quickly."

"Oh." Thanas narrowed his eyes and made a guess.

"Sibwarra?"

Skywalker hesitated.  "Yes."

"You're asking too much." What irrational, supernatural agency had
raised up Luke Skywalker to judge his scruples?

He paced along the bridge pit past humming banks of instruments.  "But i
would like to see Sibwarra brought to justice.  Empire or Alliance, it
doesn't matter-so long as it's a human jury.  I'll see what i can do."

"I'll shuttle over a skeleton crew for the Dominant," said Skywalker.

Solo's voice interjected over Skywalker's, "But you'd better come over
unarmed, in a survival pod.  i'm making a big concession, letting you on
board at all."

"Understood .  General."

The speaker fell silent.

Thanas drew a deep breath.  He had no idea what to expect next, but he
wasn't taking his crew into it.  He'd face the Alliance's wrath, plague
risk and all, on his own.  Almost.  "Bridge crew, board lifeboats.
Reserve a single twoman evacuation pod."

"Sir." One pivoted and loped off the deck.

"Carry him, someone." Thanas nodded at the Security man lying stunned on
the deck.  "Take him with you.  Captain Jamer, you're in command."

"Sir." A beede-bodied little man stalked out at rear guard.

Pter Thanas rubbed his chin, then opened a line to his medical staff.
Perhaps Skywalker had neutralized one threat of contagion, but Thanas
wouldn't feel safe in the Jedi's presence until his own staff checked
him over.

Luke glanced at Han, who maneuvered the Falcon toward a tiny round
object.  Sensors confirmed two life-forrns.

"You're sure you want to take him on board?" Han fidgeted.

Luke sighed, weary with arguing.  "Yes.  Next question?"

"Why?" Han snapped.

"We're all a little edgy," Leia said, "but this is the only place to put
him.  We've got to check on the rumors from Salis D'aar immediately."

"Well, even unarmed, he's not staying loose on my ship.

Handcuff him to Chewie-no, to Threepiand lock them in a cargo hold.
Threepio can entertain him."

Luke smiled.  "That sounds like punishment enough for anyone.

"Poor Thanas," agreed Leia.

Chewbacca delicately stroked airlock controls, keying the vacuum seal
for manual release, and then Luke, Han, and Leia walked to the airlock
and waited.  Several minutes later, Commander Thanas stepped through
with both hands raised.  The posture tugged his khaki tunic askew.  "I'm
unarmed," he insisted.  "Check me."

Leia ran a weapons scanner over him.  "Looks clean,'- she announced.
Meanwhile, Commander Thanas's small, slight companion trained a medical
sensor up and down Luke's body.  Luke held still, guessing Thanas had
chosen the medic for his wide-eyed, soft-chinned, harmless appearance.
"What's in that pack?" Leia asked sharply.

"Medical equipment.  Burn treatment.  Commander Skywalker asked for-"

"This way." Luke turned away from the top airlock.

The corpsman dropped his medisensor into a pocket.

"Skywalker's clean, too, commander.  A preliminary scan shows severe
mechanical bronchitis, but no infestation." He shrugged at Thanas.

Luke hadn't doubted, but the medic's diagnosis reassured him.  He led
deeper into the ship.

Threepio sat at the hologram board.  Behind him, on a single bunk, Dev
lay still.  Threepio stood.  "Greetings," he began cheerily.  "I am-"

"Quiet," Leia murmured.  "Take this pair of binders and attach yourself
to Commander Thanas.  Isscort him to the aft cargo bay.  You're
designated security until further notice."

One binder snicked shut around Thanas's wrist, and the other clinked
against Threepio's.  "Very well, Your Highness.

Come with me, sir.  I am See-Threepio, protocol droid .

Luke led the mousy little medic to Dev and gently drew a sheet off the
youth's scarred, folded arms.  "He's in a Jedi healing trance," Luke
said, "and he's in no pain-for now.

See what you can do for him."

