to realize his peril, and all equatorial
thrusters kicked on at once, attempting
to pull the prototype away. But the giant
vessel had already crossed the edge of the black
hole.
The Sun Crusher could not achieve sufficient
velocity to escape its tightening orbit either. It
spiraled in the wake of the Death Star, with no
hope of getting away.
Han felt as if his chest were being torn apart
by the tidal forces. "Kyp!" he cried.
A final streak of light shot away from the
Sun Crusher, and then it was too late for the tiny
superweapon.
The Death Star prototype plunged into the
thickening cascades of superhot gases that
shrieked down into nothingness. The
spherical prototype elongated like a great egg
under the uneven gravitational stresses. The
curved girders ripped apart, then were crushed into a
cone that stretched into the black hole's funnel.
With a wink of brilliance the tiny Sun Crusher
followed its nemesis down into the black hole.
Lando and Mara remained utterly silent.
Han hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Goodbye, Kyp."
"It's a message cylinder," Mara said,
identifying the small streak shot out by the Sun
Crusher. "We'd better get it quick, because it's
falling toward the black hole, too."
"Message cylinder?" Han sat up, trying
to find his enthusiasm. "Okay, let's snag it
before it's too late."
The Falcon raced toward the event
horizon. Lando and Mara worked together, wrestling
to navigate the ship in the buckling jaws of
gravity. They detected the metallic container,
and Lando swooped in, latching on to it with the
tractor beam moments before the small message
pod could fall over the brink of the gravitational
pit.
"Got it," Lando said.
"All right, pull it inside, and let's get
out of here," Han said in a bleak voice. "At
least I can hear the last words Kyp had to say."
Han and Lando both pulled on stiff gloves
before they wrestled the Sun Crusher's message
canister into the Falcon's common area. Deep
cold had penetrated the canister, and as they brought
it into the enclosed atmosphere, tendrils of frost
grew like lacy ferns across its surface.
The thin metal hull gleamed bright, splotched
in places by electrostatic discharges from when the
cylinder had been launched at high speed from the
Sun Crusher.
"That's one heavy message," Lando said as they
lugged the canister to a flat spot on the floor
and set it down with a metallic thump on the
deck plates.
Little more than a meter long and less than half
a meter wide, the message pod was used by the
captain of a doomed ship to launch his last log
entries and to dump his computer cores and navigation
records for later investigations.
Han remembered Kyp telling him that when the
Coruscant scientists had stumbled upon the
message canisters inside the Sun Crusher,
they had panicked, thinking they had uncovered the
dangerous supernova torpedoes — even though the
cylinder was standard Imperial issue, and any
smuggler or starfighter pilot should have recognized
it immediately.
On his rampages in the Cauldron Nebula
and the Carida system, Kyp had left message
cylinders to explain what he had done and why, so
that no one would construe his actions as simple
astronomical accidents.
Han felt stunned and lethargic with sadness.
His friend had been right, but only to a point. Kyp
Durron's agenda to destroy the Empire had
used tactics as vicious as those of the
Emperor's.
Luke Skywalker had claimed the young man
would redeem himself fully, but now Kyp's
potential as a great Jedi had been extinguished.
Han could not question Kyp's sacrifice, though.
Kyp had eliminated both the Death Star
prototype and the Sun Crusher. He had bought the
galaxy's freedom from terror at the cost of his
That made sense, didn't it?
Didn't it?
Mara Jade knelt beside the message
cylinder, running her slender hands over its
hull. She popped open the access plate.
"Well, it's not encrypted," she said. "Either
Kyp didn't have time, or he knew we'd be the
ones to pick it up. He left the homing beacon
off."
"Just open it," Han said roughly. He'd had
enough of this grim waiting. What had Kyp thought
to say in his last moments?
Mara punched in the standard sequence. The lights
blinked red, then amber, then flashed green. With a
hiss of escaping air, a formerly invisible seam
appeared down the center of the pod. The long black
line widened as the two halves split, opening
up.
Inside, looking waxen and emotionless as a
statue, lay Kyp Durron. His eyes were
closed, his face drawn into an expression of
intense — yet surprisingly peaceful — concentration.
"Kyp," Han shouted. His voice cracked with
astonished joy, yet he tried to hold
back his hope. "Kyp!"
Somehow Kyp had crammed himself inside the
small volume of the message cylinder, a
vessel barely large enough to hold a child. But Kyp
had managed to crush his legs, fold his arms
until the bones snapped, pressed down on his
rib cage until ribs cracked, compacting
himself.
