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He continued, his voice still level, controlled. “Lieutenant, we can’t have that. Gross incompetence. Gross insubordination. The deliberate contravention of orders and top-level plans. Nor can we let it go unpunished. Can we?”

Captain Nevil approached. “Sir, this is not the time or the way—”

Not looking at the Quarren, Caedus gestured with his free hand and Nevil was suddenly flying backward, skidding across the raised walkway, fetching up against the blast doors through which the Skywalkers had so recently left.

Amazingly, Tebut was still trying to talk. “Sir…can’t…loyal…”

“Loyal?” The word exploded out of Caedus, raising his voice a screechy octave. “How dare you use that word? You may not say that word ever again. Loyal officers do not betray their command, their comrades, their oaths!” His outrage turned everything he saw a reddish hue, even Tebut’s face.

And there was only one way to restore everything to its proper color. He tightened his grip.

The sound of Tebut’s neck breaking was startlingly loud over the hum of the bridge’s monitors and computer gear.

Caedus dashed his hand down. Tebut’s body slammed to the deck plates below her. More bones snapped. She lay behind her security station, bent at an odd sideways angle at the waist, her eyes fixed open, staring at the ceiling.

Caedus breathed out all his rage. Colors returned to vibrant normalcy.

He turned and walked toward the stern. As he passed Nevil, still lying where Caedus had thrown him, he said, “I’ll be in my quarters.”

Nevil stared at him with—what? Fear? Anger? Obsequious acceptance? Caedus couldn’t tell. The fishy folk were so hard to read, Mon Cals and Quarren alike. He didn’t like them anymore.

chapter thirty-eight

REFUELING STATION, GYNDINE SYSTEM

The Rakehells, the Broadside, and the Millennium Falcon put in at an abandoned repair and refueling satellite. It orbited the world of Gyndine, burned and ruined by the Yuuzhan Vong during the war named for them. Owned by Tendrando—the corporation headed by Lando Calrissian and his wife, Tendra Risant—it had been decommissioned and shut down, but Han and Leia still carried the codes that would open its air locks, reactivate its life-support systems.

There they swapped personnel around, putting everyone bound for Endor on the Broadside, giving the X-wing pilots a brief respite.

In the Millennium Falcon’s main hold, which had mostly served as a crew lounge for most of the years Han had owned the freighter, Leia and Han sat Allana down on a sofa and bent to face her more at eye level.

“We’re going to take you back to Hapes now,” Leia said. Seeing Allana up close for so long, it was hard for her to concentrate. The little girl was so familiar, staring up at her with eyes Leia knew so well.

The realization of where she knew Allana from was like rising from a pool after too long underwater. Suddenly Leia could breathe again, could think again. Allana had Tenel Ka’s coloration—the fair skin, red hair, gray eyes—but her face, her expressions, her lively intelligence, were so like his when he was a child, before Yuuzhan Vong and voxyn and Vergere and who-knows-what twisted all the happiness out of his life. Leia found she could not speak.

But Allana wiggled, happy. “You’re Leia Organa Solo.”

Leia nodded, mute.

“You’re Jacen’s mommy.”

Leia nodded again.

“He’s my daddy.”

Finally Leia found her voice again. “I know,” she whispered.

She knelt and pulled Allana to her in an embrace. She stood with the little girl in her arms. “I’m your grandmother.”

She turned to face Han. His face was frozen in surprise.

Leia saw his mouth work as he tried to find the perfect quip for the situation. But there was none. His expression softened, and he merely patted the little girl’s arm, a clumsy gesture of affection. “Hi, sweetie. I’m your grandfather.”

SANCTUARY MOON OF ENDOR, DEATH STAR WRECKAGE

Jaina found Jag lying on a blanket near the edge of the wreckage shadow, watching the huge reddish ball of Endor as it began to sink below the horizon