Heir To The Empire (20 page)

“Except that we’re back to the New Republic rep knowing about me,” Leia pointed out.

“Yes, but he’ll be a Wookiee,” Lando pointed out. “If he accepts you under his personal protection, he won’t betray you. Period.”

Leia studied Han’s face. “Sounds good. So tell me why you don’t like it.”

A muscle in Han’s cheek twitched. “Kashyyyk isn’t exactly the safest place in the galaxy,” he said bluntly. “Especially for non-Wookiees. You’ll be living in trees, hundreds of meters above the ground-”

“I’ll be with Chewie,” she reminded him firmly, suppressing a shiver. She’d heard stories about Kashyyyk’s lethal ecology, too. “You’ve trusted your own life to him often enough.”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “This is different.”

“Why don’t you go with them?” Luke suggested. “Then she’ll be doubly protected.”

“Right,” Han said sourly. “I was planning to; except that Chewie thinks it’ll gain us more time if Leia and I split up. He takes her to Kashyyyk; I fly around in the Falcon, pretending she’s still with me. Somehow.”

Lando nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

Leia looked at Luke, the obvious suggestion coming to her lips . . . and dying there unsaid. Something in his face warned her not to ask him to come with them. “Chewie and I will be fine,” she said, squeezing Han’s hand. “Don’t worry.”

“I guess that’s settled, then,” Lando said. “You can use my ship, of course, Chewie. In fact-” he looked thoughtful “-if you want company, Han, maybe I’ll come along with you.”

Han shrugged, clearly still unhappy with the arrangement. “If you want to, sure.”

“Good,” Lando said. “We should probably fly out of Nkllon together-I’ve been planning an offworld purchasing trip for a couple of weeks now, so I’ve got an excuse to leave. Once we’re past the shieldship depot, Chewie and Leia can take my ship and no one’ll be the wiser.”

“And then Han sends some messages to Coruscant pretending Leia’s aboard?” Luke asked.

Lando smiled slyly. “Actually, I think we can do a little bit better than that. You still have Threepio with you?”

“He’s helping Artoo run a damage check on the Falcon,” Leia told him. “Why?”

“You’ll see,” Lando said, getting to his feet. “This’ll take a little time, but I think it’ll be worth it. Come on-let’s go talk to my chief programmer.”

The chief programmer was a little man with dreamy blue eyes, a thin swath of hair arcing like a gray rainbow from just over his eyebrows to the nape of his neck, and a shiny borg implant wrapped around the back of his head. Luke listened as Lando outlined the procedure and watched long enough to make sure it was all going smoothly. Then, quietly, he slipped out, returning to the quarters Lando’s people had assigned him.

He was still there an hour later, poring uselessly over what seemed to be an endless stream of star charts, when Leia found him.

“There you are,” she said, coming in and glancing at the charts on his display. “We were starting to wonder where you went.”

“I had some things to check on,” Luke said. “You finished already?”

“My part is,” Leia said, pulling a chair over to him and sitting down. “They’re working on tailoring the program now. After that it’ll be Threepio’s turn.”

Luke shook his head. “Seems to me the whole thing ought to be simpler than all that.”

“Oh, the basic technique is,” Leia agreed. “Apparently, the hard part is slipping it past the relevant part of Threepio’s watchdog programming without changing his personality in the process.” She looked again at the screen. “I was going to ask you if you’d be interested in coming to Kashyyyk with me,” she said, her voice trying hard to be casual. “But it looks like you’ve got somewhere else to go.”

Luke winced. “I’m not running out on you, Leia,” he insisted, wishing he could truly believe that. “Really I’m not. This is something that in the long run could mean more for you and the twins than anything I could do on Kashyyyk.”

“All right,” she said, calmly accepting the statement. “Can you at least tell me where you’re going?”

“I don’t know yet,” he confessed. “There’s someone out there I have to find, but I’m not sure yet even where to start looking.” He hesitated, suddenly aware of how strange and maybe even crazy this was going to sound. But he was going to have to tell them eventually. “He’s another Jedi.”

She stared at him. “You’re not serious.”

“Why not?” Luke asked, frowning at her. Her reaction seemed vaguely wrong, somehow. “It’s a big galaxy, you know.”

