Holding hands, Allana and the droid set off for the main hold.
"How does Luke seem?" Leia said when Allana was out of earshot.
"Melancholy."
"When are you two going to break down and install a holoprojector aboard the Falcon?" Luke asked when Leia had settled herself at the engineering console in the main hold.
"We don"t have enough problems with the ship already?"
"Point taken," Luke said.
To Leia"s eyes he looked not just melancholy but haunted. The comm showed him to be communicating from Coruscant. "Han says that the search has been interesting." Small talk, Leia thought, but what was the harm? "We traced the Falcon to two men who owned it before Lando," she told him. "But we may have reached a dead end."
"You"re returning to the Core?"
"a.s.suming something doesn"t come up." Luke stirred. "You wanted to let me know about Seff." Leia smiled faintly. "You can read my mind from that distance?"
"If you wanted me to. But there was no need. Galactic Alliance Intelligence gave me the full story."
"Luke, Allana told me that Seff reminded her of Jacen. She couldn"t articulate the reason. But she felt that he posed a danger to her."
Luke withdrew for a moment. Leia could almost feel him absorbing the news. Did his face pale, or was it simply the comm connection?
"Seff has given Daala another reason to distrust us," Luke said. "Because a single Jedi behaves recklessly?"
"A young Jedi who reminds Allana of Jacen." Leia was lost for words. "Luke, Allana is a child."
"Is it true that Seff disarmed half a dozen soldiers?"
"It was the way he did it that concerned me." Luke nodded. "I was certain that ability was the sole province of Jacen, taught to him by Force-users he visited during his travels."
"Could Jacen have instructed some of the Jedi?"
"I don"t see how he could have done that. Not without one of the Masters knowing." Luke shook his head. "This is something new."
"And Daala thinks what?" Leia said. "That Jacen was the beginning of a trend? That all of us are going to the dark side?"
"I think she"d like to be persuaded that was the case-as frightening as it would be."
"I don"t care what she thinks. Do you believe there"s some connection between Jacen"s turn and Seff"s actions?" Leia paused to let Luke think it over. "Has Seff contacted you?"
"Seff is at large. Galactic Alliance Intelligence has several groups of Mandalorian troops looking for him."
"Luke," Leia said.
"I know. In the meantime, I"m recalling everyone."
"Including Jaina?"
"Yes."
"How is she?"
Luke was silent for a long moment. "If you"d had a chance to kill our father, would you have done it?"
"I don"t understand what you"re asking me."
"Our father stood by while Alderaan was destroyed. If he had done that knowing that you were his daughter, would you have killed him if you"d had a chance?"
"I might have tried, yes."
"Imagine if you had been a Jedi at that point. Would you have tried to kill him?"
"How can I know? I might have made the same choice you made at Endor."
"It"s long been rumored that the Jedi Masters who went to arrest Supreme Chancellor Palpatine at the end of Clone Wars were intent on killing him if he didn"t surrender. They were convinced that he was too dangerous to be allowed to live."
"That was Palpatine"s claim," Leia countered. "We don"t know what the Jedi were intending to do." After a long moment, she said, "Han has set a course for the Core. We"ll join you on Coruscant."
"No, not yet," Luke said sharply. "Not until I"ve spoken with Daala. She needs to be persuaded that using Mandalorians to hunt down Seff is a mistake. And she needs to be rea.s.sured that the Jedi police themselves."
"Are you certain we can"t help?"
"I want to a.s.sess the situation before drawing you into it." Leia nodded in a resigned way. "We"ll wait to hear from you." She was still sitting at the engineering station when Allana hurried into the hold from the c.o.c.kpit connector.
"Grandma, we found him! Threepio found him!" Leia caught her in her arms. "Slow down, sweetie. Threepio found who?"
"The circus owner."
"Dax Doogun," Han said as he and C-3PO entered the hold.
"Apparently he lives on Agora."
"Naturally, Orto was first on the list of the worlds I searched," C-3PO said. "But in my haste I neglected to consider that he might I reside on a neighboring world in the Sluis sector."
"You did great, Threepio," Allana said.
Han nodded in agreement. "Good job, Goldenrod. I"m bringing us out of hypers.p.a.ce so we can send him a message."
