"Clearly, Droekle." Tenel Ka pushed between Droekle and an even larger n.o.ble missing an entire forearm. "Would I wish to hug him if he weren"t?"
She pressed herself tightly enough to Jacen"s chest for him to tell that a lot had changed in the last five years-all for the better. Jacen hugged her back and, noting the noxious glowers from her male courtiers, tried not to smirk.
"I apologize for entering this way," Jacen said. "But your social secretary refused to announce me. He kept telling me you were unavailable."
Tenel Ka released him and took a step back, her expression darkening. "Which one? I must see that he"s corrected."
"No need." Jacen allowed himself the hint of a smile. "He has been."
"Is that so?"
Tenel Ka waited for him to elaborate. When he did not, she shrugged and took his hand, then jumped into the sunken courtyard to face her slack- jawed courtiers. Jacen was astonished to see that more than half had lost parts of their arms.
"Jacen is one of my oldest friends." She squeezed Jacen"s hand, then looked up at him with a mischievous grin. "He was the boy who cut my arm off."
Though Jacen and Tenel Ka had long ago come to terms with that terrible accident and had developed a friendship bordering on romance, even he was taken aback by the bluntness of the announcement. The courtiers were left stammering-which was exactly what he sensed Tenel Ka wanted. Pulling him toward the far side of the courtyard, she slipped her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder.
"I would like to catch up with my friend," she called back. "Please amuse yourselves."
She guided him onto a stone path that wound its way through the jungle alongside a small stream. Though the lush foliage and gurgling water made it seem as though they were alone, Jacen could sense the guards shadowing them in the brush - and the courtiers following them down the path, just out of sight one curve behind.
Guessing this must be the normal state of affairs for Tenel Ka, Jacen said, "Thank you for taking the time to see me, Queen Mother."
"No-thank you for coming," Tenel Ka said. "You cannot know how refreshing it is to speak with someone who is not trying to win my hand or coax something out of me."
Jacen felt instantly guilty. "Actually, I did come to ask a favor.
A big one."
"I know." Tenel Ka squeezed his arm and leaned closer to him. "That changes nothing I said. Hapan n.o.bles never ask. They arrange or contrive or-if I am lucky-merely persuade. You would not believe what they do to curry favor."
Jacen raised his brow. "The amputations?"
"Fencing accidents." Tenel Ka snorted. The path came to a jungle pond, complete with a waterfall and a small island rising out of the green water. "To judge by the number of limbs being preserved in Hapan cryovats, most of my idiot n.o.bles have no idea which end of a sword to hold."
They stopped at the edge of the pond, and Jacen leaned down so that his voice would not carry up the path. "You do know we"re not alone, don"t you?"
"Of course." Tenel Ka turned and raised her voice. "Be gone-or I will ask Jacen to take your other arms."
The n.o.bles retreated quickly, but Jacen could sense the sentries continuing to lurk in the bushes.
Tenel Ka sighed. "There are some things even a Queen Mother cannot order." She slipped off her shoes, then turned toward the island. "Would you like to get your feet wet?"
"Why not?" Jacen eyed the twenty-meter distance to the island.
"Only our feet?"
"Trust me." Pulling him along, Tenel Ka stepped out onto the water.
Her feet sank only to the ankles. "Walk only where I walk, or it will be more than your feet."
Jacen did as she ordered and found himself standing atop a stone pier concealed just beneath the surface of the murky water.
"The Secret Way," Tenel Ka said. "It is an ancient Hapan defense-and it leads to the only place I can ever be truly alone."
"Why do you put up with them?" Jacen followed her along a jagged pathway of sharp, seemingly random turns. "Those idiot n.o.bles, I mean?"
"They have their uses," Tenel Ka said. "I allow one to sit at my side, then watch to see who seeks him out."
"And that tells you what?" Jacen asked. "Who wants something from you? "
"Everyone wants something from me, Jacen." They reached the island and stepped onto a mossy path that, Jacen suspected, was rarely trodden by any feet but Tenel Ka"s. "But the families who don"t change alliances when I change favorites-I know those are the advisers I should listen to."
