Star by Star (4 page)

“Jaina?
Jaina’
s here?”

Leia thought she had been the one to blurt the question, but realized that was not so when all eyes turned to Sal-Solo. At least she understood why Han had been acting so strangely. She had a vague memory of a deep-space rendezvous with the
Jade Shadow
, of kissing her brother and each of her children good-bye and telling them she would see them again on Coruscant. Something must have happened. Perhaps Han had needed Jaina to help him fly the
Falcon
, or perhaps Mara and Luke had run into trouble and been forced to divert. Maybe all of her children were on Corellia. She hoped not. She hoped Jacen and Anakin were safe on Coruscant … but it
would
be good to see them, too. So good.

“… Anakin?” Sal-Solo was asking. “Is he here, too?”

“Just Jaina,” Han said firmly. “Anakin and Jacen are on Coruscant.”

“Of course, you
would
say that.” Sal-Solo was thinking aloud. If he could force Anakin to reactivate Centerpoint, he would have no worries from the Yuuzhan Vong or the New Republic. He could use it to isolate the whole Corellian system and run the place as his personal empire. “But I can find out. I have my ways.”

“Yeah—you could comm them on Coruscant,” Han said. “Feel free to reverse the HoloNet charges—I know how strapped things are here in Corellia.”

“Wait—what was that about tank three?” Leia demanded, not paying much attention to the exchange between Han and Sal-Solo. “Jaina’s in a bacta tank? What happened?”

“You remember.” Again, Han gave her a strange glare. “That hit on Duro turned out to be worse than we thought.”

The stress alarm behind the bed started to beep again.

“Will you
please
disconnect that thing?” Leia demanded. Whatever had happened—whatever Han was trying to tell her—she did not want a machine giving them away. “And get me a repulsor chair. I want to see my daughter.”

“Yes.” Sal-Solo was scowling and studying Han, obviously wondering why Leia seemed so surprised. “Why don’t we all go?”

Dr. Nimbi arranged for a repulsor chair, then unstrapped Leia’s arm from the safety rail, hung the necessary IV lines on the bag hook attached to the chair, and helped her out of bed.

Leia’s legs were no sooner lowered than they began to ache with a pain a hundred times worse than childbirth. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced, a bursting, throbbing, burning kind of anguish that made her wish the Yuuzhan Vong had finished the job and cut them all the way off. She caught Sal-Solo staring and looked down to see two huge Hutt-like things sticking out where her legs should have been.

“If you’re going to gape,” Leia said, “I wish you wouldn’t smile.”

Sal-Solo covered his mouth, which was not actually smiling, and turned away. Accompanied by the CorSec agents, Sal-Solo, and even the nurse, Dr. Nimbi led them past the droid’s monitoring post down the opposite corridor. Leia’s heart began to pound immediately. The door of the bacta parlor was ringed by black blossoms of soot. Opposite, the ruins of the waiting room were set off by the jagged remains of a small half wall. They had been determined, these bounty hunters, and it made Leia shudder to think how close they must have come to capturing her only daughter.

As they reached the bacta parlor, Leia noticed an anvil-headed Arcona sitting in one of the few undamaged chairs. He met her gaze long enough to nod, then went back to staring at his feet. She steered her chair into the bacta parlor behind Han, the nurse, and the others.

They stopped in front of tank three, where a badly wounded woman of at least thirty years of age was floating inside. She was several centimeters taller than Leia and well muscled, and though there was something vaguely familiar about her face, she bore
no resemblance at all to either Han or Leia. Most telling of all, her head was surrounded by a cloud of silky hair; like Leia, Jaina had left hers in a decontamination lock on Duro.

Leia craned her neck, checking the other tanks for an occupant that could be her daughter. There was none; only a Selonian with an amputated tail.

“This is Jaina?” Sal-Solo asked, clearly as doubtful as Leia herself. “She’s a little old to be your daughter, Han.”

“She’s been flying for Rogue Squadron,” Han said. “You’d be surprised how space combat ages a girl.”

And Leia finally understood. For some reason she did not yet know, Han and Dr. Nimbi were trying to get this woman off Corellia. Jaina was not there at all; none of her children were. Leia should have been relieved, but instead she felt let down and desperately alone.

“… that right, Leia?” Han was asking.