"The case of Colla-Arphocc Automata verses the Galactic Alliance is dismissed," the chief justice of Holess proclaimed. His gavel struck the bench with resounding finality. "The court rules that the plaintiff is responsible for all costs incurred . . ."
Lestra Oxic all but put his fingers in his ears. The gavel blow might as well have been the sound of a stake being driven through his heart. The Colicoids had paid well for his services from the start, but a decision in their favor would have netted him five times what he had already earned. More important, the Colicoids had promised to reward him with something special if he won the case: a tall, impressionistic statue that had once graced Senate Plaza on Coruscant. Just how the insectoids had come by the prime piece of Republicana was anyone"s. guess. And now Oxic would have to purchase the statue from them, at what would surely be an exorbitant price.
On learning of the abduction of his star witness, he had asked for and been granted a stay of one local day. But he doubted that even a local year would have been sufficient to locate the witness. Not if his suspicions were accurate, and the Galactic Alliance itself had been responsible for the holoscreen image of the hueche and the subsequent disappearance of the Colicoid witness. Chief of State Daala"s anti-Colicoid stance was a matter of public record, and it must have be-come clear to her that the ruling of the Holess court was going to favor the insectoids. While the justices accepted that an act of subterfuge had been perpetrated, Oxic was compelled to make his appeal before a criminal court. But Holess"s prosecutors were already grumbling about the absence of evidence of Galactic Alliance involvement, Nothing to do but take the criminal complaint to Coruscant, he told himself.
Across the face of Holess, bells were tolling the decision to dismiss and spectators were exiting the courtroom as if a bomb threat had been announced. The judges, members of the jury, and the trio of lawyers representing the Galactic Alliance were preparing to meet the media. Ignored by all but his a.s.sistant litigators and aides, Oxic was locking the last of the doc.u.ment cases when he spied Koi Quire moving against the tide in an effort to reach him. Rarely ruffled, she seemed agitated as she maneuvered between the rows of seats. Perhaps she feared she would be held accountable for the Colicoid"s abduction, when in fact she had only been an escort.
"Am I right?" Oxic said when she was still a few meters away.
She shook her head. "Dead wrong."
Oxic locked the final case.
"The pilots of the speeder truck were captured and identified as a.s.sociates of Rej Taunt."
Oxic knew the name well. Convicted of ma.s.s murder sixty or so years earlier, Taunt was serving a life sentence on Carcel. But Taunt"s criminal past was of little interest. What mattered was that the former crime boss was a noted collector of Republicana and had outbid Oxic on several occasions for noteworthy pieces. The Bith agent at the remit auction on Epica was now known to have been in Taunt"s employ. "What does Taunt have to gain by sabotaging my case?"
"We"re working on it," Quire said with a note of impatience. "Is there any word on the witness?"
"A ship launched soon after the abduction. We have evidence that links it to Taunt. We"re trying to determine where it was headed when it lumped to hypers.p.a.ce."
"Can"t we..."
"Stop for moment," Quire said, holding up a hand, then pulling a holoimage from her satchel and showing it to Oxic. "Recognize him?"
"I don"t think much of the outfit, but of course I do." He cut his eyes to her. "You found him?"
"You might say that he found us. The image was captured yesterday-on Holess."
Oxic looked as if she were speaking an unknown language. She laughed. "It"s not often I get to see you speechless."
"How . . . ," Oxic stuttered.
"Jadak and Poste-the kid he partnered with on Nar Shaddaa- were the two that infiltrated the media platform and put the hueche image onscreen. There"s every reason to believe that they also had something to do with transporting the Colicoid to the s.p.a.ceport. And perhaps worse for you, I suspect that Jadak may have recognized me." Oxic felt behind him for a seat and dropped into it. "Jadak is in league with Rej Taunt? How would they even know each other?" He looked numb. "Didn"t you tell me that Jadak was busy searching for his old ship?"
"I continue to believe that," Quire said.
Oxic waited.
"Suppose for a moment that Taunt knows where the Stellar Envoy can be found."
Oxic frowned. "If we"re going to deal in theories, then suppose for a moment that Taunt is trying to send me the message that he knows the location of the treasure." The veins in Oxic"s temples bulged. "If he beats me to the prize after all these years..."