"I'll try," said the medic, `tut frankly, I've encountered energy-blast
trauma before." He ran the pocket medisensor over Dev's stomach and
chest, then shook his head.  "There's little i can do.  He might live a
day, if he's I won't say lucky.  if he regains corssciousness, he'll
suffer.  Internal damage is well, there's nothing to keep him alive."

"Please try.  He changed his mind about the Ssi-ruuk."

And Dev had so much Force potential.  He had to survive.

"Huh," the medic answered without enthusiasm.  He reached deeper into
his equipment pack.

Luke could barely keep hisown body moving.  Half stumbling, he rejoined
Han in the cockpit.  "We've got an invitation," Han announced, "from a
lady named Eppie Belden.

She clairns to know you.  She's with your friend Gaeriel at the Bakur
complex.  i guess there's a nasty prisoner they want the Alliance to
deal with."

"Governor Nereus?" asked Leia.

"Looks that way."

He'd last seen Gaeri being dragged by Artoo from the cantina.  Abruptly
he remembered that meal they'd shared.

This news suggested that Gaeri was safe, though.  And had Eppie healed
herself?  Had they captured Governor Nereus?

"Can you land the Falcon on a roof port?"

Leia laughed behind him.  "Han can land the Falcon on an ice cube if he
wants to."

Luke glanced around the cockpit, counting heads.  "I assume you're
calling in reinforcements?" he asked Han.

"1, uh, just ordered your new Dominant crew into position to fire on the
Imperial garrison at Salis D'aar.  it'll take a while.  Our Bwing
squadron's tugboating it into place.  And we've got two X-wing pilots
coming in to fly cover, just in case."

"Good work, Han." And Luke had his reputation as a Jedi.  So long as he
didn't stumble in plain sight, the imperials would consider him a
threat.  He pictured Governor Nereus 5 face when he walked off the
Falcon alive.

"Your Bakuran lady friends promised to meet us at the roof port.  We'll
see if they manage it."

"I'm going to lie down." Luke gave one last cough.  "Get me up when
you're about to land."

The Millennium Falcon swooped through a textured blanket of clouds
toward Salis D'aar.  Over the city and west across one river, smoke
drifted.  Han brought up a remote sensor as they decelerated.  Peering
between Han's head and Chewie's, Luke spotted a knot of people behind a
blast barricade at the complex roof port.  A familiar shape waited with
them.  "Artoo!" he exclaimed.  A swirl of long bluegreen skirts, backing
away from the blocked-off landing zone, was obviously Gaeriel.  The
Falcon dropped steadily on its repulsors.  Gaeriel's uncle the prime
minister stood near an unbound, defiant Wilek Nereus, who still wore
imperial drab with red and blue rank buttons.

"He doesn't look like a prisoner to me," Leia muttered, pointing through
the viewport.  "I'll make you a bet Governor Nereus doesn't intend to
surrender the Salis D'aar garrison.  He could hold that against all of
us for a long time."

Han reached for belly gun controls.

"Don't you dare." Leia shook her head.  "We're back to diplomacy."

"And we've got Commander Thanas," said Luke.  "He could surrender the
garrison."

The Falcon settled to ground with a muffled thud.

"Particularly if you told him to," Leia returned.  "How are you feeling?
Could you .  ?"

"I can't push it.  You'd better take charge."

"Right," she said grimly.  "I've set up enough Resistance cells to know
what happens if we botch this."

Leia clenched her seat while Han sprang up and loosened his blaster in
its leg holster.  "Okay, Goldenrod," Han called into the comlink. "Bring
Thanas to the main ramp."

Luke stood up more slowly.  Leia almost saw two Lukes: one strong,
cocky, and victorious, the image he meant to project-and one withdrawn,
worried, exhausted, and in pain.  Tired enough to make mistakes.

She squared her shoulders.  "Do you want to stay on board until it's
obvious which way this is going?" she asked.