“A galaxy in which you were supposedly the last of the Jedi,” she countered. “Isn’t that what you said Yoda told you before you died?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “But I’m beginning to think he might have been mistaken.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Mistaken? A Jedi Master?”

A memory flashed through Luke’s mind: a ghostly Obi-wan, in the middle of the Dagobah swamp, trying to explain his earlier statements about Darth Vader. “Jedi sometimes say things that are misleading,” he told her. “And even Jedi Masters aren’t omniscient.”

He paused, gazing at his sister, wondering how much of this he should tell her. The Empire was far from defeated, and the mysterious Jedi’s life might depend on his defense remaining a secret. Leia waited in silence, that concerned expression on her face . . .

“You’ll have to keep this to yourself,” Luke said at last. “I mean really to yourself. I don’t even want you to tell Han or Lando, unless it becomes absolutely necessary. They don’t have the resistance to interrogation that you do.”

Leia shuddered, but her eyes stayed clear. “I understand,” she said evenly.

“All right. Did it ever occur to you to wonder why Master Yoda was able to stay hidden from the Emperor and Vader all those years?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I assumed they didn’t know he existed.”

“Yes, but they should have,” Luke pointed out. “They knew I existed by my effect on the Force. Why not Yoda?”

“Some kind of mental shielding?”

“Maybe. But I think it’s more likely it was because of where he chose to live. Or maybe,” he amended, “where events chose for him to live.”

A faint smile brushed Leia’s lips. “Is this where I finally get to find out where this secret training center of yours was?”

“I didn’t want anyone else to know,” Luke said, moved by some obscure impulse to try to justify that decision to her. “He was so perfectly hidden-and even after his death I was afraid the Empire might be able to do something-”

He broke off. “Anyway, I can’t see that it matters now. Yoda’s home was on Dagobah. Practically next door to the dark-side cave where I found that beckon call.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, a surprise that faded into understanding. “Dagobah,” she murmured, nodding slowly as if a private and long-standing problem had just been resolved. “I’ve always wondered how that renegade Dark Jedi was finally defeated. It must have been Yoda who . . .” She grimaced.

“Who stopped him,” Luke finished for her, a shiver running up his back. His own skirmishes with Darth Vader had been bad enough; a full-scale Force war between Jedi Masters would be terrifying. “And he probably didn’t stop him with a lot of time to spare.”

“The beckon call was already on standby,” Leia remembered. “He must have been getting ready to call his ship.”

Luke nodded. “All of which could explain why the cave was so heavy with the dark side. What it doesn’t explain is why Yoda decided to stay there.”

He paused, watching her closely; and a moment later, the understanding came. “The cave shielded him,” she breathed. “Just like a pair of positive and negative electric charges close enough together-to a distant observer they look almost like no charge at all.”

“I think that’s it,” Luke nodded again. “And if that’s really how Master Yoda stayed hidden, there’s no reason why another Jedi couldn’t have pulled the same trick.”

“I’m sure another Jedi could have,” Leia agreed, sounding reluctant. “But I don’t think this C’baoth rumor is anywhere near solid enough to chase off after.”

Luke frowned. “What C’baoth rumor?”

It was Leia’s turn to frown. “The story that a Jedi Master named Jorus C’baoth has reemerged from wherever it was he’s spent the past few decades.” She stared at him. “You hadn’t heard it?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“But then, how-?”

“Someone called to me, Leia, during the battle this afternoon. In my mind. The way another Jedi would.”

For a long moment they just looked at each other. “I don’t believe it,” Leia said. “I just don’t. Where could someone with C’baoth’s power and history have hidden for so long? And why?”

“The why I don’t know,” Luke admitted. “As to the where-” He nodded toward the display. “That’s what I’ve been looking for. Someplace where a Dark Jedi might once have died.” He looked at Leia again. “Do the rumors say where C’baoth is supposed to be?”

“It could be an Imperial trap,” Leia warned, her voice abruptly harsh. “The person who called to you could just as easily be a Dark Jedi like Vader, with this C’baoth rumor dangled in front of us to lure you in. Don’t forget that Yoda wasn’t counting them-both Vader and the Emperor were still alive when he said you were the last Jedi.”

“That’s a possibility,” he conceded. “It could also be just a garbled rumor. But if it’s not . . .”