Han leaned closer to the ashen face. "Is he
alive? He's in some kind of Jedi trance." In
his final desperation Kyp had somehow found the
strength to use his Jedi pain — blocking
techniques, his determination, and all the knowledge Luke
had taught him ... to do this to himself, as his only
chance for survival.
"He's slowed his functions almost to the point of
suspended animation," Mara said. "He's in so
deep that he might as well be dead."
The message canister was airtight but had no
life — support systems, no air other than the
small amount that had fit around his own broken
body.
"That's impossible," Lando said.
"Let's get him out," Han said.
"Careful."
Han gently, meticulously pried the young
man free of the tiny cylinder. As Lando and Mara
helped him carry Kyp to one of the narrow bunks,
the young man's body sagged and flopped from
grievously smashed bones, as if someone had
crumpled him into a ball and then tossed him
aside.
"Oh, Kyp," Han said. As he set Kyp
on the bunk and straightened his arms, Han could
feel the shattered wrists like jelly under his skin.
"We have to get him to a medical center," he said.
"I've got first aid
here, but not nearly enough for
something like this."
Kyp's black eyes fluttered open, glazed
and unfocused with incredible pain; but he drove it
back. "Han," he said in a voice as faint as
beating wings. "You came to get me."
"Of course, kid," Han said, bending down.
"What did you expect?"
"The Death Star?" Kyp asked.
"Sucked down into the black hole ... along
with the Sun Crusher. They're both gone."
Kyp's entire body shuddered with relief.
"Good."
He looked as if he were about
to collapse back into unconsciousness, but then his
eyes blinked again, brightening with a new confidence.
"I'll be all right, you know."
"I know you will be," Han answered.
Only then did Kyp succumb to the pain and
allow himself to sink back into his Jedi trance.
"Good to have you back, kid," Han whispered,
then looked up to Mara and Lando. "Let's get
him back to Coruscant."
A Wookiee bellow split from the intercom
system, and Han stood up straight, rushing
back to the cockpit to see a battered Imperial
gamma assault shuttle hanging in space in
front of the Falcon, its engines white — hot and
ready to go.
"Chewie!" Han shouted into the voice
pickups, and the Wookiee responded with a roar.
"What Chewbacca is saying," Threepio's
voice translated unnecessarily, "is that if
you would like to follow us out of the Maw, we have the
appropriate course programmed into our
navicomputer. I believe we are all
anxious to go home."
Han looked at Lando and Mara and smiled.
"You're sure right about that, Threepio."
Inside the dining hall of the Great Temple,
Cilghal stood silent and firm, studiously
showing no reaction to Ackbar's insistence.
Clad once again in his white admiral's
uniform, Ackbar leaned closer to Cilghal. He
placed his splayed hands firmly on the shoulders
of her watery — blue robe. She could feel the
heavy musculature in his hands as he pressed
down. She flinched, afraid of what he would
demand of her.
"You cannot surrender so easily,
Ambassador," Ackbar said. "I will not accept
that this task is impossible until you prove to me
it is impossible."
Cilghal felt small under the probing gaze of
his large eyes. No human would recognize it,
but she could see the effects of long — fought stress
on his face, in the mottling of his dark — orange
color. Ackbar's skin looked dry, and his
lobes had sunk deeply into the sides of his
head. The small tendrils around his mouth looked
frayed and cracked.
Since the terrible crash on the planet
Vortex and his resulting disgrace, Ackbar had
lived with an enormous weight on his conscience.
But now he had come back to himself, returning
to serve his people and the New Republic with greater
determination — and coming to speak with her on Yavin 4.
"There have been no Jedi healers since the great
purges," Cilghal said. "Master Skywalker
believes I possess some aptitude in this
area, but I have had no appropriate training.
I would be swimming in murky waters, uncertain
of my course. I don't dare — was
"Nevertheless," Ackbar interrupted sharply.
He released her shoulders and stepped back so that
his clean white uniform dazzled her eyes in the
dimness of the Massassi temple's dining hall.
Dorsk 81 stepped into the chamber, looking
surreptitiously at Ackbar. His eyes
widened as he recognized the commander of the New
Republic Fleet. The cloned alien muttered
his apologies and backed out, flustered.
But Ackbar's gaze did not waver from
Cilghal. She raised her head to meet his stare
but waited for him to speak.
"Please," Ackbar said. "I beg you. Mon
Mothma will die within days if you do nothing."
