Reunion (43 page)

“No—”

“They were planted to deliberately incriminate Ash’ett, Khalii, and Zareb, weren’t they, Ngaaluh?
You
are the trusted one who turns against me, not these innocent intendants!”

Behind Shimrra, High Prefect Drathul’s face glowed with a mixture of relief and anger.

“My Lord,” he said, “this is inconceivable. Ngaaluh’s treachery explains much, but for the Prophet to have reached here, into your very court—”

“I did not say anything about the Prophet, High Prefect,” Shimrra said, turning. “This traitor uses the trappings of the heresy to accuse her victims, but that does not mean that she adheres to them herself.” Shimrra prowled across Ngaaluh’s field of view. “No. I sense conspiracies within conspiracies, here. It will take some
time—and no considerable effort—to disentangle the truth from the web of lies concealing it.”

“I will tell you nothing!” Ngaaluh gasped. The view through the villip shook as her body spasmed. Nom Anor watched and listened in horror as his spy emitted a pained cry, then slumped into the arms of the guards.

There was a commotion. The view shook, and for a moment Nom Anor couldn’t tell what was happening. When the villip was still, faces loomed in close, and he realized that Ngaaluh was prostrate on the ground, with people bending over her.

“Poison,” one of the guards said. “I fear that she has escaped us, Supreme One.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Shimrra’s voice was surprisingly calm. “We could not have trusted the confession of a priestess of deception, even under the most intense interrogation. Her discovery and death is enough to warn the person or persons she served that we are not fools. We cannot be deceived for long.”

“The damage she did can be reversed,” High Prefect Drathul said. “The lies she told can be rescinded. My intendants’ names can be cleared.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Shimrra’s reply surprised Nom Anor. “Ash’ett, Khalii, and Zareb will not be wasted. Already reports of heresy are on the increase. Fear of punishment is driving this new purge, and I would not see that undone. One good thing will come of this fiasco. That is a certainty.”

The villip continued to transmit as one of the guards kicked Ngaaluh’s lifeless body.

“What shall we do with this?” he asked.

“The usual.” Shimrra’s voice was dismissive. “Whether the Prophet sent her or not, she will serve as a warning to anyone else who would attempt to spy on me and to sow division in my court. Her hidden master will see that I
am no fool. He will know that it is only a matter of time before I find him, too, and before he shares her fate.”

“That time is long overdue,” High Prefect Drathul said.

“It will come, faithful servant,” the Supreme Overlord said. “It will come …”

Shimrra’s voice faded into the background as Ngaaluh’s body was hauled unceremoniously from the throne room. Nom Anor couldn’t tear his eyes from the wildly swinging view. Muffled grunts and the sounds of heavy footfalls accompanied the morbid procession through the palace. There were no exclamations, no questions. A dead body these days was not an unusual sight.

“Master,” Kunra said from the shadows, his voice tremulous.

“Be quiet,” Nom Anor growled. He wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. Ngaaluh was gone, and with her he had lost his best means of enacting his will on Yuuzhan’tar. Without her, he could no longer observe Shimrra and his court; nor could he tell what plans the Supreme Overlord was concocting against him. The chance to revenge himself on his enemies had slipped through his fingers, just when he had felt that he had been on the verge of success.

The rocking of the villip ceased for a moment, and Nom Anor’s eyes, which had been staring blindly at the villip choir, registered the scene again. Ngaaluh was swinging back and forth. The guards were counting. When they reached “Three!” the world whirled and the body fell.

Ngaaluh and the villip came to rest atop the charnel pit, tilted slightly to one side. Nom Anor had a perfect view of rotting bodies piled up in their hundreds. Somewhere in there were the pseudo-heretics he had sent to their deaths, along with Prefect Ash’ett, Drosh Khalii, and all the faithful who had been betrayed by Shimrra’s
new regime of terror. The boastful Commander Ekh’m Val was in there, too, faceless and nameless, his dreams of glory shattered.

How long, Nom Anor wondered, until the Prophet himself joined them?

“Nom Anor—”

“I said, be quiet, Kunra.” He heard a worried crack to his voice, but couldn’t hide it. “There is nothing to say.”

