spaces between the equipment were crawling with drochs, Leia wedged herself
between two anonymous black boxes, bruised hand gripping the lightsaber. The
light from above grew stronger, moving with the movement of being carried,
turned, scanned along the floor. Someone said, "Look," and was shushed.
The dead drochs, thought Leia. And then, i must have left tracks in the dust
of the floor as well.
Her whole body ached with the thought of having to fight. Luke, she thought,
if I get out of this alive I'm going to start training with you, at least to
get into condition.
Her cold hands slid over the switch on the lightsaber.
Light poured from above, and a shadow came down two steps of the ladder,
then dropped lightly to the floor and stepped at once into shadows, a
trained warrior seeking cover. Other shadows clustered above, blocking most
of the light, but a stray beam of it caught a sand-scoured red coat, a
whirlwind of smoke-colored veils, the metal plates and buckles of heavy
boots. There was movement, and with a flint hum the sun-yellow blade of a
lightsaber stabbed into existence.
A woman's voice said, "Come out." L eia lowered her weapon, suddenly dizzy.
"Callista?" she said.
The blade lowered, and the red figure before her put up a black-gloved hand
to push away the veils that wrapped her face. "Leia?"
"We are the weapons of the Force." Callista's strong fingers pulled the roll
of silver space tape taut, while she fished one-handed in the pocket of her
crimson coat for a knife. Above her, the iron beams of the gun station's
defensive works lost themselves in the darkness, like a deadly sieve of
razor wire set to trap the cold diamond stars. "We always have been, since
the beginning of the Order; since people first began to understand the
existence of the Force."
Leia said softly, "That's what scares me."
"I know."
She sliced off the tape, finished attaching a cutout sole of cu-pa leather
to the broken ruin of Leia's boot, and handed it back, folding up and
pocketing the knife, one-handed again, with the quick economy of a longtime
jury-rigger. The face that had been Cray Mingla's had changed. Look as she
might for the features of the young scientist she had known, the woman who
had given up her body to Callista that she herself might seek her lover on
the Other Side, Leia could see only the lost Jedi, the woman her brother so
deeply loved. in colorless starlight, no trace of Cray's blond remained in
the thick masses of Callista's hair.
Dark with the darkness, in daylight it would be the soft, medium-brown that
it had been turning when last she'd seen this woman with Luke.
Her gray eyes were mostly hidden in the shadows of level dark brows.
"I don't think Luke understands that, really." Callista moved her head a
little at some sound on the other side of the great black gun muzzle,
pointing skyward in the center of the station's open roof. It was only one
of the other Therans setting up a small but powerful electroheater to make
supper, calling out to a couple of the young women of the troop. The evening
wind had stilled. Bd, the troop Listener, a twig of a man who might have
been thirty or fifty, passed like a shadow among the riders who spread
blankets, cleaned weapons, spoke softly among themselves all around.
The Force was a dark sea, sounding in the night. Leia wondered if Callista
could feel it as she could.
"People have tried to use him," Callista went on, "from the moment he put
out his hand and summoned his lightsaber to come to him. Vader wanted to
turn him. Palpatine wanted his services. Palpatine's clone managed to
enslave him for a time. But Luke is strong, stronger than he knows. And Luke
has a single purpose. I suppose you could say that he has a pure heart."
She folded her arms, more relaxed than Leia had seen her toward the end
there, in Luke's presence. Her breath made a smoke of diamonds as she spoke.
"Luke doesn't hunger after power. In some ways I don't think he understands
those who do."
"No." Leia had never thought of it in those terms, but she recognized that
Callista was right. Luke had never sought to be a commander of anything
except a wing squadron. He wasn't the tactician Han was.
ways of the Force for all. He wanted a Jedi Order so that he could be part
of it, not for the sake of having pupils at his beck and call.
"But you understand."
"Then you understand why I had to leave."
Leia sighed, a whisper of regret. "Yes." In a way, she had always
understood.
There was silence for a time, the crystals of the high peaks catching the
fragmented glare of the bitter stars. "I'M like Luke," Callista went on,
speaking softly, almost to herself. "I never wanted power.
Only to learn. Only to be with other people who understand. But people use
those who have our power, Leia. Vader wanted to use you.
If he hadn't spoken of his intention to do so, I don't think Luke would have
been angry enough to go after him, to fight him to the death. You told me
how Thrawn and Pellaeon tried to kidnap your children, how C'baoth wanted
them as weapons of his own ambition. I've seen how hard you try to teach
Jacen and Jaina to listen to their own hearts, to have a sense of fairness,
of justice. So they won't be pawns. So they won't be twisted.
But for a long time they'll be weak, because they're children, and it's easy
to influence children by love and hate and lies."
