Fate of the Jedi: Backlash (6 page)

“No. One, two, three at most. Probing at perceived weaknesses.”

“Lecersen would be in the best position to take advantage of the situation if you … were killed.”

Jag nodded. “But I doubt this was Drikl Lecersen. It’s crude by his standards. And I think that an attempt like this would mean that he had given up.”

“Given up?”

“Given up on getting rid of me in a more elegant manner.” Jag turned back toward Jaina. “Let’s face it, he really believes that my relationship with you is a weakness, one that is potentially harmful to the Empire. He hasn’t come near to exploring all the ways he can cause me trouble.” He saw Jaina wince, and he took a step forward, hands up in an apologetic gesture. “I didn’t mean it that way. I know it’s not a weakness.”

“Are you sure?” There was just a trace of uncertainty and hurt in Jaina’s voice. She was not a woman prone to insecurity, he knew, so for her to ask such a thing suggested that this thought had been preying on her.

He nodded. “I’m sure. It’s change. I’m trying to change the way the Empire thinks of itself, of Palpatine, of the way the Moffs have
done things for generations, of the Jedi. People who try to effect change are lucky if they aren’t …” Jag hesitated. He’d meant to say,
aren’t put to death by stoning
, but he realized almost too late that Jaina would still be upset by Jag’s close call. “Lucky if they have any success at all. Lucky if they’re remembered fondly.”

Jaina did relax again. “You won big tonight, though.”

“Yes, I’m still alive.”

“More than that. One of the nasty little rumors floating around about you is that my Jedi powers are all that have been keeping you alive—that I’m your secret backup bodyguard corps. But tonight I was nowhere around. You took out six armored veterans trying to kill you. That’s very, well, Imperial.”

Jag snorted. “My deputy minister of trade, perishable goods, was in the suite above mine. I shot her in the foot while she was entertaining a guest. Not so very Imperial.”

“Well, that’s not what everyone is talking about.”

“Good.” Finally somewhat calmed, Jag moved across to sit beside her. “I just don’t know if I can pull this off, though. Hold things together long enough for the Empire and Alliance to reunite, and beyond. Effect any sort of change.”

Jaina shrugged. “Think about what you
have
accomplished. You’ve saved lives. You’ve maintained the honor of the Fel family name and brought it into a new generation. And you’ve shot a deputy minister in the foot.”

Despite himself, he grinned. “Couldn’t let that one go, could you?”

“You could start a whole new Imperial custom. ‘Dance, fool, dance!’
Zap, zap, zap!
‘Ow, my toe!’”

“Just keep quiet, will you?”

The two-vehicle caravan got under way as soon as Han and Leia finished changing into camouflage.

Han took the pilot’s seat in the faster, nimbler ruin of a sports-speeder. Leia and Dyon joined him. The others, Yliri piloting, took the
cargo speeder. Leia directed them northward, following her vague sense in the Force of where Luke must be.

Luke’s presence was steady and distant, and Leia had no sense that he was in immediate danger. But this feeling was not as accurate or specific as a homing beacon, and Leia could follow it in only a meandering, imprecise fashion, now correcting more to the northwest, now to the northeast.

The two vehicles moved through the Dathomiri rain forest at what, to Leia, seemed a maddeningly slow rate. They flew at an average of three or four meters above the forest floor, the sports vehicle in front, both pilots being very careful not to scrape against tree branches and conceivably knock passengers free. The cargo speeder sometimes had to stop, backtrack, and circle to find passages when Han’s speeder could easily navigate shorter routes, but Yliri did seem to be a more-than-competent pilot.

Occasionally Leia would get flashes of other presences in the Force: Dathomiri forest predators lying in wait as the two speeders passed. No attacks came, and she assumed that most wildlife on this planet would steer clear of tangling with humans and other humanoids, so many of which here carried deadly weapons and made use of Force powers. None of these brief Force flashes was familiar to her; none carried the unmistakable stamp of Luke or Ben.

A couple of hours in, Leia’s sense of direction failed her. She could still feel her brother in the Force, but her perception of him was divided; he was distant, but his emotions were near, lingering in this area, probably because of some encounter. “I’ve lost him,” she told Han.

He thumbed the dilapidated speeder’s comm board. “Mark this spot for a possible muster point, then commence spiral search. Report anything out of the ordinary.”

Yliri acknowledged and her speeder banked away to starboard, beginning its spiral pattern. Han banked to port. Their two spiral searches would overlap to a considerable degree, offering double coverage to the area Leia most wanted to search.

A short while later, when the two speeders had come within view of each other for the third time, Leia saw the cargo speeder halt. There
was discussion among the four people aboard, then Tribeless Sha dropped over the side, landing nimbly on the forest floor four meters down. She looked right and left, then set off at a trot to the right, a course that would carry her past the red speeder’s current path. When she’d moved forty paces, the cargo speeder followed at a slow pace.

Leia activated her speeder’s comm. “What’s happening? Over.”

Yliri’s voice came back, “Sha spotted blood on a bush. Now she’s spotted rancor footprints. She’s tracking back to where the beast was injured. Over.”

“Thanks. Out.”

Within a few minutes, Sha had found the spot, ground that was charred everywhere as if by a broad-ranging but not very intense fire. Within a hundred meters of it were two wrecked speeder bikes. Tarth looked over the registration numbers engraved in their engine compartments and gave Han a nod.

Han sighed. “Luke and Ben are going to lose their deposits.”

Leia elbowed him in the ribs. “Not funny. Where are they?”

“Hard to track.” That was Sha, one of the few times she’d spoken since she’d been hired. She gestured to the northwest, at a distinct angle from their previous course. “That way. There’s another set of tracks. Dathomiri woman, I think.” Her hand transcribed an arc, then ended up pointing in the same direction. “Went off at an angle, then went that way, too.”

