Abyss (20 page)

“
This
might,” Leia said. There was so much suppressed anger in her voice that when she released Han and started to step forward, he grabbed
her
arm. “We just learned that Daala is hiring a company of Mandalorians.”

Kenth stopped three steps short. “When?”

“Don’t know that yet,” Han said. Angry as he was at Kenth, he had to admire the man’s discipline and focus. He didn’t waste time doubting
them, and he didn’t ask stupid questions like
For us?
He just got down to the important details. “She’s still getting the money together. But she’s serious about it.”

“I see. Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“I’m afraid not,” Leia answered. “But our source has promised to keep us informed. We’ll pass along whatever we hear as soon as we hear it.”

“Thank you,” Kenth said, not bothering to ask for the identity or their source—or to question the source’s reliability. He started to turn back toward the circle of Masters. “Obviously, we have something
else
to—”

“Hey, hold on a minute,” Han said. “What about Barv and Yaqeel? This
has
to change their situation.”

Kenth stopped and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t believe it does.” He looked around at the rest of the Masters. “Does anyone else feel a need to revisit the arrest warrant decision?”

The Masters all shook their heads—even Corran Horn.

“You can’t be serious!” Han protested. “You can’t just hand them over!”

Han’s first hint that he had badly misread the situation was a loud sissing sound from the vicinity of Saba Sebatyne’s chair.

“Oh, Captain Solo!” She slapped her knee with a huge, scaly hand, then rasped, “You are so easy to play!”

Han scowled and turned to Leia, who merely spread her hands and looked even more confused than he was.

After a moment, Kenth said, “The Council has come to an … 
arrangement
that we all hope will be best for the Jedi Order
and
the patients.” He turned to Saba. “Master Sebatyne, perhaps you would be good enough to explain what the Order needs the Solos to do.”

Saba inclined her armored head. “Of course,
Grand
Master Hamner.” She looked up, then turned to Leia. “Jedi Solo, the Council needz you to contact Queen Mother Tenel Ka. We have a very great favor to ask of her.”

Until she had actually disassembled one, Jaina had never appreciated the magnificent complexity of a cleaning droid. Scattered across the long lab table were soapy-smelling sprayers, misters, brushes, polishing heads, vacuum nozzles, disintegrators, infradryers, logic boards, and a dozen other pieces of semi-miniaturized equipment that seemed entirely pertinent to the droid’s function. What had
not
proved pertinent—once she had identified its true nature—was the tiny parasite droid that she had found spliced into its control systems.

Disguised as a stain analyzer-dissolver module, the parasite was a marvel of espionage engineering, so cleverly designed that Temple security could not be faulted for having missed it. Instead of requiring its own lens and microphone, the parasite had hijacked the cleaning droid’s photo- and audioreceptors. It didn’t even need its own data storage unit. Instead it had overwritten the host’s entire stain-recognition bank, then partitioned off that part of the datachip for its own use. To transmit, the parasite simply waited until it was near an
open door, then inserted a burst of compressed data—coded to sound like normal interference static—into the cleaning droid’s communications stream. That much, Jaina had figured out.

What she
hadn’t
figured out was how Javis Tyrr could have come by such a sophisticated device. The parasite droid was clearly state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, the kind that cost millions of credits—probably
tens
of millions—to produce. Journalists simply did not have access to those kinds of resources—especially third-rate hacks like Tyrr.

Jaina took a much-needed sip of caf. She allowed her gaze to run over the table at random, asking herself who
would
have the resources to acquire secret-police-grade surveillance equipment, as well as the desire to put it into Tyrr’s hands. Daala was an obvious possibility. But she and Tyrr seemed an unlikely team, given that Tyrr’s reports had been nearly as hard on
her
as they had been on the Jedi.

A soft chime sounded behind Jaina. She spun her stool around to see what the computer had turned up for her this time … and she had her answer.

On the display was a visual comparison between two miniaturized logic chips. The one on the left had come from the parasite droid. The chip on the right had come from a supply of eavesdropping equipment captured near the end of the last civil war, when the Jedi had boarded the
Anakin Solo
. According to the caption below the image, the equipment had been recovered from the temporary quarters of one of the Imperials who had been aboard at the time, a certain Moff Lecersen.

Jaina suddenly felt like she had a bellyful of snakes. She found her comlink in hand without recalling that she had reached for it. She thumbed Jag’s quick-code, then waited in a growing fury during the five seconds it took him to answer.

“Nice to hear from you,” he said, leaving no doubt that his aide had checked to make sure it was her before passing him the comlink. “This will have to be fast. We’re on our way to—”

“Cancel it,” Jaina said. “We need to talk.”

“Jaina, I
can’t
. Chief Daala is expecting me.”

“I don’t care if the Emperor himself has been resurrected to meet you,” Jaina said. “You need to hear this, and you need to hear it
now
.”

Jag fell silent for a moment, then said, “What’s wrong?”

“When you get here.” Jaina did not even consider giving him a hint; if Lecersen could help Javis Tyrr slip a bug into the Jedi Temple, then he could also plant one in Jag’s limousine. “I’ll have an apprentice meet you in the east hangar.”

Jaina clicked off without awaiting a reply, then commed the apprentices’ dormitory to arrange for Jag’s escort. She was trying to keep a clear head, despite the cold rage building inside her. At the end of the last civil war, Lecersen and the other Moffs had been happy enough to accept a Jedi-appointed Head of State, rather than face execution for the war crimes they had committed in deploying their nanovirus. But they had never quite gotten over the indignity of having those terms dictated by Luke Skywalker. And now they were absolutely
chafing
under their new Head of State’s steadfast refusal to tolerate the usual corruption in the Imperial Remnant. So Jaina saw no reason to doubt that Lecersen was behind the eavesdropping. Her only questions were how much he had heard, and how much damage it would cause Jag and the Jedi.

