The Joiner King (45 page)

“We were just discussing the situation at Qoribu,” Luke said to them. “Chief Omas has informed us that Tenel Ka has dispatched a Hapan battle fleet to aid the Colony.”

Tionne’s pearlescent eyes grew wide. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It gets worse,” Corran said, scowling at Jacen. “A
Jedi
is responsible.”

“He followed his conscience,” Kyp said. “Which is more than I can say for half—”

“Actually,” Leia said, cutting off Kyp’s insult before it could be finished, “there may be a way for the Jedi to stop the war
and
earn the trust of the Chiss.”

Han groaned, but everyone else turned to her with a mixture of relief and expectation in their eyes.

“Han and I discovered—”

“Uh, sweetheart?” Han grabbed her forearm. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

This did not please Omas. “Captain Solo, if you have discovered something useful to the Galactic Alliance—”

“Excuse me, Chief.” Leia spun her chair around, placing her back to the table, then waited as Han did the same. “Yes, dear?”

Han’s eyes bulged. “What in the blazes are you doing?”

“Stopping a war,” Leia whispered. Knowing Han would only grow stubborn if he realized how much this was going to hurt her, she tried to hide her dismay. “Saving billions of lives, keeping the council together, preserving the Galactic Alliance. That kind of thing.”

“Yeah, I know.” Han jerked a thumb toward the Ithorians. “What about them? That world we found was perfect—”

“And it’s perfect for the Killiks, too.” She had a familiar queasiness inside, a heavy feeling that used to come whenever she was forced to make an unfair choice as the New Republic Chief of State. “We’ll take care of the Ithorians another way.”

“How?” Han asked. “Ask Omas to give them a planet?”

“No,” Leia said. “
Make
him.”

She turned around and smiled across the table at Omas.

“On the way home, Han and I discovered a small group of uninhabited planets.” Leia waited for the murmur of surprise to fade, then said, “I think they might make a good home for the Qoribu nests.”

A wave of disappointment filled the Force, and Leia could not help looking past Omas toward the foyer. The Ithorians were all staring silently in her direction, their eyes half closed in resignation—or perhaps it was sorrow. Still, when Leia met Waoabi’s gaze, he merely tightened his lips and gave her an approving nod. No Ithorian would want to live on a world that had been bought with someone else’s blood.

Leia directed her attention to Luke. “I propose that we move the Qoribu nests to these planets.”

“
How?
” Jacen asked. “There are four nests in the system, each with at least twenty thousand Killiks, and you don’t just
move
a Killik nest. You have to rebuild it inside a ship, lay in stores—”

“I’m sure Tenel Ka will instruct her fleet to help with that,” Leia said. “In fact, I’m rather counting on it.”

Jacen’s jaw fell, then he closed his mouth and nodded. “That could work.”

“And it will look as though it’s what the Jedi intended all along,” Omas added. “Brilliant!”

“You’re sure about this planet?” Luke asked Leia. “It’s completely deserted?”

“We should stop on the way back to the Colony and do a thorough sector scan.” Leia glanced at Han, who nodded, then added, “But I’m sure. The astrobiology there is … unique.”

“Well, then.” Luke glanced around the circle, seeking and receiving an affirmative nod from each of the council Masters. “We seem to have reached an agreement.”

The bitterness began to fade from the Force, and the tension drained from the faces of the Masters.

“We’d better prepared to deal with the Dark Nest,” Mara said. “It might not like this idea.”

“Dark Nest?” Omas asked.

“The Gorog nest,” Luke explained. “The Colony seems completely unaware of it, so we’ve started calling it the Dark Nest.”

“It’s attacked us several times,” Mara said.

“Why?” Omas asked.

Mara hesitated, clearly unwilling to tell the chief about the nest’s personal vendetta against her, so Leia answered.

“We’re not sure,” she said. “The nest doesn’t seem to want us involved with the Colony, so it’s a good bet it will try to stop us.”

“Maybe the Dark Nest
wants
war,” Jacen suggested. “It sounds like the Colony was pushing up against Ascendancy territory even before their own worlds began to grow scarce. There must be a reason.”

“I don’t understand,” Omas said. “I thought you persuaded Tenel Ka to send her fleet because the Colony is trying to
avoid
a war?”

