Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [202]
The history of the Jensaarai’s involvement with Tavira was one of mistakes from the start. Tavira, fleeing a New Republic task force, jumped to the Suarbi system, in the Quence Sector. The seventh planet, a gas giant, had a big ring of asteroids around it and over a dozen moons. One of those moons, designated Suarbi 7/5, became known as Susevfi to the colonists who had decided to tame the world centuries ago. Though similar to Yavin 4 in size and rotational speed, Susevfi ran to more savannah-like grasslands, much like Noquivzor—a planet on which I had been stationed before Rogue Squadron took Coruscant. A couple of human settlements grew up, and the Jensaarai were located outside the large seaport, Yumfla.
Tavira and some of her people had come down to Yumfla, and she immediately went to work on the local Imperial governor—a petty bureaucrat who made the last mistake of his life by rebuffing her advances. Tavira had him shot, then declared the planet liberated from the oppression of the Empire and in opposition to the oppression of the New Republic. The Saarai-kaar of the Jensaarai went to Tavira and heard everything she wanted to hear from the Admiral. Tavira cultivated trust, then betrayed it, and put the Jensaarai in the position of protecting their fellow citizens—who had not even known of their existence—by serving Tavira. Failure to serve her would result in the annihilation of Yumfla.
The Jensaarai had picked up on Mirax’s intentions when she’d come hunting the Invids. They nabbed her at Nal Hutta and brought her to Susevfi. Tavira had wanted to slay her, but the Saarai-kaar had insisted on keeping her alive and imprisoned in the old planetary governor’s palace.
Learning what we had, Luke and I knew we had to hurry to Susevfi, and we had to make a difficult decision because we could not bring the Jensaarai with us. A change of heart in just one of them could spoil any surprise we could generate, crushing our chances for getting into the stronghold where Tavira was holding Mirax.
We decided we’d leave them on Courkrus in the company of an ysalamiri. We knew we had to trust someone to hang on to them, so we went to Jacob Nive and revealed to him my identity as Keiran Halcyon, Jedi Knight, and that of Luke Skywalker. We explained to him that we were going to finish the Invids and stop Tavira and offered him a choice. We could destroy the last of the Survivors or give them the same chance at a new start that the New Republic had offered other victims of Imperial aggression and coercion.
Nive accepted the chance to start over. With the New Republic gaining strength, and the last vestiges of the Empire in retreat, the Survivors were losing their anti-Imperial focus and just becoming thieves. Without the protection of the Invidious, the New Republic could have and would have smashed them a dozen times over. He willingly exchanged entertaining five guests and an ysalamiri for a new life.
He looked at me hard. “One thing, Jenos, how do I know you’ll succeed?”
“Why did you fight the Empire all those years?”
“To avenge what happened to my friends.”
I nodded. “Right. Leonia Tavira has my wife. I’m fighting so I won’t need to avenge anyone.”
Nive’s eyes tightened. “The two of you alone?”
I winked at Luke. “We’ve got some allies, and one is really big. We’ll do fine.”
Before we left Courkrus, we shot two messages out. One went to General Cracken telling him we had located the Invidious’ home and were going to take