Balance Point (25 page)

“D’you think that flask really was …”

Mara had given that more thought. “No.” He hadn’t known she was coming. “But I’m sure he has more of the stuff.” Coomb spores, whatever that meant.

“You don’t think he was lying, then?”

“Not this time,” Mara muttered. She had felt the weird weakness again, in his presence—faint, but strong enough to confirm his claim.

“Hey, I caught a whiff of good air.” Jaina’s voice came through clearly. She must have pulled off the breath mask.

Mara kept her own mask on. Another group of rocks
lifted. She caught a glimmer of light through the space beyond them. “Almost,” she grunted.

It was hard to keep stones moving slowly, now. The mental image of dying within half a meter of freedom kept her focused. Moving the last stones took over an hour.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Roll forward. I want you right up here.” She pushed Jaina against the bubble’s fore edge. She gathered her legs and arms underneath her, knees and elbows bent, and took a deep gulp of the strength flowing in from the distance.
Ready, Luke?
She formed the words in her mind, wryly recognizing a secret double meaning.
Push!

“Now!” She shoved Jaina clear. Then she rolled free, ignited her lightsaber, and deflected the last falling stones. They fell glowing along their cut surfaces.

Jaina’s scalp bled from a cut near her right ear. She whipped out her comlink. “Gateway Security, this is an emergency. I need Administrator Organa Solo on the line—now!”

There was no answer.

“Back up the tunnel,” Mara ordered.

“Okay, Mara, what is this?” Over
Shadow
’s comm unit, Leia’s voice had a deadly edge. “How did you find him out?”

Mara still wore the remains of her Kuati costume. She’d blasted off without waiting for clearance, once she understood that things were about to break in Bburru. Jaina sat next to her, wearing a brown flight suit from one of Mara’s lockers.

“Simple,” Mara answered. “He wasn’t there through the Force. That’s why he avoided you. Jaina found the masquer disengage spot. When he started to ripple, we went for our lightsabers.”

“How long did he think he could stay out of my way?” Leia’s voice muttered in Mara’s headset.

Mara didn’t like the obvious conclusion: He hadn’t thought he would need to avoid Leia much longer. “Grab him. Don’t let him out of Gateway.”

Leia’s voice sounded weary. “The dome’s too crowded for sensors or scanners to pinpoint one person. By now, he could be out in the swamps—or even underwater, from what Danni told us about their breathing devices. And now we know he’s got his own way of tunneling. He might even be in the old mines.”

“Can’t always have what we want,” Jaina muttered.

Mara shook her head.

“We cert … derstand Rhommamool better, d … we?” Interference ate into the transmission as they soared through Duro’s atmosphere.

“Losing you,” Mara came back. “I’ll send what I can from Bburru.”

Mara cut the transmitter, leaned back in her chair, and checked her readouts. Then finally, she let herself relax enough to check the spot between her hipbones. It was still an almost imperceptible tingle.
You’ve got a good grip
, she complimented … him?
Keep hanging on. The ride could get a little bumpy
.

“Didn’t ask about me, did she?” Jaina raised her head to stare at Bburru, growing on the fore screen.

“I would’ve told her if you’d been hurt.”

“Some women shouldn’t have children.”

Mara drew up straight, and a back muscle twanged. She must’ve overstretched it, scrabbling along on the stony ground. “I can’t believe you said that.”

When Jaina pursed her lips, she looked a very young seventeen. “To her, I’m an inconvenience. ‘Winter, take Jaina for a walk.’ ‘Threepio, tell Anakin a story.’ ‘Here, Chewbacca, watch the twins.’ ”

“And how many mothers gave up a seat on a shuttle headed for safety this year? Put their kids on board and stayed behind, to die or be enslaved? Sometimes staying with your child isn’t possible.”

“Then mothers who are too important to raise their kids should just sign them over and go off to work.”

Mara, who had only vague mental images of her parents, dropped her voice to an icy alto. “For such a mature young woman, you are being surprisingly childish.”

Jaina ran a hand over her bare head. It was starting to show a faint brown shadow of regrowth. “I’m also being honest. Mara, I nearly died at Kalarba. I lost an awfully
good friend at Ithor. She gave up everything, to give families a chance to survive somewhere else.”

“And your mother is giving those survivors somewhere to live. This planet is hope, literally and symbolically.”