"We"ve managed to reach out to someone inside Carcel," Quire said. "Taunt practically runs the show, but our man has promised to keep an eye out for Jadak and Poste."
Oxic shook his head in disbelief. "We"re looking for Jadak and he comes to us ... Stranger things have happened, I"m sure, though none occur to me."
"It is an unexpected and unparalleled honor to speak to you, Captain Han Solo," Dax Doogun said through the engineering station"s enunciators. Onscreen the pachydermoid"s velvety blue face was spotted and his snout was shriveled. "I"ve followed your heroic exploits for forty years."
"Another adoring fan," Leia sighed. Allana laughed quietly along side her.
Han shot them a glance, then returned his attention to the comm. "Thanks, Dax. Sorry I never got to see your circus. Vistal Purn made it sound like a real barrel of taurill."
"More fun I never had," the Ortolan said. "But the best things in life come with an expiration date, is it not so?"
"No arguing with it, Dax," Han said with sudden seriousness. "Like we said in our message, we"re wondering if you can tell us anything about how Molpol acquired the Millennium Falcon."
"I most certainly can, Han Solo. I purchased her myself from an itinerant doctor named Parlay Thorp. Visited many a remote world, enacting many a medical miracle, Parlay Thorp did. An "unshod physician," as they"re known here on Agora."
"Thorp"s still alive?"
"Oh, yes, and probably will be for some time to come."
Han traded big grins with Leia and Allana. Even C-3PO was visibly thrilled by the news.
"Do you know where we can find him, Dax?"
"Her," Doogun corrected. "Dr. Thorp is a human female."
"Wow!" Leia and Allana said in unison.
"She did quite well for herself with the credits I paid for the Millennium Falcon. Opened a research facility on Hijado, then a clinic on Enferm. Subsequent to that, Dr. Thorp became a noted expert in aging, rejuvenation, and longevity."
"And nowadays?"
"Currently she heads up research at the Aurora Medical Facility on Obroa-skai."
During the long years of struggles to defeat the last of the Imperial warlords, the Falcon spent as much time grounded as she did in flight, and Han was spending as much to repair her as it might have cost him to purchase a newer ship. On those rare occasions when Han and Chewbacca turned to outside help, some old-hand mechanic would invariably remark that the Falcon"s parts were in fine working order but that she was unhappy being a military ship and needed to get back to her roots.
Even if Han had no such desire.
He"d been a pauper, a pirate, a pilot, a smuggler, an Imp, and a thief, and had achieved a contentment he never would have thought possible. Leia completed him, and the twins, then Anakin brought him immense joy.
And just what were the Falcon"s roots, in any case? Serving the needs of smugglers and traders by carrying cargo to remote areas of the galaxy?
Twice Han had started out on journeys to discover the ship"s ancestry, and twice he had allowed himself to become sidetracked. The first time was shortly before he and Leia had embarked on a trip to Tatooine, which had ended up filling in many of the most important blanks in Leia"s past. "The second time was shortly before his trip to the Koornacht Cl.u.s.ter, from which he had returned with physical scars that had never entirely healed.
After that he asked himself how much he really wanted to know about the ship"s past. Already she had been stolen on Dathomir, drafted into serving in a Kessel mercenary fleet, repaired by R2-D2, and rebuilt and upgraded by a New Republic tech team. She"d answered to the aliases Sunfighter Franchise, Sweet Surprise, and Shadow Bird, among others... Maybe he wanted to convince himself that the Falcon"s real life had begun and would end with him. Suppose he should learn that the ship had been used for evil purposes-by the Empire or by a Jedi Knight who had strayed from the light side of the Force? Unconditional love had never been his strong suit, and sometimes history and love just weren"t enough to warrant forgiveness.
He drew a hard line, Leia always said.
Over the years, he had armored himself in the same way he had added alloy to the Falcon. He was as suspicious of outsiders as the Falcon"s sensors were, and sometimes as conflicted as were the ship"s trio of droid brains. He was every bit as jumpy and restless as the YT, if not as p.r.o.ne to enigmatic breakdowns.
So maybe his uneasiness about learning the full truth of the Falcon"s ancestry had owed to apprehension regarding what he might discover about himself.
Chapter twenty-three.