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By Root 734 0

entered through the same doorway Isolder had used. A woman of that broad span of years, from their midfifties to midseventies, when Hapans devoted more and more effort to disguising their ages, and did so with considerable success, she had green eyes, a long, aristocratic nose, and features made for twisting into expressions of disapproval—though she directed only a look of concern toward Tenel Ka. Her gown, layers of iridescent synthsilk in gold and brown tones, was appropriate to a Hapan noblewoman, and scarves in the same material and colors bound up and concealed her hair. “Queen Mother?”

“Why the last alert change?”

“I will find out, Queen Mother.” Aros bowed and withdrew.

Isolder smiled, amused. “You are nervous today.”

“Yes, I am. So I have to hope something is actually going wrong. I don’t want to pick up the reputation of being…unwell.” She repressed a wince. Her mother, Teneniel Djo, had been unwell, sick in her mind, dissociated from reality, for a time before her death.

Teneniel Djo had not been able to stand up to the emotional shock of feeling, through the Force, the deaths of thousands of people slain by use of Centerpoint Station’s main gun during the Yuuzhan Vong War. Tenel Ka could not afford for anyone to think her similarly weak. It would be an invitation to another attack, another assassination attempt.

Aros reentered the chamber. “It was an automated elevation of the alert status, Queen Mother. When enough random events occur that the security computers register them, the programs do what is known, I believe, as ‘raising flags,’ simply indicating—”

Tenel Ka gestured to cut off her explanation. “What random events?”

“Small static interruptions in security holocam feeds. But none has lasted more than a few seconds. Security says that during intrusions, holocam interruptions last for much longer periods, a minimum of half a minute or a minute—”

“They’ve checked to be sure that the holocam views, once they resume, are current images? Not recordings?”

“Yes, Queen Mother.” Aros’s voice was endlessly, unnecessarily patient.

Tenel Ka frowned, not convinced, and opened herself to the Force. First she sought out Allana and found her—nearby, calm, sleeping. Then she broadened her perceptions, looking for anything amiss.

She felt it almost immediately, a short, distinct pulse in the Force.

Her eyes snapped open. “There is a Force-user in the palace.” She punched additional buttons on the keypad of her vanity, and her own image in the mirror suddenly faded, to be replaced by an overhead view of a child’s playroom.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Allana was there, undisturbed, sitting at her modeling table, head down as she worked intently at the controls. Her hair spilled around her face, obscuring it. The bantha that had been her newest creation now had four giant bulbous feet.

Then Tenel Ka frowned. A moment earlier, an instant earlier, Allana had been asleep.

She keyed in another location and the view changed to that of the door outside her daugher’s play chamber. It was closed, sealed, innocuous.

Except for the fact that the two guards who should have been on duty there were missing.

Coldness, hard as an ancient ice comet, froze her stomach. Tenel Ka stood fast enough to hurl her chair backward. It thumped down on the carpeted floor. She spun on Aros. “Alert security. Intruders in the palace. They’re making an attempt on Allana—” From beneath her robes, suited to an afternoon’s lounging beside an artificial waterfall, she pulled her lightsaber and dashed past Aros, her father behind her.

Security chimes were sounding as the two of them reached the main corridor accessing the secondary royal quarters. Rightward, it led toward Allana’s playroom. Leftward, it led to security stations that in turn gave way to less secure areas. Security agents dashed in either direction as noblewomen, pursing their lips in disapproval of the confusion, stayed out of their way.

Tenel Ka paused and extended her senses into the Force once more. It took only seconds—seconds that dragged on like hours—and then she