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Han took a sip from his own tumbler, then raised his brow in approval. “I’ll say this for the Senator—he serves some of the best jet juice I’ve ever had.”

A bright Sullustan voice rang out from the back entrance. “I’m glad you approve, Captain Solo. Coming from you, I take that as quite a compliment.”

Leia turned to see a distinguished-looking Sullustan in a gold-trimmed vest entering the room. With heavily wrinkled dewflaps and long bags hanging beneath his eyes, he was clearly an elder of his species. Yet he bore himself like a young man, carrying his shoulders thrown back and walking with a confident gait. When Leia and the others started to rise to greet him, he was quick to wave them back into their seats.

“We don’t have time for that nonsense,” he said, going straight to the table. “I’ve got a subcommittee hearing to chair in …” He checked his chrono. “… fifteen minutes, and Lando said this was urgent. So let’s get straight to it.”

“Very well, Senator Wuul,” Leia said. “The reason we asked—”

“Not that,” Wuul said, raising a hand to silence her. He slipped onto his stool and snatched the drink Lando had left for him, then drained it in a single gulp. “The burtalle. And call me Luew. Only the opposition calls me Senator.”

He raised the empty tumbler above his head, signaling Lando for a refill, which, Leia noticed, was already on its way. Once Lando had traded the empty glass for a full one, Wuul’s head suddenly snapped around, and he peered at her out of a single dark eye.

“You’re not the opposition, are you, Jedi Solo?”

Leia flashed a reassuring smile. “Of course not, Luew.” She grabbed her own drink and clinked glasses with Wuul, then said, “Any friend of Lando’s is a friend of ours. And please … call me Leia.”

Luew responded with a crafty smile, then took a small sip of his fresh burtalle and placed the glass on the table. “Glad to hear it, Leia.” He turned his gaze first to Han, then to Jaina, and said, “Okay, now that we understand each other, why don’t you tell me what’s so urgent that you had to come over here in a dirty flight suit, young lady?”

Jaina’s cheeks reddened, but she sat up straight and replied with a single word. “Sith.”

Instead of reaching for his drink as Leia had expected, Wuul slumped and shook his head in dismay.

“Another one? I thought we were finally finished with those azkancs.” The vile term had barely left Wuul’s mouth before he winced and glanced over at Han. “No offense intended, Captain.”

“None taken,” Han assured him. “But if it was just one azkanc, we wouldn’t be here. Luke and Ben have run into a whole planetful.”

Wuul cocked his head in confusion. “A planetful? Of Sith?”

“We don’t actually know that it’s a whole planetful,” Jaina clarified. “But there are a lot. They call themselves the Lost Tribe, and we think they’ve spent the last two years putting together a battle fleet.”

“A fleet? Of Sith?” Wuul seemed too shocked to comprehend what he was hearing. “But I thought they only came—”

“Yeah, in twos,” Han finished. “So did I. But that’s kind of a recent development. Near as we can tell, these guys have been marooned on some world called Kesh for the last five thousand years.”

“I see.” Wuul’s dewflaps went from pink to pale green, but he seemed to gather his wits and sit upright. “And they have been responsible for the madness afflicting the young Jedi Knights?”

“Uh, no.” Han looked to Leia for guidance as to how much he should reveal. “Not really.”

“Their illness was caused by an ancient being named Abeloth,” Leia explained. “She made contact with the Jedi Knights while they were still children, when we were hiding our young ones in the Maw during the war against the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“But that’s not really important now,” Jaina added. “Abeloth has been destroyed. What we need to worry about is the Sith.”

Wuul’s gaze shifted to his burtalle, and Leia thought he would take another drink in an attempt to calm himself. When he surprised her by merely gazing into the glass