"I made oaths to myself, both when I became
an ambassador and when I arrived here to train as
a Jedi," Cilghal said, bowing her head with a
sigh, "that I would do everything in my power to serve and
to strengthen the New Republic."
She looked down at her spatulate hands.
"If Master Skywalker has faith in me, who
am I to question his judgment?" she said. "Take me
to your ship, Admiral. Let us go
to Coruscant."
In the former Imperial Palace, Cilghal
reviewed the situation with growing dread.
Mon Mothma no longer remained conscious.
The infestation of nano — destroyers filled her
body, tearing her cells apart one by one. Without the
life — support systems that kept her lungs
filling, her heart beating, her blood filtered —
the human woman would have died days earlier.
Some Council members had begun advising that
she be allowed to die, that forcibly keeping Mon
Mothma alive in such a state was a lingering
torture. But upon hearing that one of Master
Skywalker's new Jedi would come from
Yavin 4 to attempt healing her, Chief of
State Leia Organa Solo had insisted that
they wait for this last chance, this slim hope.
Arriving in Imperial City, Cilghal was
flanked by Ackbar and Leia as they ushered her
down corridors to the medical chambers where Mon
Mothma lay surrounded by the growing stench of death.
Leia's dark gaze flicked from Mon
Mothma to Cilghal. Her human eyes
glittered with gathering tears, and Cilghal could
sense her hope like a palpable substance.
The smells of medicines, sterilization
chemicals, and throbbing machines made her
amphibious skin feel irritated and rubbery.
She wanted to swim in the soothing waters of
Calamari, to wash the disturbing thoughts and poisons
from her body — but Mon Mothma needed that purging
even more than Cilghal did.
She stepped to Mon Mothma's bedside,
leaving Leia and Ackbar behind her. "You must
realize that I know nothing specific about the healing
powers of the Jedi," she said, as if offering an
excuse. "I know even less about this living
poison that is destroying her."
She drew a deep breath of the tainted air.
"Leave me alone with her. Mon Mothma and I
will fight this together." She swallowed. "If we
can."
Murmuring warm wishes and reassurances,
Ackbar and Leia faded into the background.
Cilghal paid little attention to them as they departed.
Her shimmering blue ambassadorial robes
flowed around her like ethereal waves. She knelt
to stare at Mon Mothma's motionless form. Reaching
out with the Force, but at a loss for what exactly
she was supposed to do, she tried to assess the
scope of damage inside Mon Mothma's
body.
As
she began to see deeper, the extent of the
poison's ravages astounded her. She could not
comprehend how Mon Mothma had managed to stay
alive for so long. Uncertainty fluttered in
Cilghal's mind like gathering shadows.
How could she possibly combat such a disease?
She did not understand how working with the Force could heal
living things, how it could strengthen the life of someone
as devastated as Mon Mothma. The best
available medical droids had not been able
to remove the malicious poison. No medicines
had been able to cure her.
Cilghal knew only what Master
Skywalker had taught her — how to sense with the
Force, how to feel living things, how to move
objects. She touched Mon Mothma with glowing
currents of the Force, searching for some kind of
answer, or at least an idea.
Could she use her Jedi skills but in a
different manner that might strengthen Mon
Mothma? Help her body to heal? Find some
method to remove the poison?
Cilghal hesitated as a possibility
struck like a meteor. The magnitude of the effort
stunned her, and she wanted to dismiss the thought
automatically — but she forced herself to study the
idea.
Master Skywalker had explained Yoda's
teachings, his insistence that "size matters not."
Yoda had claimed that lifting Luke's entire
X — wing fighter was no different from lifting a
pebble.
But could Cilghal turn it the other way around?
Could she use her precise control of the Force
to move something so small?
She blinked her round Calamarian eyes.
Millions of the tiny nano — destroyers
saturated Mon Mothma's body.
Size matters not.
But if Cilghal could remove the destructive
poison molecules, if she could somehow keep
Mon Mothma from toppling over the abyss into death
— comthen her body could restore itself, in time.
Cilghal refused to let her thoughts overwhelm
her with visions of the sheer number of poison
molecules. She would have to move them one by one,
tugging each nano — destroyer through cell walls and
out of the dying leader's body.
Cilghal placed her broad fins on Mon
Mothma's bare skin. She picked up the
leader's left hand and raised it over the side of the
bed frame, letting the woman's fingertips rest
in a small crystal dish that had once been used
to dispense medications. Even this gentle touch was enough
to cause red bruises to bloom on the woman's