“The
Colony
is,” Cilghal said. “But the Dark Nest—”

“May have its own reasons to want a war,” Leia said. She did
not want to complicate Omas’s view of the issue with a lengthy explanation of the Colony’s unconscious motivations—or give him reason to doubt the Jedi’s ability to resolve the crisis. “There’s a bit of a, um, power struggle going on inside the Colony.”

“Isn’t there always?” Omas said, nodding sagely. Power struggles were something that every government official understood well. He turned to Luke. “Is this going to be a problem for us?”

“Only finding it,” Mara said. “The Gorog are pretty secretive. So far, we’ve seen them on Yoggoy and Taat, but we have no idea—”

“Not a problem,” Han interrupted. “I can find their nest.”

“I don’t know if that’s even possible,” Cilghal said. “The Gorog social structure may be quite different from other nests’. They may have parasite cells hidden among all the other—”

“I can find ’em—at least the, uh,
heart
,” Han said, following Leia’s lead in not mentioning Lomi and Welk by name. “Trust me.”

“Fine.” Luke turned to Chief Omas and added, “But we’ll have to take along a Jedi team large enough to neutralize the nest. The Chiss will be alarmed—and nothing you say is going to reassure them.”

“They’ll be reassured when the Killiks leave Qoribu. I’ll handle them until then—just don’t take too long.” Omas braced his hands on the table and rose. “Speaking of which, I’ll be on my way—”

“Not so fast, Chief,” Han said. “We haven’t told you what this is going to cost.”

“Cost?” Omas looked to Luke, who merely shrugged and directed the Chief back to Han. “Of course, the Galactic Alliance will be more than happy to compensate you for any expenses the
Falcon
incurred—”

“We’re talking a lot more than that.” Han pointed at Omas’s chair, motioning him back down. “You see, Leia and I had something in mind for that group of planets, and we’re not about to give that up just because you’re afraid of what the Chiss think.”

Omas scowled. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Borao,” Leia said. “We want you to annul RePlanetHab’s claim in favor of ours.”

“You see, we were there first, and they kind of claim-jumped us,” Han said. “It’s been scorching my jets ever since.”

“You want me to give you a
planet
?” Omas gasped. “In the Inner Rim?”

“Not us.” Leia pointed over Omas’s shoulder toward the Ithorians. “Our clients.”

Omas spun in his chair, slowly, and faced the Ithorians—who were looking considerably less glum.

“I see,” he said. “If the decision were mine alone—”

“Han, do you remember the coordinates of the new planet group?” Leia asked. “We were having that trouble with the navicomputer, and I’m not sure we made a backup of—”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Omas said, rising again. “But, you understand, I can’t just
do
this. The Recovery Act is law—I’ll have to push a special exception through.”

“Then I suggest you hurry,” Corran said, leaning back in his chair. “The Qoribu problem is time-sensitive, and I’m sure the Solos will want this matter resolved before they leave.”

“That’s quite impossible,” Omas said.

When Corran merely shrugged, Omas turned to Kenth—who suddenly seemed far more interested in the training fields outside than in the Chief of State.

Omas sighed, then said, “But I
can
block RePlanetHab’s claim.” He turned to the Ithorians and added, “It may take a month or it may take ten, but I’ll push this through. By this time next year, you’ll have a planet of your own again. I give you my word as Chief of State.”

“That’s not much,” Han said, also rising. “But it’ll have to do.”

“To the contrary, Captain Solo.” Waoabi started forward, holding out his long-fingered hand to shake Omas’s and accept the promise. “It is more than we have now. Thank you.”

Waoabi’s courtesy should have made Leia feel better, but it did not. Instead, she felt sad and sickened and a little bit soiled by the trade-off she had been forced to make.

Like it or not, she was suddenly back in politics.

A weight lay across Jaina’s chest, and the inside of one ear was being warmed by a soft, pulsing growl. The dormitory air was filled with a comforting mélange of refresher soap and body smells from a dozen different species, but the predominant odor, familiar and musky and strongest, was human.

Male human.

Zekk.

Jaina reached down and felt his arm across her, and his leg a bit lower, then slowly turned her head. Through a lingering fog of membrosia excess, she saw the familiar chiseled features surrounded by a frame of shaggy black hair. Thankfully, he was still clothed.