"Uh sure." Luke scratched the back of his neck.

"Nereus probably thinks that he killed me, anyway." He stepped to one
side of the main hatch and unhooked his lightsaber.  From there, he
could hear without being seen.

"Be careful."

Threepio appeared around the bend in the corridor.

Commander Thanas matched his pace step for step.  "Your droid tells
interesting stories," Thanas commented drily.

"Despite the fact that he insisrepeatedW-that he's not much of a
storyteller."

Educating the prtsoner, Threepio?  Commander Thanas had probably gotten
an earful of Alliance propaganda.

The main hatch hissed and then opened.  Leia led down the ramp.  The
rooftop group filed around the blast barricade toward them, Captison in
the lead, closely followed by Governor Nereus and his female escorts and
Artoo.

Han kept one hand on his blaster.  Once Leia and Han reached the
rooftop, she glanced back.  Threepio followed, shackled to Thanas.
Chewie came last, bowcaster already fitted with a quarrel.  The air
smelled unpleasantly smoky.

"Artoo!" exclaimed Threepio.  "You can't imagine what 1-'ve been
through-"

"Save it," snapped Han.

Commander Thanas ignored his metallic escort and walked eyes-ahead,
expressionless like a man who expected a brutal dressing down.  He
passed Leia at the foot of the ramp and came to attention as well as
anyone could when handcuffed to a protocol droid.

"I assume you're not expecring compliments." Governor Nereus closed the
distance between them, clasping both of his hands behind his back in a
swaggering pose.  "A few years ago, when I commanded a cruiser, a
commander who surrendered his ship was stood against the nearest wall
and shot."

Leia stood forward.  "We brought him with us only to prove that he's in
our hands, Governor.  He is not your prisoner.  He's ours.  As I hear
you are."

"I'd like to see you hold either of us."

"You have no space forces left.  Surrender your garrison, and you and
all your people may leave Bakura freely immediately." An X-wing flying
patrol tore shreds from the low smoky clouds.

Governor Nereus smiled placidly at Leia "Perhaps you forget that I still
command three thousand land-based troops.  Furthermore, Imperial
survivors are landing all over Bakura in lifeboats as we speak.  You
have had a single ship surrender to you.  That is all."

"We've moved the Dominant into a stationary orbit, Governor," Leia
countered with a grateful glance at Han."

"Its armaments are locked onto the Salis D'aar garrison.  I know it's
not designed for planetary assault, but it'll do considerable damage if
we give the order.  Even if we released you, you couldn't hold Bakura
forever against the will of its people."

"No?  That is standard Imperial policy.  It's working all over the
galaxy." Governor Nereus kept his hands open and in full view. Evidently
Han's blaster made him more nervous than he was showing otherwise.

Someone shoved Leia from the left.  Gaeriel strode between Han and
Governor Nereus, keeping just out of the line of fire.  Leia had never
seen her look so defiant.  She'd knotted her shawl over her skirt, out
of the way, and wedged a blaster rifle under one arm.  It dangled, ready
to use.  Finally Leia guessed what Luke saw in her.  "Governor," Gaeriel
announced, "if nothing else is going to come of your treachery, then I
shall make my own small gesture.  I resign from Imperial service."

Nereus centered his hands over the side stripes of his trousers.  "You
cannot.  You belong to the Empire."

"I think not, Excellency." She spoke calmly, but Leia saw that her
unmatched eyes were puffy, as if she'd been crying.

1f she'd been grieving for Luke, she had a surprise in store.

"Princess Leia, please accept my congratulations on your victory-"
Gaeriel stiffened, turning as pale as if she'd seen a ghost.  Leia
pivoted back on one foot.

Luke stood at the center of the Falcon's main hatch, saber in hand but
not ignited, looking like a lithe gray-suited shadow against the
Falcon's dark interior.  She would've bet his smile had something to do
with Gaeriel's open mouth and wide eyes.  The thin little woman standing
next to her brightened and whispered, "Hello, Jedi."