“Yes, of course,” Leia answered, with no idea whatsoever what she was agreeing to. “That’s true.”

Han nodded assertively. “You see?”

“Does space combat also change eye color?” the nurse asked, studying the data display attached to the mystery woman’s tank. “I seem to recall that Jaina’s eyes are brown, like her mother’s. This patient’s are listed as green.”

“Cosmetic tinting,” Leia explained. Even if her heart was not in it, she knew what Han needed from her. “To make her harder to identify.”

Sal-Solo looked doubtful. “What are you trying to pull, cousin? This woman can’t be your daughter.”

“I could confirm her identity with a simple genetic test,” Dr. Nimbi suggested. “We could have the results in, oh, two days.”

Sal-Solo glowered at the doctor, then turned to the nurse. “Check the admission data. Who’s the responsible party?”

Han had not changed so much in his time away that Leia could no longer see through his sabacc face. He awaited the nurse’s response with a feigned air of disinterest, but his eyes were fixed behind her, where a reflection on the surface of tank two showed the data scrolling up the display. When the screen finally stopped rolling, its reflection showed several blank data fields. Han’s gaze shifted quickly back to the nurse.

“She was admitted anonymously.” He stated it as though he knew it for a fact. “No name, no contact information.”

The nurse’s jaw fell, but she nodded. “Not even notes about the receiving circumstances.”

Han turned to Sal-Solo with a smirk. “That’s all the proof you need, Governor-General.” He pressed a finger to the bacta tank, and the green eyes of the woman inside fluttered open. “She leaves with us—or I inform every media station in the system that you’re holding our daughter against our will.”

Sal-Solo glared at him. “I could prove that you’re lying.”

“True,” Han said. “But could you prove it to the Yuuzhan Vong?”

Sal-Solo’s face grew even stormier, and he turned to the doctor. “Can she be moved—now?”

“We can lend them a temporary bacta tank,” Dr. Nimbi said. “As long as they change the fluid each time they stop for Leia, this patient should be fine as well.”

Sal-Solo studied the tank, no doubt trying as feverishly as Leia to puzzle out what the woman inside had to do with the Solos—and of what interest she might be to whoever had sent Roxi Barl. Finally, a full minute after Leia had given up on the riddle, he made a sour face and turned to Dr. Nimbi.

“I think I
do
see a certain family resemblance,” Sal-Solo said. “But you’ll sell the tank to them, not lend. I don’t want anyone coming to return it.”

The security hatch finally irised open, revealing the cavernous interior of the public berthing facility where the Solos had hidden the
Millennium Falcon
in plain sight. On any other planet, they would have rented a private bay in some very discreet luxury dock. But on security-obsessed Corellia, such measures inevitably drew more attention than they avoided. Leia and Han spent a moment studying the activity on the docking bay’s floor, then exited the cramped access lock.

The hatch whispered shut behind them, and finally they were someplace where they could talk. Putting her growing fatigue out of mind, Leia caught Han’s arm and pulled him around to face her.

“Han, what’s going on?” A muffled clamor sounded inside the access lock as their CorSec escorts entered with their “daughter” and her portable bacta tank. “Who is that woman, and why did Nimbi want us to remove her from a medcenter she seems very much in need of?”

“Because she may be in as much danger as you are.” Han squatted on his haunches in front of Leia, placing himself at eye level—and turning his back to any spymikes that might be aimed at them from the facility’s depths. “She did some things to help me during the firefight. I think she’s a Jedi.”

“A Jedi?” Leia did not ask for details or reasons. The CorSec agents would be in the access lock only a few moments, just long enough for the security computers to scan their faces and confirm their identities. “We may not be doing her any favors. Whoever sent Barl is still on our trail.”

Han glanced over his shoulder. “Where?”

“Behind us, in the access lock,” Leia said. “You remember when I said that CorSec agent was stealing?”

Han’s brow furrowed. “Yeah?”

“I wasn’t hallucinating. My datapad is gone.”

Now he looked angry. “That Ranat!”

“Han, don’t say anything about it. The money was well spent.” The device had only been a cheap replacement for the one she’d lost on Duro, and there was nothing on it but a few half-finished—probably incoherent—letters to family and friends. “He also took two datachits and the recording rod.”

“That’s money well spent?”