The previous night came flooding back to her: Unu’s arrival at Jwlio, the Dance of Union, the Taat drifting off into the Harem Cave, the Joiners leaving in twos and threes and fours, her hand in Zekk’s …

Zekk’s green eyes opened, and the smile on his face was replaced by a confused squint. He blinked two or three times, then glanced at the lightly-clothed female body over which he’d draped himself and raised his brow. Jaina sensed a distinct
click
in the back of his mind. His eyes slid away from hers, and she felt his emotions swinging from disbelief to bewilderment to guilt.

“Well,” Jaina said, hoping to set a casual tone. “Interesting night.”

“Yeah.” Zekk pulled his arm and leg off of her body. “I—I thought it was a dream.”

Jaina cocked her brow. “You’re saying it wasn’t?”

Zekk’s eyes widened. “No, it was fun!” he said. “Great, even. I just … it just didn’t feel real …”

Zekk let the sentence trail off, sharing his thoughts and emotions with Jaina directly via the meld—or perhaps it was the Taat mind—instead of trying to explain. He had loved her since they were teenagers, and he had imagined waking at her side countless times. But last night had not felt like
them.
They had been carried along on a wave of Killik emotion. He had sought her out in the rapture of the dance, even when he knew she did not share his feelings, and found himself leading her down into the dormitory with all the Joiners—

“Zekk, we didn’t do anything,” Jaina said. She could have answered him more quickly and clearly just by thinking, but right now she needed the sense of separation that came with speaking—even if it
was
an illusion. “It was just a little cuddling between friends. You have a problem with that?”

“No!” Zekk said. “I just feel like I took advantage.”

Jaina clasped his forearm. “You didn’t.” She was genuinely touched by his concern—and truly relieved that it had been handsome, muscular, familiar Zekk who had taken her hand instead of Raynar. “We lost control there for a minute, but we got it back. I’m just glad Alema went home with Mom and Dad.”

Zekk remained quiet.

Jaina propped herself up on an elbow. “Hey!” She punched him in the shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking!”

“Sorry.”

Zekk blushed and turned away, and Jaina felt him closing down emotionally.

“Zekk, you can’t do that,” she said. They had to keep the meld open between them, to constantly draw on each other’s strength and resolve to remain their own little entity within the greater Taat mind. “And will you stop apologizing?” Jaina rolled her eyes, then reached for her jumpsuit. “I think I’m getting dressed now.”

She sat up and, sensing someone behind her, pivoted to find Raynar on the busy walkway at the head of their sunken bed. Dressed in scarlet and gold and surrounded by his usual retinue
of assorted Killiks, he was squatting on his haunches, staring down into the hexagonal sleeping cell with no discernible expression on his melted face. A sense of overwhelming awe arose inside Jaina—Taat’s reaction to UnuThul’s presence—and she felt her mouth broadening into an adoring grin.

She managed to wipe it away by reminding herself that this used to be
Raynar Thul.

“Raynar—good morning.” Jaina pushed her feet into the jumpsuit and continued to dress without embarrassment. There was not much sense in being modest when several thousand nest-mates had access to your innermost thoughts. “Come down to see how the drones live?”

Raynar lowered his Stiff brow. “Why do you call us Raynar when you know Raynar Thul is gone?”

“Raynar’s still in there somewhere,” Jaina said. “I can feel him.”

Raynar glared down at her, then said, “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps a little Raynar Thul remains in us still.” A glimmer of sadness appeared in his cold blue eyes. “And he will be sorry to see you go.”

Jaina felt Zekk’s alarm at the same time as her own.

“Go?”

“Your task here is done,” Raynar explained.

“Really?” Jaina thrust her arm through a sleeve. “I hadn’t heard the Chiss were gone.”

As she said this, the image of a clawcraft reconnaissance patrol appeared in her mind—the scene being relayed to one of the tactical monitors in the Taat control room. The ships were silhouetted against Ruu’s amber disk, flying just above the plane of Qoribu’s golden ring system.

“It looks like they’re still here to me,” Zekk said, no doubt seeing the same thing in his mind’s eye as Jaina did in hers. “So why would the Colony want us to leave
now?”

“We wish you to return to the Galactic Alliance,” Raynar said, dodging the question.

“What about our mission?” Jaina rose and closed her jumpsuit. “You brought us here to keep the peace.”

Raynar stood. “Your starfighters are being fueled. We thank you for coming.”