life, you will probably approve of the ones you yourself brought on.” She leaned back in her seat.
Luke decided to change the subject. “My son and I are looking for a girl, not Dathomiri, who crashed her ship somewhere north of the spaceport.” He felt Ben, back in the cargo bed tinkering with Han’s tool kit and his lightsaber, perk up.
Kaminne’s face became blank, a sabacc player’s neutral expression. “Yes. Vestara is her name. She is with the clan.”
“We need to take her back.” Luke glanced skyward, suggesting a return to space.
“Oh. How many of us are you willing to kill to do this?”
“Kill? We have no intention of killing anyone.”
“You have no authority here. You may not just take her. She will not want to go with you. She is
with the clan
now—Olianne mentors her and may choose to adopt her.”
“Oh.” There was a sinking feeling in Luke’s gut. All of a sudden they knew where their quarry was … and she was, in a sense, farther away than ever. “Well, perhaps she’ll be willing to talk to us.”
“Perhaps.”
QUARTERS OF CHIEF OF STATE NATASI DAALA,
SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT
A chime woke Daala—three mellow, musical sounds—and her eyes snapped open. The alarm always awoke her the first time it sounded; as with most military lifers, she slept very lightly.
But this wasn’t her preset morning alarm. The musical notes indicated a live communication from Wynn Dorvan, and that meant something urgent was up. She cleared her throat to make sure she did not sound sleepy or raspy. “Speak.”
“You have a priority communication from Elyas Caran.” Dorvan’s voice was unusually subdued.
Elyas Caran was the emissary Daala had sent to Mon Calamari. She checked her chrono and did some quick math. It would be midmorning in the time zone where Admiral Niathal lived, so Caran would have been in the admiral’s company for half an hour or so. A live holocomm message from him did not bode well. “Is there some reason you can’t pipe the transmission into my chambers?”
“I don’t think you want it transmitted anywhere yet. I think you need to see it full-sized, in the comm center, before anyone outside your staff does. We need to be thinking about how to respond.” The faint hiss of comm transmission vanished as Dorvan ended the call.
Daala was up in an instant. This was not like Dorvan, and this was not good.
Dressed in tan sweat garments suited to a workout and a blue robe, Daala walked into the communications chamber where, a day earlier, she’d spoken with Niathal. The reception area was already showing the live transmission from Mon Calamari. Two steps in, she began to understand what she was seeing. Her pace slowed as she approached the wavering three-dimensional image.
Elyas Caran, a lean, graceful man dressed in pearl-gray and blue garments cut like a military dress uniform, had elegant features creased with middle-aged lines and a shock of jet-black hair that suggested he was a much younger man. Daala knew he dyed his hair; she didn’t know whether this was from vanity or a diplomatic urge to suggest vitality. Caran stood in the foreground of the transmission image.
The background was dominated by a water tank, three meters high, its floor-to-ceiling transparisteel surface curved. The water within was a beautiful green-blue.
In the center of the tank was Cha Niathal. She wore her admiral’s uniform. Her eyes were open and fixed. She was not entirely unmoving; little invisible eddies in the water stirred her uniform, caused her arms and legs to sway oh so slowly. The skin of Niathal’s face and hands was a curious color, more reddish than the previous day, and Daala wondered distractedly if the hypercomm’s color correction was set correctly.
Clearly, Niathal was dead. Daala felt a sudden ache, as though she’d swallowed a sharp rock and it had gotten lodged halfway down her throat.
Caran took a deep breath as if bracing himself for the bad news he was
Luke decided to change the subject. “My son and I are looking for a girl, not Dathomiri, who crashed her ship somewhere north of the spaceport.” He felt Ben, back in the cargo bed tinkering with Han’s tool kit and his lightsaber, perk up.
Kaminne’s face became blank, a sabacc player’s neutral expression. “Yes. Vestara is her name. She is with the clan.”
“We need to take her back.” Luke glanced skyward, suggesting a return to space.
“Oh. How many of us are you willing to kill to do this?”
“Kill? We have no intention of killing anyone.”
“You have no authority here. You may not just take her. She will not want to go with you. She is
with the clan
now—Olianne mentors her and may choose to adopt her.”
“Oh.” There was a sinking feeling in Luke’s gut. All of a sudden they knew where their quarry was … and she was, in a sense, farther away than ever. “Well, perhaps she’ll be willing to talk to us.”
“Perhaps.”
QUARTERS OF CHIEF OF STATE NATASI DAALA,
SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT
A chime woke Daala—three mellow, musical sounds—and her eyes snapped open. The alarm always awoke her the first time it sounded; as with most military lifers, she slept very lightly.
But this wasn’t her preset morning alarm. The musical notes indicated a live communication from Wynn Dorvan, and that meant something urgent was up. She cleared her throat to make sure she did not sound sleepy or raspy. “Speak.”
“You have a priority communication from Elyas Caran.” Dorvan’s voice was unusually subdued.
Elyas Caran was the emissary Daala had sent to Mon Calamari. She checked her chrono and did some quick math. It would be midmorning in the time zone where Admiral Niathal lived, so Caran would have been in the admiral’s company for half an hour or so. A live holocomm message from him did not bode well. “Is there some reason you can’t pipe the transmission into my chambers?”
“I don’t think you want it transmitted anywhere yet. I think you need to see it full-sized, in the comm center, before anyone outside your staff does. We need to be thinking about how to respond.” The faint hiss of comm transmission vanished as Dorvan ended the call.
Daala was up in an instant. This was not like Dorvan, and this was not good.
Dressed in tan sweat garments suited to a workout and a blue robe, Daala walked into the communications chamber where, a day earlier, she’d spoken with Niathal. The reception area was already showing the live transmission from Mon Calamari. Two steps in, she began to understand what she was seeing. Her pace slowed as she approached the wavering three-dimensional image.
Elyas Caran, a lean, graceful man dressed in pearl-gray and blue garments cut like a military dress uniform, had elegant features creased with middle-aged lines and a shock of jet-black hair that suggested he was a much younger man. Daala knew he dyed his hair; she didn’t know whether this was from vanity or a diplomatic urge to suggest vitality. Caran stood in the foreground of the transmission image.
The background was dominated by a water tank, three meters high, its floor-to-ceiling transparisteel surface curved. The water within was a beautiful green-blue.
In the center of the tank was Cha Niathal. She wore her admiral’s uniform. Her eyes were open and fixed. She was not entirely unmoving; little invisible eddies in the water stirred her uniform, caused her arms and legs to sway oh so slowly. The skin of Niathal’s face and hands was a curious color, more reddish than the previous day, and Daala wondered distractedly if the hypercomm’s color correction was set correctly.
Clearly, Niathal was dead. Daala felt a sudden ache, as though she’d swallowed a sharp rock and it had gotten lodged halfway down her throat.
Caran took a deep breath as if bracing himself for the bad news he was
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