Whatever Wilek Nereus had stepped forward to say, he forgot it.  "No I"
he exclaimed, horror twisting his heavy features.  "You can't be here
Get back on hoard!  You'll infest us all!  You don't realize-"

Luke took one step down.  "Gaeriel Captison belongs to Bakura, not the
Empire."

Governor Nereus whirled toward Gaeri.  With speed that belied his age
and bulk, he yanked the blast rifle out of her hands.

Luke dropped into a crouch.  Han had already drawn his blaster.  Nereus
fired twice.  One bolt deflected off the Falcon's hull.  The other
flashed toward Luke, intersecting a green-white blade that whipped into
its path and deflected energy back along its own course.

Wilek Nereus fell blank-eyed.  Luke stumbled, too.

Gaeriel gasped.  Leia froze in place.  Get up, Lake!

Artoo rolled forward at top speed, beeping and whistling.

Slowly Luke pressed back to his feet.  He held the saber upright in
front of him, its hum the only sound Leia heard over her thumping heart.
He waved the little droid back.

Han leaned over the governor, blaster steady, but Nereus didn't move
again.

Leia stepped around Governor Nereus's body toward the Bakuran prime
minister.  Captison snapped to attention, regaining poise.  "Prime
Minister Captison," she said, "for this moment Bakura stands alone.  If
your people choose to rejoin the Empire ." she nodded aside at Commander
Thanas, "we will withdraw and leave you to conduct your own affairs.
Commander Thanas may supervise your defense against the Ssi-ruuk, if
they return before the Empire sends you another governor.  You may
continue alone, knowing the Ssi-ruuk might return.  But if you choose to
align yourself with the Alliance, we should negotiate a permanent truce
immediately."

Captison saluted Leia, then Luke.  "Your Highnesscommander-we thank you.
1t is not likely, however, that the Imperial garrison will surrender."

Luke walked slowly down the ramp.  Leia hoped none of the others guessed
that weakness, not dignity, set his pace.

"We have accepted Commander Thanas's surrender," he said, "including the
Dominant, the land-based forces, and the Imperial garrison."

Leia held her breath and waited for Commander Thanas to contradict
Luke's statement.  The thin Imperial frowned, but he said nothing.  Was
he holding his tongue, or was Luke keeping him from speaking?

"Commander Thanas," said Luke, "you are free from custody.  1f Bakura's
citizens ask the Empire to leave, you will oversee the troops'
withdrawal."

Thanas nodded and raised his wrist.  Threepio's arm r.ame with it.

"Let him go, Threepio," said Luke.

The droid produced a rnaster chip and waved it over Thanas's binders.

Luke moved closer and looked up at Thanas.  "Take charge of your men,
sir.  Remember, the Dominant's new crew is watching."

Thanas opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak, then seemed to change
his mind.  A double-podded local patrol craft streaked out of the hazy
sky and landed close to the Falcon.  Two Bakuran enforcement officers
sprang out, steering a repulsor litter between them.  They hurried
toward Nereus's body.

Commander Thanas turned on one heel, keeping his military posture
painfully straight.  "Detail," he called, "fall in." Nereus's
stormtroopers followed Commander Thanas's long stride toward the nearest
drop shaft.

"You're just going to trust him?" Leia whispered to Luke.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing." Luke's eyes also tracked the commander.

"He's not forgetting the Dominant.  Even if it's not up to full
capacity, we hold the high ground.  And besides, I have a feeling."

"Will you excuse me?" Prime Minister Captison raised his bushy white
eyebrows.  "I must make an emergency broadcast.  I can almost guarantee
that Bakura's people will choose to join the Alliance after all that has
transpired today, but I must consult them."

Leia could almost guarantee it, too.  "By all means." She inclined her
head respectfully.  To her delight, Luke saluted and even Han came to
attention.  Captison strode toward c" different drop shaft.