"Yes," said Leia again. She pulled on her boot, drew more closely about her
the thick coat of rough-woven raw majie that someone had lent her, and
walked over to the parapet beside which Callista sat. She had told the
younger woman of her dream and of the fear that had followed her since.
"I want them to be happy," she said, and leaned her cheek on the
wind-scoured metal of the beam. "I want them to be children, to have the
birthright of their innocence. But at the same time, I know they can't just
follow any path they want. With their powers in the Force, i have to teach
them to distinguish lies from truth, to seek justice the way my father . . .
the way Bail Organa sought justice. I have to . . .
to protect the next generation from them. The way I have to protect the
present generation from myself."
Looking down at the woman still seated against the parapet, she saw in the
lost Jedi's starlit eyes the understanding of what she meant.
Of the darker fear that lay wrapped in the images of the dream.
"To protect this generation from yourself," said Callista gently, "you have
to embrace the way of the Jedi, Leia. Not flee it. Luke is right."
She stood, unfolding herself to her lanky height, her crimson clothing
almost black in the star glimmer and the pallid glow reflected from the
shining stones. Nights on Nam Chorios, without benefit of warming
oceans, were unbelievably cold, even in this summer season. Leia huddled her
gloved hands in her armpits and wondered how the Therans managed, night
after ni
ght, under the open stars.
"There's a woman in Hweg Shul named Taselda, a small-time Jedi adept who
came to this planet centuries ago, seeking power. The way I came."
"Beldorion spoke of her," said Leia. "Was he her partner?"
"They came here together. After this long, telling lies to themselves, to
each other, to everyone, I'm not sure exactly what took place.
They were both adepts, but neither had much power. Only one of them had
sufficient training to make a lightsaber, but I don't know which.
I don't think either of them has the capacity for it now. Like me, they came
here seeking an easy answer."
"I didn't think Hutts could be born strong in the Force."
"Don't underestimate the Force, Leia," said Callista.
"Anyone--anything--can be born in its light. There's a tree on the planet
Dagobah that's strong in it. Sea slugs in the oceans of Calamari use it to
draw plankton into their mouths until they grow to be bigger than
starfighters. But they haven't the sentient mind to learn to use it beyond
that. And that is for the best."
She sighed.
Suddenly sure of it, Leia said, "You were the slave Liegeus spoke of weren't
you? The one Beldorion sold or traded to Dzym."
Callista stood so silent for so long that Leia feared she'd angered her, but
in time she nodded. "Having been Taselda's slave before," she said. "I let
myself be enslaved, because I was so hungry, so desperate.
She used me, as Beldorion would have used me, had I been any good to him. As
he'd have used you."
Leia nodded again. The pain in Callista's face was frightening to see, and
she felt anger stir in her again, this time not anger at Ashgad
specifically, but at them all Beldorion, the Rationalists, Moff Getelles,
all those who grabbed for petty goals and broke and ruined lives in the
process, not seeing anything beyond their own wants. But it was sour anger,
like brittle ice above a still well of endless grief.
"As long as I can be manipulated like that," Callista went on, "as Long as I
can be used--as long as I lack my own power in the Force--I am a prime
candidate for the dark side. I'm standing in its shadow now.
If there is a way for me at all, I have to follow it alone. I will love Luke
until the day I die and beyond, but I will not pull him into that shadow
with me. Please, Leia. Make him understand."
"What do we have? Han Solo strode into the bridge still stripping off the
helmet and gloves of his e-suit, registered immediately the blinking red
lights over the comm board, the worried note in Chewbacca's growl that had
summoned him and Lando back onto the ship in double-time. Outside, terrible
stillness lay over the pitch-black lava plains of Exodo II, the eternal dust
that lay around the bore holes of the ghaswars that were the planet's most
plentiful life form stirring uneasily in the glare of the Millennium
Falcon's lights. The wrecked scout cruiser they'd traced there had been in
much the same shape as the Corbantis had been, save that the engines had
been long cold, the crew' dead of radiation poisoning, asphyxiation, cold,
and ghaswar bores.
Chewbacca rumbled a reply and put up the readout.
Han stared at it, aghast. "That's gotta be wrong."
Lando came striding down the corridor. He'd taken off his e-suit and was
combing his crisply curling black hair. He'd been badly shaken by the bodies
on the destroyed cruiser and more so by the evidence that it, too, had been
destroyed by the tiny, knifelike missiles that had cut up the Corbantis and
almost demolished the Falcon. "I've had a look at those barometric readings,
old partner, and if we want to get off this planet before the next atmostide
we'd better . . ."
His voice trailed off. He stood staring at the screenful of data the Wookiee
had transferred to the main viewer.
"What the hell is that?"
"What's it look like?" demanded Han shaken. "It's an invading fleet, coming
out of hyperspace and heading right this way."