Together, in silence, they watched the bodies rot. When darkness fell, the view in the villip choir faded to black, but still Nom Anor watched. Hypnotized, he could only stare and think.

How long
?

He barely heard Kunra leave to attend to the work of the heresy.

How long? …

The bridge of
Pride of Selonia
was the quietest it had been for a while, with only a handful of crew members working at stations around where Leia sat at the communications console. For the last couple of days it had been kept busy, along with the
Widowmaker
, mopping up the stragglers of the Yuuzhan Vong strike force that had attacked Esfandia. But now that there was a lull in activities, the crew were concentrating on preparing to return to Mon Calamari for a well-earned break.
Millennium Falcon
was doing likewise, docked for the moment with the
Selonia
while it underwent diagnostic checks and minor repairs. Captain Mayn had given Leia permission to use the bridge’s communications facilities to test out the antenna array. While she waited for the go-ahead from Commander Ashpidar, she distracted herself by observing the planet below on the monitors around her.

From orbit, the gray atmosphere of Esfandia appeared unchanged. Bathed only by starlight and the occasional drive flash, the planet had absorbed the recent injections of thermal energy as a lake would absorb a teaspoon of salt, returning to its near absolute zero state within a matter of hours. Glancing at it via
Pride of Selonia
’s instruments, Leia hoped the Brrbrlpp life-forms had returned to their normal ways of life, chatting among themselves and sifting edible motes from the dense air in
which they floated. She wondered how long the stories of the battle that had brought bright light to their skies for the first time would circulate, and whether it would encourage an outward surge in their culture.

“Princess Leia.” A voice with as much emotion as a droid crackled out of the comm.

Leia put her thoughts to one side. “I’m here, Commander.”

“Engineer Gantree has completed her preliminary checks of the antenna array and pronounces it ready for a test run,” Ashpidar said.

She didn’t have to manufacture her relief. “That’s excellent. Tell Fan I’m impressed.”

“I shall do so.” Even through the wooden tone, Leia thought she detected a flicker of pride. “You can commence transmission when you are ready.”

“I presume you’ll be monitoring it.”

“Only to check signal quality and perform further calibrations.”

“Understood. Give me twenty seconds.”

Leia closed the comm line and activated the transceiver. She punched in the sequence for Mon Calamari. A signal check came back green almost immediately.
So far, so good
, she thought. Next she keyed Cal Omas’s private number, vaguely aware that it would have been close to the middle of the night where he was on the distant water world.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself.

Seconds later, the Chief of State of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances appeared in the holoprojector.

“Whoever this is,” he said, bleary-eyed, “you’d better have a good reason for calling me on my private number at—”

“What’s the matter, Cal? Did I disturb your beauty sleep?”

He blinked back sleep, squinting from the holodisplay. “Leia? Is that you?”

“You don’t even recognize me?” Leia affected a hurt expression. “It hasn’t been that long, surely?”

“It’s not that,” he said. “Just the holo is kind of fuzzy. Besides which, I’m half asleep!”

“I’m sorry to wake you, Cal,” she said sincerely, “but I figured you’d want to know that we’ve repaired the communications base at Esfandia. Generis won’t be far behind.”

“This couldn’t have waited until morning?”

Leia smiled. He was steadily waking up, and the grumpiness became more of an act with every passing second.

“I’ll bet Grand Admiral Pellaeon doesn’t take this long to get himself together.”

“I’ll bet the Grand Admiral
sleeps
in his uniform,” Omas said. “Why do you mention Pellaeon, anyway? Is he there, too?”

“Indeed he is,” Leia said. “As are the Ryn.”

“The Ryn? What have they got to do with anything?” He sighed, knuckling his eyes. “Maybe you should just explain from the beginning what’s been going on, Leia.”

“It could take a while.”

“I plan to be back in bed in ten minutes, so skip the exposition,” he said. “Is this transmission secure?”

“No. Not at this end, anyway. But what I’m telling you isn’t a secret here. It’s common knowledge.”

Leia summarized the Battle of Esfandia in as few sentences as possible. Cal Omas nodded throughout. He didn’t interrupt to ask questions, and she admired that in him. A good Chief of State had to trust the judgment of those under him—and Cal Omas was turning into a very good Chief of State.