Still watching, Father?  Leia glanced over one shoulder, but all she saw
or sensed was hazy gray sky.  Every world she took from the Empire was
another defeat for the ghost of Darth Vader.

On the other hand, if Anakin Skywalker cared to look on, that wouldn't
bother her in the future.  She'd found her peace in the midst of battle.

Gaeriel pulled her elderly companion toward Luke.  This, Leia guessed,
had to be Eppie Belden.  "Well done, young man!" The tiny woman gripped
Luke's elbow, then seized his hand and pumped hard.  "And thanks.  If
Bakura can ever do something for you, just name it."

Gaeriel glanced aside, then said to' Luke with heartfelt relief, "You're
alive.  Did you-"

"Can we talk later?  I've got a very sick .  friend on board, being
treated for burns."

Forget Dev Sitwarra, Leia wanted to shout.  He's dead.  This girl has
finally come around.  Don't let her go, if you want her!

"Oh," Gaeriel exclaimed, stepping back.  "Go ahead.  I'll wait."

Leia frowned at her brother's back.  He was already halfway up the ramp,
walking stiffly with his head bowed.

Gaeriel touched Leia's arm.  "I've never met anyone like him, Your
Highness."

"You never will again, if he leaves you here," Leia muttered.  "Excuse
me." She trotted after Luke.

CHAPTER 21

uke rejoined Leia at the hatchway.  "He's strong

"1'll enough to apprentice," he explained hastily.  "And young enough.
We've got to save him."

help if I can.  But, Luke Commander Thanas's medical corpsman held a
mask and clear tubing to Dev's mouth, and he'd bandaged Dev's ruined
eyes.  "Bacta purge," he said briskly.  "It might accomplish something.
It might not.  At any rate, I gave him something for pain."

 Abruptly Dev lifted one arm.  Luke leaned over and tried to smile
encouragingly.  "Dev?  It's me, Luke."

Dev pulled the tube out of his mouth.  "Wait!" cried the medic.  Sticky
fluid splashed the deck.  Luke grabbed and bent the tube, stopping its
flow.  The sickly sweet smell evoked wretched, claustrophobic memories
of a tank on icy Hoth.  The corpsman seized the tubing and locked on a
clamp.  "Don't let him talk long, if you really want to save him."

Luke knelt.  "Dev, you can start your real training even before your
body heals.  It'll keep you occupied."

"Oh, Luke." Dev smiled back faintly.  "1 could never become a Jedi.  My
mind is scarred.  I've been He pulled a deep breath and struggled on. ".
.  .  controlled.  By others -for too long, Luke.  Thank you for letting
me finish cleanly."

Luke lifted Dev's scarred hand between his own.  "Alliance surgeons can
do wonderful things with prosthetics.

They'll treat you at Endor."

"Prosthetics?" Dev's eyebrows raised above the bandage.

"Sounds like entechment." He shuddered.

"Don't let him talk any more!" The medical corpsman shoved Luke out of
the way and pushed his mask back onto Dev's face.  Luke tottered against
the bulkhead and stretched toward Dev's presence to reassure him.  Dev
gleamed in the Force, fully as clean as he had claimed.  Dev must have
concentrated on healing his spirit, not his body, while he lay in the
Jedi trance.

But he seemed to be shrinking.  Luke knelt again and enveloped Dev with
his own strength, trying to anchor Dev's presence more strongly to his
ravaged body.  Dev returned a wash of gratitude.

Abruptly, light flooded out of the Dev-spot in the Force.

Luke flinched at its brilliance.  "Dev?" he called, alarmed.

The flash faded.  Dev Sibwarra's presence vanished with it into a vast,
surging sea of light.

"Lost `im," the corpsman growled, glaring at his medisensor.  "He really
didn't have a chance, Commander."

Luke stared.  Where's the justice?  he wanted to cry.  He'd made a
start.  He could have learned control.