"Artoo-Detoo, what in heaven's name do you think you're doing?"
Threepio toddled after his counterpart as the astromech wheeled into life
again the moment the doors of the impound bay were shut, heading
over to the access panel by the door. "Honestly, ever since poor Captain
Bortrek installed those extra interface circuits you have been behaving in a
most extraordinary fashion! You know as well as I do that with these
restraining bolts we're not going to be able to leave the room!" Artoo
merely tweeped a request.
"Why?"
Artoo explained.
"I don't see that," protested Threepio. "I don't see at all how removing
that panel, even if I could do it, would save poor Master Yarbolk from being
put out the airlock. If we're discovered, as we surely will be, we could get
into terrible trouble!"
Artoo pointed out that as troubles went, being dissected for one's
microprocessors and later paid for at a ninety-five percent discount to
one's owners was as terrible as it got.
"I'm really not programmed for this kind of thing at all! Oh, why will not
anyone believe me!" Threepio pressed one forefinger against the center of
the access plate above the door panel and thrust, with all the strength of
his hydraulic arm joint. Never, in any circumstances, would he have exerted
his strength against living flesh of any variety, but metal was metal, and
not being up to military standard, this metal buckled along the edge
sufficiently for him to get his fingers under the plate and pull it free.
Artoo proceeded to deliver a string of instructions.
"Honestly, I think those additional circuits disrupted your logic modifiers!
Green wires connected to coaxial links--you don't possess coaxial links!
Oh." Threepio flipped open one of the silvery gray add-ons screwed to his
counterpart's side. "Well, I'm sure that they aren't good for you."
Nevertheless, he hooked the links into the green wires, and listened to the
flow of bleeps, twitters, and chirps that Artoo-Detoo poured into the
quarantine ship's internal relay system.
"Artoo-Detoo, that is a patent untruth!" declared Threepio indignantly.
"First you disable the opening mechanism on the doors of air-lock three,
then you cause the system to believe that those doors have been opened . . .
and even should you help Master Yarbolk escape from that airlock, that
doesn't do us any good, you know. We're still unable to leave this hold
while we have the restraining bolts on, and he is still unable to get off
this vessel."
The golden protocol droid turned away, arms folded in the human-form
expression of indignation and uninvolvement. "I won't have anything further
to do with this."
Artoo made a sad little noise, but no request to be unhooked from the access
hatch. Indeed, he produced small blips and whirrs every now and then, which
indicated to Threepio that the astromech was still monitoring something in
the QEC's main computer. It became clear what it was when he rocked a little
on his wheels and tweeted excitedly.
The next moment the doors of the impound h
old opened, and Yarbolk hustled
inside.
"I owe you," he whispered excitedly, fishing in his pocket and producing a
magnetic bolt extractor and a pair of wire snips.
"Brothers, I owe you plenty. This whole ship stinks! The Big Green Fish only
knows who paid that captain how much to put me out the airlock. Maybe she
thought the order was on the up-and-up."
"It could be," surmised Threepio, as the Chadra-Fan popped the restraining
bolt from his golden chest. "Artoo here claims there is a traitor, or at
least a major information leak, on the Galactic Council."
"And the Rebels have taken Coruscant," muttered Yarbolk, going to work on
Artoo. "Tell me something I don't know. You went and blabbed that Ashgad had
kidnapped Lady Solo. Is that true?"
Threepio hesitated, belated visions of galaxywide coverage cascading into
his deductive logic circuits.
"Because if it is, you better keep damn quiet about it, my tinny friend, if
you don't want her getting what I nearly got. And as for a traitor on the
Council--Fish, i figured that one out weeks ago!
Loronar buys and sells Senators and governors in the Republic and out of it.
All it takes is a few strategic contributions to good causes.
Hold that door, would you, Threesie? It's gonna close again once I get Artie
unhooked . . ah. Thanks."
He looped up the wires and coax cables into the interface box on Attoo's
side and replaced the strip of silver space tape that had held its hatch
closed. "All those Senators have blind spots. Pet causes.
Like
'order in the galaxy' or 'the rights of all sentient species' or 'the rights
of one obviously superior sentient species to put all other sentient species
straight whether they want to be put straight or not."
And it's Loronar's business to know what those blind spots are."
He was hurrying down the corridor as he spoke, furry feet making no sound,
wide nostrils snuffing softly. Once he halted, pushing the two droids back
into the niche of a bay door. Two Sullustan guards walked by, weapons slung
casually over their shoulders, bodies slumped with fatigue. "Thank your
lucky nuts and bolts the whole ship's understaffed and occupied with those
Aqualish smugglers up in the holding area.
Which one of these bays is their ship in, Artie?"
Artoo cornered determinedly and made his way down a short passage to a