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The Falcon stood on her tail again. Leia, caught off-guard, hurtled toward the rear of the engineering bay—right past Alema, who didn’t budge.

Leia spun her lightsaber in a defensive arc, an attempt to block the blow she knew must come, but it didn’t. Alema merely danced aside. Leia crashed into the stern bulkhead, an impact that sent waves of shock through her back muscles, shoulder blades, spine…

For a brief second she was helpless, bent with pain. But Alema didn’t whip out her blowgun to send a dart her way—she didn’t even essay a lightning-quick leap followed by a maiming slash with her weapon. She advanced slowly, walking carefully down the ceiling toward Leia.

Recovering, Leia reached out, a flailing motion that sent a wash of Force energy toward her enemy. Alema merely rocked back on her heels and looked faintly amused. “Growing weaker? Perhaps it is the infirmity of age.”

There was a dull rattling noise and Waroo, spinning like a child’s toy, hurtled down at Leia from the main corridor.

Leia twisted aside and exerted herself upward through the Force, slowing Waroo’s fall. The Wookiee crashed into the bulkhead beside her, but softly, not hard enough to impair a being of his size and strength.

Alema’s smile broadened. In a movement that was curiously clumsy and unpracticed, she raised her lightsaber and charged to swing it down at Waroo.

Leia raised her own blade, catching Alema’s seemingly unpracticed attack; their blades met, sizzled, sparked. Waroo rolled away from the two of them and sat up, swinging his bowcaster off his back and aiming it at Alema. The weapon, built tough to Wookiee standards, did not seem to be damaged.

“No!” Leia lashed out with her foot as Waroo fired. She connected first, kicking Alema backward, and angled her own lightsaber to catch the bowcaster bolt; it sizzled out of existence against the blade.

Puzzled, Waroo offered an offended growl. He rose to his feet and hastily recocked his bowcaster. Leia got her feet under her and leapt toward Alema, positioning herself between the Twi’lek and the Wookiee. She caught Alema’s next strike, this one as suitably swift and ferocious as any Jedi’s, before it could sever her right arm, but she did not press her attack. “Waroo, don’t shoot. There’s something wrong. Trust me.”

Waroo offered a little grumble of complaint. He aimed but did not fire.

Leia strained against Alema’s blade, panting from pain and exertion. Their blades sparked and sizzled as they pressed against each other, slid along each other’s lengths.

Alema tried to disengage and strike, but Leia simply followed her step for step, staying close, fighting purely defensively. Alema struck a second time and a third, all shots toward one of Leia’s limbs, but Leia blocked two of the blows, dodged the third.

Alema’s smile did not fade, but after another moment her strength seemed to. She sagged back as Leia continued to push. “Fine.” Her tone was light, but there was a forced, brittle quality to it. “We will meet later.”

She leapt up and backward, landing on the main corridor wall above, her motion so light and graceful that it seemed she could not possibly be affected by the Falcon’s constant upward acceleration. Then she turned and ran toward the hatchways to the circuitry bay and crew quarters.

Leia and Waroo leapt after her, an effort for both Jedi and Wookiee. But, though Alema had been out of sight for only a few moments, though she could not have made it as far as either hatchway, she was gone.

chapter two

CHIEF OF STATE’S BRIEFING OFFICE, CORUSCANT

The adviser’s voice was like the droning of insects, and Darth Caedus knew what to do about insects—ignore them or step on them.

But in this case, he couldn’t afford to ignore the drone. The adviser, whatever her failings as a speaker, was providing him with critical data. Nor could he raise a boot to crush the source of the drone, not with Admiral Cha Niathal, his partner in the coalition government running Coruscant and the Galactic Alliance, sitting