Couldn't he?  Luke seemed to see Yoda standing on the Falcon's gaming
table, leaning on his stick and shaking his head.

"Sorry." The medic drained his tubing, coiled it, and swept his other
gear back into the carry pack.  "I gave it my best try with portable
equiprnent."

"I'm sure you did," Leia murmured.

Luke covered his eyes with both hands and coughed.

"You'd better rest, sir," said the medic.  Leia's voice, and the
medic's, grew fainter and farther away.  Luke stayed on his knees,
remembering the young man who had suffered, and escaped, and died on the
celebration side of victory.

Some tirne later, a srnall hand rested on his shoulder.

"Leia?" he asked softly.  "Did you-"

"No, Luke.  Leia's down in the complex negotiating.  It's me.

That was Gaeriel's voice.  Had Han invited her on board?

Luke struggled to stand, but his right leg wouldn't push.

"Help," he muttered.  Gaeriel pulled him up by one arm.  To his
surprise, she swept off the shawl she had tied around her waist.
Delicately she shrouded Dev's face.

"Thank you," he murmured.  "No one else cared."

"I did that for your sake, not his." Gaeri raised one eyebrow.  "Was he
really all right, in the end?"

"In his mind?  Yes," he answered quietly.

"Why?" Gaeriel whispered.  "Why did you want to save him of all people?"

Not wanting to meet her eyes, Luke spoke toward the Falcon's deck. "He'd
known suffering.  I wanted him to know strength."

"I'm not sure it was just strength you showed him.  You also gave him
human compassion."

Control.  He must control.  He wanted to collapse in her arms.  He tried
to smile.

"Don't." She slid her hands around his waist, then up toward his
shoulders.  Pulling him close, she whispered, "Let it out, Luke.  It
hurts.  I know.  You'll have joy later.  The Cosmos balances."

Flinging pretense aside, Luke held her and cried.  She stood and took
it.  Maybe seeing him like this would balance her memories of his
powers.  Finally quieted, he led her to seats at the hologram table.

"How did you-" She faltered.  "I assume-you killed the Trichoid larvae?"

"Is that what they were?" he asked.  "How do you know?"

"1 got one, too.  Governor Nereus called in a medic for me.  But you had
no medic."

"I had the Force."

"You were wonderful at the cantina.  I'll never forget that."

"What else could I have done?"

She stared up at him.  Strands of honeycolored hair, stirred by the
Falcon's ventilators, drifted into her face.

"Your world is beautiful," he murmured.  "I'm glad to have seen it."

"I have no desire to leave again.  Ever."

"Bakura will be sending an envoy to the Alliance," he said gently,
trying to mask his last hope.  "You're perfectly trained for it."

"When that day comes I will nominate someone else, Luke.  I have work to
do here.  Eppie will need me, and Uncle Yeorg.  I'm a Captison.  I've
been trained for this."

"I understand." Disappointed in the end, he rested his elbows on the
hologram table and shifted his legs.  The right one still ached where
he'd wrenched it, and breathing deeply hurt.  He'd spend the entire
hyperspace run back to Endor in another healing trance.  Either that, or
Too-Onebee would dump him into a tank again.  Probably both.

"Are you taking prisoners of war?" she asked quietly.

"We don't do that.  It would make liars of us, and lies of our goals.
Every trooper we send home will tell three or four well, that we had
them in our others that the Alliance power but we let them go."

"Luke?" she whispered.  She laid her fingertips on his shoulder.  "I'm
sorry."

He felt he softening he'd hoped for, too late.  He turned to her slowly
and fully opened himself to the Force, hoping to make the sensation
last.  This time, she wouldn't raise her defenses.  "What for?" he
asked.  "This has been a victory for humankind."

Her cheeks colored.  "I want to be your ally, Luke.  But from a
distance."

He pushed back a quiet desolation that threatened to send him over
another emotional brink.  He mustn't think of spending forever alone.
"From a distance," he agreed, hesitantly touching her face.  "But just
once, from here."