"It seems very... intricate," Jacen said.
"Calculated," Tenel Ka said. She led the way into a shielding copse of paan trees, then sat down on one end of the only bench. "It is the Hapan way, Jacen. There is a use for everyone."
Knowing it would not be proper etiquette to a.s.sume, Jacen did not sit on the other end of the bench. "Including me?"
Tenel Ka looked away. "Even you, Jacen." She patted the bench beside her, then said, "Now the houses of my suitors will be united against you. It would be wise to watch what you eat while you are here."
"Thanks," Jacen said. "But I won"t be staying."
"Of course not." Tenel Ka continued to look away, but Jacen sensed tears in her voice. "What is it you need from us?"
"You felt Raynar"s call?" Jacen asked.
"Yes. In the end, I had to keep myself locked in the palace. I didn"t know who it was from. I thought maybe..." When Tenel Ka turned to face him, her gray eyes were clear and steady, but she had not bothered to wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks. "I have heard that a colony of Killiks is threatening Chiss s.p.a.ce."
In that moment, the entire weight of the last five years"
loneliness fell on Jacen"s heart, and he wanted nothing more than to take Tenel Ka in his arms and kiss her.
Instead, he said, "It"s a complicated situation."
Jacen went on to recount his journey into the Colony, from his arrival at Lizil to his exploration of the Tachyon Flier to joining Jaina and the rest of the strike team on Jwlio. Tenel Ka"s gaze never strayed from his face, and he described his slowly dawning awareness that the Killiks shared a collective mind, what Raynar had become, and Cilghal"s theories about how the pheromones altered the Joiners" minds. This drew a c.o.c.ked brow from Tenel Ka, and for a while she seemed a young Jedi Knight again, her thoughts consumed by adventure and mystery rather than intrigue and politics. Jacen ended by reporting the mysterious attacks against his parents and aunt and uncle, and by noting that the Killiks claimed to have no memory of Lomi or Welk.
"The two of them just disappeared after the crash," Jacen finished.
"The Killiks insist Raynar was the only one aboard the Flier, even though I know he dragged both Lomi and Welk out of the fire."
Jacen did not say exactly how he knew. There was no reason to go into the subtleties of Aing-Tii flow-walking right now. Tenel Ka sat in deep silence for several moments, then swung around, straddling the bench, and faced him.
"What became of Em Teedee?"
"Lowbacca"s translator droid?" Jacen asked.
"He was on the Flier when it was stolen," she pointed out.
"I think he was destroyed in the fire," Jacen said. "I found a melted lump of metal that kind of looked like him."
Tenel Ka sighed. "Too bad. He could be a very annoying droid, but I know Lowie would have liked to have him back." Their gazes met, and neither hurried to look away. "So, you"ve come to ask me to leave here and help track down Lomi and Welk, before they create a whole legion of Dark Jedi?"
Jacen"s heart leapt. "You could do that?"
Tenel Ka smiled, but her eyes turned sad. "No, Jacen. It was a joke."
"I see," Jacen said, also growing a little sad. "Am I required to laugh?"
"Only if you wish to avoid offending the Queen Mother."
"Never." Jacen laughed dutifully, then added, "You still have a lot to learn about jokes."
"So you say." Tenel Ka raised her hand and made an elaborate wave skyward. "Everyone here seems to think my jokes are quite funny."
"And you trust them?"
"Only the ones who don"t laugh," Tenel Ka admitted. She swung her leg back over the bench and a.s.sumed a more regal pose. "All right, Jacen.
I confess, I cannot guess. What is it you require of us?"
"A battle fleet," he said. "For the Colony."
Tenel Ka"s face did not show the surprise that Jacen sensed from her in the Force. "That is a great deal to ask. The Hapes Consortium is a member of the Galactic Alliance."
"Does that mean the Galactic Alliance makes your decisions for you?"