“It is when you realize he didn’t touch my credit case,” Leia said. “Or the credit chips you left on the dresser.”

“He’s a spy,” Han said.

Leia nodded. “Not a very good one, but I think so. Probably working for the same people who sent Roxi Barl.”

The hatch behind Leia began to hiss. Han glanced over her shoulder, then asked in a low voice, “What about the others?”

“Only the one,” Leia whispered. She was fairly certain of what she said; the agent had been working as hard to hide his thefts from his officer as from them.

The hatch stopped hissing, and two CorSec security men emerged with the mystery woman and her portable bacta tank. The guards were the spy and the same officer who had been in Leia’s room when she was awakened. She let her chin drop, less feigning exhaustion than allowing it to show. Despite the stim-shots and painkillers Dr. Nimbi had pressed on her, the effort of sitting upright was taking its toll.

The hatch closed, and the officer said, “Go on, Solo. The rest of the detail will stay behind to hold the media back.”

“Thank you,” Leia said, and she meant it. Without a wall of CorSec agents to keep the holocrews at bay, she felt fairly certain the journalists would have followed them aboard the
Falcon
. “I thought we were going to have stowaways.”

“No need to worry about that,” the spy said. “We’ll do a search.”

Han muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “over your dead body,” then led the way around the perimeter of the floor—no experienced spacer ever cut across a public docking
bay—toward a shadowy disk resting between the blockier forms of two ancient transports. Though Leia had never been a fan of the
Falcon
’s new matte-black finish, she had to admit that it did as much to reduce the famous ship’s public profile as it did to hide the hull blemishes acquired over so many decades of rough use. Now, even when someone did happen to notice the vessel sitting in the murk, it would hardly draw a second glance.

She wondered if that was what Han had intended when he chose the new color, or if it had just been a way of expressing his grief over Chewbacca’s loss. She might never know; they were no longer close enough that she could guess, and she was not comfortable asking. How sad was that, after defeating the Empire and having three children together?

As they approached the
Falcon
, an anvil-headed silhouette with glittering yellow eyes emerged from between the landing struts, thin arms held casually out to the sides to show that his three-fingered hands were empty.

“Captain Solo,” he rasped. “Glad to make your acquaintance.”

“Not so fast, Twinkle-eyes,” Han said. “Just step away from the ship and go. We’re not giving interviews.”

“Interviews?”

The figure laughed coarsely and stepped into the light, revealing the salt-addicted Arcona who had exchanged glances with Leia in the hospital. He had a flat reptilian face with skin the color of durasteel and a cockeyed mouth that made him look half salted; over his threadbare tunic, he now wore a shabby flight tabard lined with dozens of fastclose cargo pockets.

“I’m no holojournalist,” the Arcona said. “All I’m looking for is a ride off this mudball.”

Leaving the portable bacta tank hovering on its repulsor gurney, the CorSec agents drew their blasters and moved up. “Do as Solo says,” the officer ordered. “And give me your identichip.”

The Arcona reached for a pocket as though to obey, then fluttered his fingers in the agents’ direction. “I’m not Corellian,” he said. “I don’t need an identichip.”

“He’s not Corellian,” the subordinate said.

“He doesn’t need an identichip,” the officer added.

Leia’s jaw was already hanging open, but Han was not so easily impressed.

“Cute trick. Now move along—and take your buddies.” He jerked his thumb at the two CorSec agents. “We’re not taking riders.”

The Arcona showed a row of crooked fangs in what was probably a smile. “I’m willing to earn my keep, Captain.” He glanced in Leia’s direction, then his tabard fluttered open to show her the lightsaber hanging on his belt, and she felt something warm slither over her in the Force. “I’m a first-class YT-1300 copilot. Have one of my own, if I can ever get back to the blasted thing.”

“Han.” Leia grabbed her husband’s arm. “I think—”

Han pulled away. “In a minute.” He continued to glare at the Arcona. “I don’t care if you fly Star Destroyers, you’re not getting on my ship.”

“Han!” Leia snapped. “Yes, he is.”

Han started to argue, then seemed to see something in Leia’s eyes that made him think better of it. “He is?”

Thankful she could still reach him, Leia nodded. “I think you should give him a chance,” she said. “I’m certainly not going to be much of a copilot.”