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Ben caught Jacen’s eye, silently requesting confirmation of Nelani’s assertion. Jacen shrugged unhelpfully.

“I’m certain I can translate many of the others,” Dr. Rotham continued. “Though, since they all appear to be separated from their cultural contexts, how accurate those translations will be is somewhat up in the air. Perhaps they provide a context for one another. If so, that will be helpful.”

Jacen nodded. “I’d appreciate whatever you could tell us.”

As he spoke, Nelani beeped—or, rather, something on her person did. She hurriedly fit a small hands-free comlink to the back of her right ear; she pulled part of the device loose and it swung out, a little black ball, to bob and sway gently at the corner of her mouth, suspended by a black wire so fine as to be almost invisible. “Nelani Dinn,” she said.

After a few moments of listening, Nelani frowned. “Did he say why a Jedi?” She paused, cocking her head to one side. “And you think it’s credible…Yes, I’ll be right there…about ten minutes. Out.” She tucked the bobbing microphone back up under her ear and rose. “I apologize for ducking out, but I have to go.”

“Emergency?” Jacen asked.

“Yes. Some sort of lunatic in a starfighter threatening to launch missiles if he’s not allowed to talk to a Jedi.”

“I get the impression that it will take Doctor Rotham some time to complete any more translations.” Jacen glanced at the elderly woman for confirmation, and at her nod he rose. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’d be welcome,” Nelani said.

It was an odd situation at the Lorrd City Spaceport. A Y-wing starfighter, so battle-scarred and patched that it had probably been ancient at the time of the Battle of Yavin, had set down fifty meters from the approved landing zone. Nor had it landed on a flat surface; its ion jet drive pods rested on a repulsorlift taxiing strip, at right angles to the normal direction of traffic, and its nose was up on a meters-high duracrete traffic barrier, leaving the starfighter at a thirty-degree upward angle.

“He’s short an astromech,” Ben said. Indeed, there was nothing in the circular gap immediately behind the cockpit. “And it’s modded for concussion missiles instead of proton torpedoes.”

“He also has a nice firing angle on the most populous area of the city,” said Lieutenant Neav Samran of the Lorrd Security Force. A heavyset human man with brown hair and mustache grown just a bit longer than regulations probably permitted, he had his forces deployed all around the Y-wing at distances of fifty to two hundred meters, and snipers were conspicuous on hangar rooftops. Samran’s command post, where the three Jedi had joined him, was at the corner of the corrugated durasteel-sided hangar a hundred meters from the starfighter. Ben stood behind Jacen, but to one side, where he could keep an eye on the Y-wing and the faintly visible figure in the cockpit.

Ben found he could actually feel the pilot there, as a hard knot of pain and confusion that faded and swelled, moving in and out of the boy’s perceptions.

“Do you have any indication of whether he actually has live concussion missiles and how he got them?” Jacen asked.

Samran nodded. “He sent us the telemetry from his weapons board—a one-way feed, blast it, else we’d have been able to slice into his controls and solve this without calling you in. He has a full brace of missiles aimed at the student housing districts—precisely where, we can’t be sure. As for how he got them—he doesn’t have a credit left in what had been a decent-sized savings and investments account. With all the weapons smuggling going on these days, it’s no surprise that an old pilot with lots of connections could get his hands on ordnance like that.”

“What can you tell us about him?” Nelani asked.

Samran opened his datapad and consulted it. “Ordith Huarr, age eighty-one standard years. Human male originally from Lorrd. Back in the Old Republic and Empire days, he was a shuttle pilot. At the height of the Rebel Alliance,