Tenel Ka"s gray eyes turned steely. "It means that we try to avoid angering Alliance friends."
"It"s more important to prevent this war," Jacen said. "The Chiss are pushing too hard, and the Killiks couldn"t withdraw if they wanted to. It"s going to erupt into full-blown carnage, unless something happens to give the Chiss pause and the Colony a reason to be patient."
"And why should it matter to the Hapan people if a border conflict on the other side of the galaxy does become war?"
"Because it would end in xenocide, one way or the other," Jacen answered.
Tenel Ka turned and looked up into the paan trees, and Jacen sensed in the silence her Jedi instincts battling her duties as the Hapan queen.
"The Killiks are tied to the history of the galaxy in a way we don"t understand yet," Jacen said. "They were living in cities before humans learned to build, and they were a civilization before the Sith were sp.a.w.ned. They were here when Centerpoint and the Maw were constructed-and they were driven from Alderaan by the beings who did it."
Though Tenel Ka"s gaze remained in the treetops, her eyes widened, and Jacen knew he was reaching her.
"Tenel Ka, the galaxy will turn on what happens next," Jacen said.
"And the Killiks are the pivot point. We need time to figure this out, because it could be total war-or true and lasting peace."
Tenel Ka finally turned to look at him. "What about the will of the Force, Jacen? Why not trust it?"
The reference to the Jedi"s new understanding of the Force made Jacen think of Vergere-the lost Master who had opened their eyes to so much of that new understanding-and he smiled at the first truth she had taught him: Everything I tell you is a lie.
To Tenel Ka, he said, "Should I trust a river because it wants to run downhill?"
Tenel Ka frowned. "I am the one who asks the questions on Hapes, Jedi Solo."
Jacen chuckled. "Okay. The Force isn"t a deity, Tenel Ka. It"s not self-conscious, and it isn"t capable of caring what happens to us. It"s a flow. Its only will is to remove that which blocks it. When we facilitate that flow, when we allow it to run through us to others, we"re in harmony. We"re using the light side."
"And the dark side?"
"Is when we block that flow and turn it to our own ends," Jacen said. "We keep it from others. And when we release it too quickly, we turn it from a nurturing stream into a destructive flood."
"Didn"t Vergere teach that our intentions make an act dark or light?" Tenel Ka asked.
"She did," Jacen admitted. "And she was telling the truth, from a certain point of view. If you have good intentions, you tend to let the Force flow through you. If not, you tend to bottle it up inside, and it starts eating away at your good looks."
Tenel Ka looked at him from the corner of one eye. "I prefer my truths to remain true from all points of view."
"Sorry," Jacen said. "The Force is too big."
"And this is what you learned in the five years you were gone?"
"The core of it, yes."
Tenel Ka studied the ground for a moment, then looked back at him.
"It took five years to learn that?"
"There was a lot of travel time," Jacen said.
Tenel Ka smiled and rolled her eyes, then asked, "What about our Killiks? Is the Force flowing through them, or into them?"
"Too early to say," Jacen said. "Raynar has grown incredibly powerful in a short time."
"And that doesn"t scare you?"
"Of course it does," Jacen said. "But right now, he"s trying to avoid a war. I"ll be a lot more frightened when he stops."
Tenel Ka nodded. "Fact." She stood and extended her hand. "I think my suitors have had enough time to plot your death."
"I"m glad I could bring them together."
"Yes, you have been very useful that way." They started down the moss path toward the water. "I hope you will stay the night. It would be even more effective."
Jacen slowed. "Tenel Ka..." He did not need to wonder exactly what she was asking; he could feel it in the Force. "I didn"t come here to...
to become your paramour."
"You won"t. Paramours are playthings." She stopped in full view of the pond"s far bank and gave him a long, warm kiss. "And I would never play with you, Jacen Solo."
Jacen was beginning to feel very carried along-and spending the night could only help his chances of getting the fleet. "Then I"ll stay,"