“Who was leading and who was following?” Leia frowned. While she didn’t like the idea of anyone tracking or trailing Luke and Ben, she knew that her brother might merely be allowing an enemy to do so.

Sha shrugged. “Impossible to tell. Too long ago.”

“Can you track them?”

Sha nodded. “Yes. But slow. Walking speed.”

“Let’s do it, then.”

“Electronics are fried.” That was Tarth, still rummaging around in the mechanical insides of one of the speeder bikes.

Han frowned. “How’s that again?”

“Electronics are fried. Both speeders. I also found a comlink by the other one. Burned clear through and discarded.”

“Char marks on the ground where they were?”

Tarth shook his head. “The same as all around, but nothing to suggest they were grounded when it happened.”

Sha said nothing, but the look she gave Han was a question.

“Electrical attack of some sort,” Han told her. “But electricity is most damaging when its target is in contact with the ground. If the two speeder bikes were shot out of the sky with an electrical attack while they were moving … well, that’s a lot of power.”

Sha nodded. “Lightning Storm. A spell cast by the Witches. Some Witches. All Nightsisters.”

Leia took a step forward before she’d realized she had. “Nightsisters? I thought—I was hoping they were all gone.”

Sha shook her head. “Never gone. They hide, they heal, they return. If their numbers are few, they come for your children.” For just a moment, her usually expressionless mask fell and she looked bleak. Then that look was gone, wiped away by a blankness any sabacc player would envy, and Sha turned away.

Han gripped Leia’s shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “The Nightsisters are their Sith.” His voice was a grim whisper.

A
DMIRAL
N
ATASI
D
AALA, ONE TIME
I
MPERIAL
N
AVY OFFICER AND NOW
head of the executive branch of the Galactic Alliance government, sat back in her chair and pondered whether she wanted to call in Wynn Dorvan. Daala felt a flash of exasperation; there were times when she just wanted things to be orderly and clear-cut. And Dorvan always seemed to have something for her to think about that made things the opposite. Still, he was such an efficient assistant that she had to make allowances. It was, after all, the civilian way of doing things.

And she wanted to remain on good terms with him. With a little guidance, he would make a superior chief of staff someday … once he accepted the notion of having greater authority and responsibility.

Trusting the secretarial software built into her comm system to scrub weariness out of her tone, she said, “Wynn? A moment of your time please.”

“Certainly, ma’am. I’ll be right in.”

She took one last look around her office, at its calming purity of Imperial white furnishings to match her uniform. She brushed strands of her long red hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ears in a likely-to-fail bid for neatness.

The door slid open to reveal Dorvan. While he often was the harbinger of things complicated and messy, he himself was not. He was, as ever, alert and precise, his brown hair currently immaculate, reminding Daala of her own momentarily untidy state. From the left breast pocket of his tailored suit jacket poked a curve of brown fur striped with orange—the neck of his pet chitlik, named Pocket.

She gestured toward a chair and he eased into it, crossing his legs and looking up expectantly at her.

Daala went straight to the point. “Wynn, even after two years, this process of civilian rule is sometimes bewildering. So, where in military life I’d normally issue a command and later on ask a colleague what he thought of it in hindsight, sometimes here I need to gauge opinions before things are decided. A lot of different opinions. From different people.”

“That’s actually pretty common among civilian leaders with any sense.” Dorvan settled back in his chair, permitting himself to relax slightly. His own expression was curious, just a little wary. “Ask away.”

“This whole struggle with the Jedi. Do you think I’m—do you think my tactics are sound?”

He considered his answer for a moment. Dorvan always considered everything. “Admiral, when the holocams are recording, I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

“I know you are. They’re not recording now.”

He sighed. “I trust the Jedi to put the needs of the people first. To arrive at the right answer, even if it’s by trial and error. I think you’re pushing too hard. You can have them either as allies or subordinates, but not both. You seem to have decided that their proper role is subordinates.”

She nodded. “I have. Though not
my
subordinates. The government’s. So I have to bring them into line.”

“I would choose a different approach … but you’re the boss. I back you all the way.”

“But you don’t think I can pull it off.”

“Palpatine did. For a while. At a cost.”

Daala whistled appreciatively. “Nicely struck, soldier. Where do you hide that vibroblade when you’re not using it?”

“Pocket keeps it quite handily in her pouch. She’s a useful pet.”

“You think I’m becoming Palpatine, then?”

“No ma’am, I don’t. I wouldn’t be working for you if I did. I’m saying your
tactics
are similar to his, and could be perceived as such by the general public and your enemies.”

She gave him a brief smile she didn’t feel. “Well. I appreciate your candor.”

“It’s my job, ma’am.”

“That’ll be all.”

He rose and left. When the door slid closed behind him, Daala continued to sit, unmoving, now unaware of her errant hair, and pondered the course of action she was taking.

Tribeless Sha emerged from a screen of bushes like a phantom, no noise heralding her arrival, and Han, seated on the hood of the red speeder, jerked in surprise; caf sloshed from his cup onto his wrist. The sudden burn caused him to jerk again, more violently this time, and the full contents of his cup dashed across Carrack’s armored legs.

The big man gave Han an admonishing look and moved around to the far side of the grounded speeder as if putting it between them for cover.

Han shrugged an apology. “Sorry.” He rubbed at his stinging wrist. “Her fault.”

Leia moved forward and gave Han an amused smirk before turning to Sha. “What did you find?”

“Many tracks.” Sha gestured toward the northwest. “The woman tracking your brother precedes him. Again and again she cuts across his path, becoming clumsy and obvious when she does so. She always heads northeast. He sometimes follows a little while and sometimes not. He always returns to his northwest course.”