He let the sentence hang, unfinished, in the air between them. There were deep uncertainties in Leia’s face and mind, he could see, woven through by equally deep fears for his safety. But even as he watched her he could sense her gain control over both emotions. In those aspects of her training, she was making good progress. “He’s on Jomark,” she said at last, her voice quiet. “At least according to the rumor Wedge quoted for us.”

Luke turned to the display, called up the data on Jomark. There wasn’t much there. “Not very populated,” he said, glancing over the stats and the limited selection of maps. “Less than three million people, all told. Or at least back when this was compiled,” he amended, searching for the publication date. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s taken official notice of the planet in fifteen years.” He looked back at Leia. “Just the sort of place a Jedi might choose to hide from the Empire.”

“You’ll be leaving right away?”

He looked at her, swallowing the quick and obvious answer. “No, I’ll wait until you and Chewie are ready to go,” he said. “That way I can fly out with your shieldship. Give you that much protection, at least.”

“Thanks.” Taking a deep breath, she stood up. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I,” he said frankly. “But whether I do or not, it’s something I have to try. That much I know for sure.”

Leia’s lip twitched. “I suppose that’s one of the things I’m going to have to get used to. Letting the Force move me around.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Luke advised her, getting to his feet and switching off the display. “It doesn’t happen all at once-you get to ease into it. Come on; let’s go see how they’re coming with Threepio.”

“At last!” Threepio cried, waving his arms in desperate relief as Luke and Leia stepped into the room. “Master Luke! Please, please tell General Calrissian that what he intends is a serious violation of my primary programming.”

“It’ll be okay, Threepio,” Luke soothed, stepping over to him. From the front the droid seemed to be just sitting there; it was only as Luke got closer that he could see the maze of wires snaking from both headpiece and dorsal junction box into the computer console behind him. “Lando and his people will be careful that nothing happens to you.” He glanced at Lando, got a confirming nod in return.

“But Master Luke-”

“Actually, Threepio,” Lando put in, “you could think of this as really just fulfilling your primary programming in a more complete way. I mean, isn’t a translation droid supposed to speak for the person he’s translating for?”

“I am primarily a protocol droid,” Threepio corrected in as frosty a tone as he could probably manage. “And I say again that this is not the sort of thing covered by any possible stretch of protocol.”

The borg looked up from the panel, nodded. “We’re ready,” Lando announced, touching a switch. “Give it a second . . . all right. Say something, Threepio.”

“Oh, dear,” the droid said-

In a perfect imitation of Leia’s voice.

Artoo, standing across the room, trilled softly. “That’s it,” Lando said, looking decidedly pleased with himself. “The perfect decoy-” he inclined his head to Leia “-for the perfect lady.”

“This feels decidedly strange,” Threepio continued-Leia’s voice, this time, in a thoughtful mood.

“Sounds good,” Han said, looking around at the others. “We ready to go, then?”

“Give me an hour to log some last-minute instructions,” Lando said, starting toward the door. “It’ll take our shieldship that long to get here, anyway.”

“We’ll meet you at the ship,” Han called after him, stepping over to Leia and taking her arm. “Come on-we’d better get back to the Falcon.”

She put her hand on his, smiling reassuringly up at him. “It’ll be all right, Han. Chewie and the other Wookiees will take good care of me.”

“They’d better,” Han growled, glancing to where the borg was undoing the last of the cables connecting Threepio to the console. “Let’s go, Threepio. I can hardly wait to hear what Chewie thinks of your new voice.”

“Oh, dear,” the droid murmured again. “Oh, dear.”

Leia shook her head in wonder as they headed for the door. “Do I really,” she asked, “sound like that?”

Han had fully expected that they would be attacked during the long shieldship journey out from Nkllon. For once, thankfully, his hunch was wrong. The three ships reached the shieldship depot without incident and made a short hyperspace jump together to the outer fringes of the Athega system. There, Chewbacca and Leia replaced Lando aboard his yacht-style ship, the Lady Luck, and started off toward Kashyyyk. Luke waited until they were safely away before securing his X-wing back from defense posture and heading off on some mysterious errand of his own.

Leaving Han alone on the Falcon with Lando and Threepio.

“She’ll be fine,” Lando assured him, punching at the nav computer from the copilot’s seat. “She’s as safe now as she’s ever likely to be. Don’t worry.”