She leaned into his arms.  He kissed her, letting the moment flood his
perception, petal-warm lips and the deep sweet warmth of her life
presence.

Before she could pull away and ruin the memory, he released her.  "I'll
see you off the ship," he murmured.  They stood.  He walked her along
the corridor, careful not to limp.

The medic intercepted him at the top of the ramp.  "I believe you need
attention, sir.  I assure you my sympathies are neutral."

"Good-bye," Gaeri murmured.

Luke squeezed her hand.  The Force will be with you, Gaefl.

Always.  He stared after her until she vanished into a drop shaft with a
last flicker of skirts.  A breeze dropped swirls of fine ash from the
rioters' fires on permacrete outside.  The last stormtrooper had long
vanished down the drop shaft, following Commander Thanas.

Luke faced the young Imperial medic.  "Right," he said, rubbing his
forehead.  Here we go agatn.

"Come on, Junior." Han leaned against a bulkhead.  "Let's use this doc
while we've got him."

Luke let them lead him to a bunk.  He drew a careful breath and lay down
to have his leg and lungs scanned.

It was a good thing Thanas and his garrison didn't know that the
Dominant was really no threat to Salis D'aar.  Its new "crew" consisted
of two excited Calamarian youngster two who hadn't come down for shore
leave.

Rank by rank, a thousand Imperial personnel boarded a large but ancient
Bakuran space liner under Commander Pter Thanas's eyes.  Bakura wanted
the Empire gone.  The announcement had come yesterday, two hours after
Nereus's death.  Over half his men weren't even there to ship out.  Some
had never straggled in, dead or deserted.  Others had vanished last
night: Skywalker's people were keeping his promise, no doubt.  Most of
Thanas's ranking officers led the formation, but he noted the absence of
two medical supervisors and the weather officer.  All remaining Imperial
war materiel-right down to the stormtroopers' armormust be left to the
Bakurans, forming the nucleus of their new home defense force.  Units of
that force would soon join the Rebel fleet.

There weren't many TIE fighters left for Bakura to use, though, after
the Ssi-ruuk and then the Rebels decimated them.  That concerned him.

Two Bakuran guards, the only armed men in sight-no, one was a
woman-stood behind him.  At last the final unit boarded.  "Ramp, up,"
Thanas called in crisp military singsong.

He continued to stand on the ground, at attention.  The Bakurans' stares
burned his back.  Inside the cockpit window, an experienced Imperial war
pilot craned his head.

Thanas saluted him, then signaled with one hand for liftoff.

He backed away.

Engines ignited.  He kept backing, as did the Bakuran guards.  The liner
lifted and began a slow turn.

Free .  .  .  perhaps.  Pter Thanas reached left-handed into his pocket.
He held his salute while his hand closed on something small and hard.
One Bakuran dropped to a firing crouch.

Smoothly Thanas drew out his pearl-handled folding knife.  Ignoring the
guard, he tucked his chin to his chest and sliced the red and blue rank
insignia from his uniform.

He pulled it off by one corner and dropped it into a pocket.

Then he turned to the crouching guard.  "Sir," he said, "take me to
Prime Minister Captison.  1f you mean to refit c" Carracklass cruiser
for service, you need experienced advice.  I know that cruiser."

The Bakuran lowered his Imperial blaster rifle.  "Under the Alliance,
sir?"

Thanas nodded.  "That's right, soldier.  Under the Alliance.

I'm defecting."

"Uh, yessir.  Follow me.

Thanas followed at a quick march to a Bakuran landspeeder.

One TIE fighter went to the Alliance as booty.  Commander Luke Skywalker
pulled rank and got the shuttle mission .  .  .  with the medic's
reluctant approval.

Approaching the captured Ssi-ruuvi cruiser, newly repaired and
rechristened Sibwanra (though its small Alliance crew called it the
Flutie, and he suspected that was the name that would stick), he gripped
the controls through the gloves of a full vacuum suit.  Compared with an
X-wing, this was like riding an unshielded cargo box.  It turned and
accelerated like a terrified womp' rat, but it wobbled, unstable in
every vector plane.