Jaina turned back to the lab table and picked up the tiny circuit module that was the cause of her anger. It would be a tremendous help to know how much of their conversation the parasite droid had been able to pass along to Javis Tyrr. Now that she knew something about its design and origin, that might even be possible—but not without help. While Jaina had always been capable with machines, slicing a piece of espionage equipment this sophisticated required someone more than just “capable.” If she messed up, the module would almost certainly self-destruct.

What Jaina needed was Lowbacca’s help. She knew he would be happy to give it, but then he would hear the conversation about Daala and the Mandalorians. And how could Jaina ask
him
to keep a secret that she herself wasn’t even certain she should be keeping?

A soft
whoosh
sounded from the front of the lab as the door slid open. Jaina checked her chrono and saw that only five minutes had passed since she had commed Jag.

“Wow, that was fast,” Jaina called, still studying the parasite droid. “You must have been right on top of the …”

She let the sentence trail off as she sensed who was actually coming through the door. The Force auras belonged not to Jag, but to her parents, and both were very sad—and very angry. Jaina quickly set the parasite droid back on the table and turned, just in time to see her mother leading the way into the cluttered laboratory.

Of course her mother’s gaze was drawn straight to the tangle of circuits and feedwires in front of Jaina. “What’s that?” She ran her eyes over the cleaning droid parts. “This looks like your room when you were twelve.”

“Was it really
this
tidy?” When the joke failed to lighten the dark mood, Jaina explained, “I think I found out how Javis Tyrr has been getting his images from inside the Temple.”

Jaina knew better than to lie about the droid. Attempting to lie to a Jedi mother would be more than futile—it would set off alarm bells. Instead, her only hope of keeping her secret about the Mandalorians was to appear relaxed and just avoid the subject.

“You remember the cleaning unit that was working near the hangar door when Barv and Yaqeel went around the bend?” When her father nodded, Jaina picked up the parasite droid and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger. “I found this little guy hidden inside it.”

When neither of her parents showed any interest in how Jaina had found the bug—one that had been missed by Temple security at least a dozen times—she knew something was terribly wrong. She returned the parasite to the table, then watched in growing concern as her parents came closer.

“What is it?”

Her father came to her side. “Sweetheart, there’s just no easy way to tell you this.”

He took both her hands, and Jaina sighed with relief. At least no one else in the family was dead. If someone
had
died, her father would have crushed her in a bear hug—and anyway, she would have felt it in the Force first. There weren’t that many Solo-Skywalkers left.

When her father did not seem able to say any more, Jaina turned to her mother. “Did Ben go?” she asked. “I know Cilghal thinks it’s the students who were at Shelter that are at risk.”

“Ben’s fine, as far as we know,” Leia said. “This is about Jag.”

“No, I just talked to Jag. Unless there’s been an assassination attempt in the last …” Jaina checked her chrono and was alarmed to see that Jag could be arriving any minute now. “… ten minutes, he’s perfectly well.”

“He won’t be after you hear this,” her father said. “Brace yourself, kid.”

Jaina frowned. “For what?”

“Sweetheart, there’s something Jag has been keeping from you.” Her mother glanced at her father, then continued, “Your father and I thought you should hear it from us first.”

“What?” Jaina pulled her hands free of her father’s grasp, then cocked her brow. “You’re going to tell me Jag’s been seeing someone else?”

To Jaina’s dismay, her parents did not even crack a smile.

“Worse,” her father said. “He’s been holding out on you.”

“I seriously doubt that, Dad.” Jaina plucked at her robe. “
Jedi
, remember?”

“So’s your mother,” he countered. “And she only knows
half
my secrets.”

Her mother shot him a quick
so you think
glare, then turned back to Jaina. “Jaina, you can’t know about this—”

“Because if you did,
we
wouldn’t have had to hear about it from a spy.” Her father took her hands again. “Jaina, sweetheart, Chief Daala is sending for Mandalorians.”

Jaina’s stomach sank. She finally understood what her parents had come to tell her about Jag, and she knew how betrayed they must feel by his decision to keep the information secret. But she also felt immensely relieved, because
she
no longer had to struggle with her own divided loyalties by keeping the secret herself. In truth, she’d been wondering how long she could hold out.

“This is good information,” her mother said, apparently misinterpreting the reason for Jaina’s thoughtfulness. “It comes right from the top.”

“So?” Realizing that she had to react as though this
wasn’t
old news to her, Jaina pulled her hands free again and raised a thumb.

“First, who
cares
? Unless Boba Fett is coming himself, we can handle a company of Mandos without getting our robes dirty.”

“But there will still be a battle,” her mother reminded her. “And in that kind of fight,
everyone
loses something.”

“Yeah,” her father agreed. “And right now the last thing the Jedi need showing up on the holonews is a bunch of dead Mandalorians on the Temple doorsteps.”

“Point taken,” Jaina said.

She really didn’t want to ask this next question. Clearly, her parents already knew—
somehow
—that Jag had been keeping his knowledge to himself. Her only chance to redeem him in their eyes would be to make them see that Jag had been honor-bound to keep the secret. Well, to make her
mother
see it—her father would never understand. But if Jaina could convince her mother, then her
mother
would eventually make her father forgive Jag.

“But I don’t see what all this has to do with Jag,” Jaina continued. “Unless those Mandalorian companies are arriving on Imperial transport?”