“So you caught the traitor,” he said as she neared the
end of the story. “And you repelled the Yuuzhan Vong. That’s excellent work, Leia. Did you ever find out why they didn’t want the base knocked out? That’s the only thing I don’t get out of all this.”

“Han and I interrogated Tegg when things settled down. The best we can work out is that Vorrik gave instructions for Tegg to send a distress call from the base, once Ashpidar was out of the way. The distress call would read that the base was under attack by Chiss clawcraft—and would end with the base being destroyed, for real. We don’t think Vorrik would have left us with an asset like this intact.”

“But you
do
think he was continuing that wretched policy of setting neighbors against each other?”

“Sowing confusion and dissent,” Leia said, nodding. “Absolutely. It would have taken us ages to clear up the mess, and who knows what damage might have been done? Certainly, given what happened to Luke on Csilla, there are enough factions on both sides who don’t want us working together. It wouldn’t be hard for a spark like that to create a fire.”

“Not this time, though,” he said, smiling in approval. “You’ve done an excellent job, Leia.”

She smiled politely and changed the subject. “Is Mon Cal safe to come back to?”

“For now, it is, yes. We’ve picked up some recon traffic on the outer edge of the system, but nothing has tried to get through. There have been only a few major strikes anywhere, for that matter. Sovv thinks they’re regrouping, building up forces for a big push.”

“Just like us.”

“Exactly. If you’re thinking of coming back to check in, now might be a good time to refresh those pilots of yours.”

“Understood,” she said.

His face took on a serious cast. “I don’t want to risk losing one of the best assets I have, Leia. I’d like you
here
in case we need you. There are others I can send to take your place in these communications hot spots. Now you’ve identified the problem, it won’t be so hard to fix.”

“Credit where credit’s due, Cal,” she said. “The Ryn did this for us, and got us out of a nasty scrape. I want them accorded the respect they deserve.”

“Maybe so, but Gron isn’t going to like dealing with them.”

“I wouldn’t have thought Marrab would be in any position to dispute an order. After all, his network didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. Nor did the other spy networks, for that matter.”

Omas nodded. “Believe me, Leia, I take your point.”

“Good night, Cal,” she said, smiling fondly at him. “We’ll talk again soon.”

When he was gone, Leia sank back into the seat, using the quiet moment to close her eyes and turn to her thoughts. The peace didn’t last long; a few seconds later the comm unit called for attention with a sharp buzz.

Leia leaned forward, speaking into the comm. “Is that you, Commander Ashpidar?”

“It is, Princess,” came the Gotal woman’s reply. “Just letting you know that the antenna array performed adequately, but we would like also to test it in the other direction, away from the Core.”

“I might be able to help you there,” Leia said. “Give me a second.”

Before she could activate the comm again, though, she heard her husband’s voice from behind her. She swiveled around to face him, watching as he made his way over to her, sidestepping the few crew members working around the bridge.

“There you are,” he said, coming over to stand beside her. “Captain Mayn said I could find you here.”

“Ashpidar has the array working,” she said. “We’re just testing it out.”

He nodded distractedly, as though not really listening. “Have you seen Droma?”

“Not recently.” She thought back. “Did he come up with us when we left he base?”

“I’m pretty sure he did. But I was also concentrating on flying at the time, so …” The sentence trailed off into a shrug as he stood and made again to leave. “Oh, well, maybe Jaina knows.”

“Before you go,” Leia said, “I was going to see if I could raise Luke, in case you’re interested.”

A familiar smile broke through his look of concern. “Sure, why not. Let’s see how the old farmboy is doing.”

Leia tapped in the codes for
Jade Shadow
and waited as the network searched for the ship’s distinctive signature out of the many in the Unknown Regions. It took a lot longer than it had to raise Mon Calamari, but eventually the face of her sister-in-law appeared in the holodisplay, grinning broadly.

“Ah, there you are,” Mara said, her expression not hiding her relief. “Finally paid your bills, did you?”

Elegance Enshrined swooped low out of the trees, emitting a hooting cry that made the leaves and branches shake. Thousands of leaping insects and birds cavorting in the airship’s wake, gleaming a thousand colors, scattered wildly, thrown into chaos. Thin-limbed climbers responded with hoots and howls of their own as they jumped up and down agitatedly.