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Later, Lemelisk had awakened, blinking his restored eyes, and was completely disoriented. He found himself in the same vaulted chamber, wrapped in a clean, white uniform. His body felt young and strong, without the paunch and the flab from spending too much time working on projects in his mind and too little effort maintaining his health.

Lemelisk bent his arms and looked at his hands, blinking in astonishment. Hearing a small buzz and clatter, he glanced over to find the wire-mesh cage still filled with buzzing, clacking piranha beetles that scampered up and down the walls, snapping their mandibles. Spattered patterns of fresh blood made arcs along the walls of the cage. Inside, he saw a carcass that had been stripped down to gnawed bones and shreds of clothing—the clothing he himself had worn only moments ago.

“You’ll grow accustomed to your clone in a moment,” the Emperor said, rubbing his knobby fingers over a strange ancient-looking artifact. “I trust that all of your memories have been transferred properly? It is an uncertain skill at best, and the Jedi I stole the technique from was reluctant to give me thorough instruction. But it seems to work.”

Lemelisk nodded weakly, wanting to faint but knowing he didn’t dare.

“Now don’t fail me again, Lemelisk,” the Emperor said. “I’d hate to have to think of an even worse execution for next time.”

Now, as he faced Durga the Hutt and Imperial General Sulamar, Lemelisk sought some reservoir of strength within himself. The Mineral Exploiters had destroyed each other in a horribly embarrassing debacle.

“We can recover from this,” he said quickly. “Yes, I believe I can alter our plans so that our schedule will remain unaffected in the long run.”

Durga lurched backward, blinking his large copper red eyes. “What?”

“You have the two other automated Mineral Exploiters nearly completed. This is a tragic loss,” Lemelisk said, gesturing toward the window, “but we have to expect a few setbacks. This was poor planning, I admit, but I can program the other machines so that such a failure will not occur again.”

General Sulamar squared his shoulders and glared at Lemelisk. “You are absolutely correct,” he said. “This will not happen again!”

Lemelisk dismissed him with a wave of his hand, trying to display more self-assurance than he felt. “Consider those two to be test prototypes, Alpha and Beta. Expendable. We know the error now.”

But Lemelisk mentally kicked himself for letting such a stupid lack of foresight nearly cost him his life. He began to tremble and clamped down on his muscles, forcing himself to stand firm. He had no wish to be executed again—that had happened enough times already—though he was convinced Durga the Hutt could never be a match for Palpatine’s cruelty.

“I promise to rectify the problem, Lord Durga,” Lemelisk said with a bow. “But while I’m doing that, you must focus on our main goal. Even before we worry about construction resources, the primary item on our agenda must be to get those plans from the Imperial Information Center.”

Durga growled, a low gurgling sound.

General Sulamar said, “It is not your place to dictate—”

Durga smacked the stuffed-shirt Imperial across the chest with one fat-fingered hand. “I have already scheduled an expedition to Coruscant, Lemelisk,” he said. “I will have your precious plans shortly.”

CORUSCANT

CHAPTER 6

In the plush chambers of the New Republic’s Chief of State, Leia Organa Solo hurried to make herself presentable. Beside her, Han Solo fiddled with his shirt fasteners and cursed the tiny glittering insignia he tried to apply to his diplomatic finery.

“I hate this, Leia,” he said. “I love you enough to do this—but I don’t enjoy getting dressed up even to meet people I like.” He finally buttoned the insignia then brushed down his shirt front. “And I don’t exactly count those overgrown mud worms among the people I like.”

Leia placed her hand on his shoulder. “Do you think I like it any more than you do?” Vividly, she recalled her imprisonment by the