Jaina sighed heavily. “Poor Mom. She’s got a halfblind, stubborn daughter who can’t fight anymore and a son who’s afraid to be a Jedi. Good thing Anakin came along.”

“You’ve got a temporary weakness. File this away for your future, Jaina Solo. It’s all right to take risks for yourself. But never, never commit someone else to hand-to-hand combat if they’ve had their fighting edge blunted. Do we understand each other?”

Stars appeared as they broke through Duro’s opaque atmosphere. Mara switched
Jade Shadow
’s comm unit to her private frequency. “Luke,” she called.

He answered. “Mara. On your way?”

Of course, he felt her getting closer. “We met an old friend,” she said grimly.

They docked the
Shadow
at Port Duggan. Mara threw on a hooded cloak over the remains of her costume and led Jaina back to the cheap rental unit. As she slipped through the door, she felt a hesitant touch—Luke’s, making sure she was all right. She ran the same check herself, just to keep everything in perspective, as he embraced her.

Anakin sat on the near cot with his eyes shut, passing his lightsaber grip from hand to hand behind his back—a very young Jedi’s equivalent of fidgeting. A strand of dark-brown hair drooped into his face.

Jaina dropped onto the near cot and frowned at him, then over at Luke. “Did you tell him?” Jaina asked. “Anakin, Nom Anor didn’t die on Rhommamool after all. He’s here, and he’s a Yuuzhan Vong agent.”

“One more tidbit,” Mara said, staring straight at her husband’s eyes. “He claims he infected me with this disease. At Monor II.”

She hadn’t wanted to transmit that over the link because she wanted to see his reaction, and he didn’t disappoint her. He raised his head, eyes wide, radiating a depth of fury she rarely saw in him. He controlled it instantly, of course.

“What do you think?” he asked, once again projecting that Jedi Master calm.

Mara had crossed her forearms. She clenched her opposite elbows. “He might know how to tell if I’m really cured. I would love to go back for him.”

Luke’s cheek twitched—again, the reaction so subtle that Jaina and Anakin missed it entirely. “So would I,” he said, “but if you’ve confirmed a Yuuzhan Vong agent downside, that fits what we’ve been finding.”

He gave her a sketchy report, implicating CorDuro Shipping in the downside colonies’ shortfalls—and his own suspicions. By digging back through layers of encryption in altered shipping records, R2-D2 had discovered that the Port Duggan branch of CorDuro Shipping was in fact diverting SELCORE and other supplies to another Duros habitat—but recording the supplies as sold offworld, in case SELCORE enforcers got suspicious.

“We also checked every lead Tresina Lobi gave me, and Artoo’s been searching the port authority’s records.”

Mara glanced at the little droid, who stood at a data port. “Comparing arrivals with departures?”

Luke nodded. “And tracing them both back. We’re trying to verify a connection with the Peace Brigade. And possibly a link to SELCORE itself.”

If Karrde’s suspicion proved correct, and SELCORE or other high-level councils had been infiltrated, the New Republic was in worse trouble than anyone suspected.
No wonder Luke seemed agitated: the small, jerky hand movements, the set to his chin, and most of all, the edginess that was getting through to her on the Force.

“Thrynni Vae vanished in a seedy area of Port Duggan,” he continued. “No surprise, really. Anakin and I just looked it over. The tapcafs are quiet. Almost too quiet.”

R2-D2 squealed softly.

Luke straightened. “Got something more?” He leaned toward the readout over R2-D2’s data port, and Mara bent close.

Letters appeared, scrolling rapidly. It started with a list of entries that had been deleted or altered in some way: recent hires at Port Duggan, arrivals back half a year, visitors logged into Vice-Director Brarun’s office. Several names reappeared.

Under that list, R2-D2 had tracked the frequently mentioned names’ travel backward and forward. For several, the trail vanished after three hops. Two, though, had traveled to Ylesia and back—several times. Those entries were flagged.

Next appeared a security file from Duro’s communication repeaters. Very few droids in the New Republic carried the programming it would take to slice into that log. The links between here and Ylesia showed multiple hits.

“What’s there?” Anakin asked, peering around Mara’s shoulder. “That’s clear out in Hutt space.”

“The Hutts used to run a slave-snaring scam there,” Mara murmured. “And your dad claims it’s a Peace Brigade hot spot.” She turned to Luke. “So maybe Thrynni was abducted there?”

Luke hesitated for several seconds. “It’s the best lead we’ve had, but I hate to send anyone on a wild yunax chase.”