It wasn't just his lifelong urge to fly a TIE fighterncethat had driven
him to request this mission.  He must return to that Ssi-ruuvi bridge
for a final glimpse.  He felt as if the odor of darkness still clung to
him, he'd come so close to falling.  How many times must he renounce the
darkness?  As he grew in power and knowledge, would temptation beckon
again and again?

Gingerly he docked the fighter in a vast Ssi-ruuvi hangar bay, perhaps
the same one where Han had landed the Falcon to rescue him.  The Bakuran
replacement crew would surrender it to a Rebel pilot for transport to
the Fleet, eventually, since Luke's carrier had been destroyed.  There
would be regular communications between Bakura and the Alliance, now.
Admiral Ackbar might want to use the TIE fighter in some future
undercover operation, although Luke would recommend shredding it for
flak.

Hurriedly he made his way to the bridge, where he stood for a moment in
the hatchway and watched a bustle of activity.

1t looked foreign, but not hostile.  It was only a place built of metals
and plastics.  Yet the ship's very bulkheads seemed haunted with Dev's
long deception and his years of servitude, and with the slaved human
energies Luke had liberatd.

Light endured, and so did darkness.  He would choose daily.

Luke walked the cruiser from top to bottom.  When he finished, three
hours later, he left with a clear conscience.

No captive human energies remained.

Han pressed one finger to his ear and waved Luke to a seat behind
Chewbacca.  Once his hand dropped, he growled at Chewie, "I don't care
what you were doing.  Recording circuits ought to be on at all times."

Chewie clanged a bulkhead with his spanner.  Evidently the
often-modified Falcon was up to her old tricks.

"What is it?" Still standing, Luke waded into the argument.

"Subspace radio, relayed from maximum range.  From Ackbar, too, coded. I
had to decode as it came in, since Furball here disengaged the
automatic-"

"Ackbar?" Leia set a hand on Luke's shoulder.  He touched it, grateful
for her consolation.

"Yeah," drawled Han.  "Something about `Imperial battle group,'
something something `small,' and `quickly if we can."'

"We scattered so many of them, back at Endor." Leia leaned forward.
"Ackbar's scouts have probably found a group he thinks we could handle.
The Empire is still vast.

We must maintain the momentum of their downslide."

"Well, then," said Luke, "time to head back.  Mter ?"

He glanced down at Han for confirmation.

"Oh, yeah.  Sure, kid," Han mumbled.  "Might as well strap in, Leia Luke
has business to finish.  It'll just take a minute."

"Now, Mistress Leia," Threepio called over the comlink from his post
with Artoo at the gaming table.  "Let me tell you how I arrived at the
Falcon, dressed in stormtrooper armor  Luke made his way to the primary
airlock, where Chewbacca had carried Dev's body.  Sorrowfully, he
reached down and brushed Gaeri's feather-soft shawl with his fingertips.
Chewbacca had wrapped it tightly around Dev's head and shoulders, after
swathing the rest of him in an old blanket.  He'd lost them both,
Gaeriel and Dev - yet both had touched and taught him.  Both would live
in his memory.  "Thanks," he whispered.

"Ready, Luke?" Leia asked softly over the comlink.

Luke backed out of the airlock.  Automatically it hissed shut behind
him.  "Wait a minute," he told her.  He hurried back to the cockpit and
stared out the main viewport.

Leia clasped his hand.  Han pulled the hatch release, then reversed
lateral thrusters.  As the Falcon accelerated heavenward, Dev's body
plummeted toward Bakura.  It finished burning, clean and brightly, down
through the planet's high atmosphere.

Luke stared at the meteor, a momentary flare of brilliance like all
life.  Nothing really, in the sweep of time.  But everything, in the
Force.