“I’d guess Vice-Director Brarun is in this up to his big
round eyes,” Mara said. “Add this to the diverted goods ending up at Urrdorf, and an influx of Duros there—”

She caught a gust of concern out of Luke.

Jaina spoke up from beside the window. “Let me guess. All their brightest and best, suddenly taking vacations at lovely Urrdorf.”

Luke turned away from the readout.

“What?” Mara demanded.

“Jacen’s with Brarun. He could be in danger.”

Jaina pushed away from the window.

Luke raised a hand. “Not for a while, though, I think.”

“Brarun’s being cagey?” Mara demanded.

Luke nodded. “We’re all seeing the same pattern. Someone is about to sell out the SELCORE refugees and make a run for it. For the moment, Jacen wants to stay where he is.”

Mara shook her head.

“We’ve got to call for another downside evacuation, and somehow do it without tipping off the Peace Brigade. I’d guess they’ve promised the Yuuzhan Vong several thousand prisoners for sacrifice.” Luke rubbed his chin. “Unless …” He trailed off.

Mara cleared her throat.

“Unless it’s not the refugees they mean to sacrifice, but the Duros in orbit. They could use the refugees as slaves. We’ve seen that before. And think about this. If the Yuuzhan Vong occupied Duro, they could hit the Core from here.”

Mara firmed her lips. Worse and worse.

“Mara, Jaina, did you get any kind of information on SELCORE while you were down there?”

Mara frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They may have been infiltrated,” he said.

“Let me think.” Mara shut her eyes. “Nothing obvious so far. Just what seems to be a normal set of bureaucratic problems.”

Luke laid a hand on R2-D2’s dome. “Artoo, you can break into the outsystem military net, can’t you?”

The droid warbled in a major key, sounding confident.

Luke pulled a comlink out of one pocket and handed it to Anakin. “And I want you to connect this with Artoo’s manipulator arm.”

Whistling cheerily, R2-D2 plugged himself back in. Mara watched her husband. In Lando’s terms, ten to one he was going to try to contact the military on Coruscant without alerting SELCORE.

She wrapped her hand around his arm, squeezed tightly, and headed for the refresher to clean up and wash the tint out of her hair.

When she came out again, Luke was sitting close to R2-D2’s temporarily modified manipulator arm.

“Hamner,” Luke said urgently. “Kenth, are you there? This is Skywalker.”

A sleepy groan came out of the comlink. Luke smiled ruefully up at Mara, then turned back to R2-D2.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Kenth, we’re getting indications that the Yuuzhan Vong could be getting ready to hit Duro, and it’s too vital a system to lose. If millions of lives weren’t reason enough, it’s actually inside the Core. From here, they could block trade on the Spine, too.”

“I know, I know,” the sleepy voice muttered.

“Is there any way you can get a battle group sent?”

She heard another groan. “Try SELCORE—”

“There’s a good chance,” Luke said, “that SELCORE is part of the problem. I know, the forces are already spread thin. Do what you can, Kenth. May the Force be with you.”

“Right.” Hamner’s voice was heavy with static. “You, too.”

Luke thumbed off the comlink. “Good,” he grunted, straightening his legs to stand slowly. “Well done, Anakin. You, too, Artoo.”

The droid trilled. Anakin took back the comlink and sat down on the bed, fiddling with its components.

Luke slumped against the wall, bowing his head, rubbing his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Mara asked. “You got off a warning.”

He shot Jaina a glance. “Jacen,” he said simply. Then he crossed his arms. “And I’m not looking forward to flying escort to another retreat under fire.”

“I don’t even have a ship here,” Jaina complained.

“I’ve got
Shadow
, and I’ll need a copilot,” Mara reminded her. “Stick with me.”

Jaina nodded somberly.

Anakin snapped the cover back onto the comlink and handed it up to Luke. “Before things get wild,” Anakin said, “we ought to try to find Thrynni Vae again. We didn’t accomplish much by going out in disguise.”

Looking amused, Luke pocketed the comlink. “Do you think we’d do better, declaring ourselves?”

Anakin squared his shoulders. “I don’t like to skulk.”

Mara laughed shortly. “You need the practice. But it isn’t always necessary. Jaina and I could use a rest,” she added. It’d been a long day.

“All right.” Luke pointed across the room. “Artoo?”

The little droid gave a rising chirp.

“How many security people are on duty at SELCORE’s transshipping dock, in the next hour?”