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Chewbacca powered up his weapons systems, and Threepio linked into their preprogrammed attack patterns. The five assault shuttles from Maw Installation plunged into the heart of the burgeoning space battle.

“Oh, my!” Threepio said.

31

When Leia answered the summons at the door to her quarters in the rebuilt Imperial Palace, she saw it was the deepest hour of the bustling night. For a moment she had a thrilled thought, that Han might have come back from Kessel already. But when she rubbed sleep from her eyes and opened the door, she found her brother Luke standing there. She paused a moment, utterly astonished, and then rushed forward to embrace him.

“Luke! When did you come to Coruscant?” Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of another young man standing off to the side in the dim corridor. She recognized the tousled dark hair of Kyp Durron; his eyes were deep-set and averted, no longer the brash teenager that Han had rescued from the spice mines of Kessel.

“Oh, Kyp,” she said in a flat, unemotional voice. Seeing the young man unnerved her. He had been Han’s dear friend, a companion through enjoyable adventures—but Kyp had also gone over to the dark side, paralyzed Luke, killed millions of people, turned on Han.…

Kyp’s face and eyes looked old now, exhausted from the traumas he had endured—and caused. Leia had seen eyes like those only once before: on her brother after he had faced the knowledge that Darth Vader was his own father. But Kyp had been through a hell as deep as Luke’s had been.

A small courier droid shot down the hall, blinking red lights to warn others to clear the way as it propelled itself along on urgent business, even this late at night.

With a flush of embarrassment Leia remembered her manners. “Please, come in.”

From the back room Winter emerged, gliding forward on silent bare feet, wearing only a loose sleeping garment. Winter appeared ready for action lest some other danger throw itself upon the children. She bowed her head formally when she saw Luke. “Greetings, Master Skywalker,” she said.

Luke smiled and nodded to her. “Hello, Winter.”

Winter backed into her chambers. “I’ll just check on the children,” she said. She vanished, giving them no chance to say anything else.

Leia looked from Kyp to Luke again, feeling deep weariness behind her eyes, behind her head. She had been relying on too many stimulant drinks, spending too much time negotiating with other Council members, sleeping too little.

Luke closed the door behind him as he and Kyp entered the common room. Leia remembered when her brother had trained her in this room, trying to unlock her Jedi potential. Now, though, she sensed that Luke had a much more ominous agenda.

“Is Han here?” Kyp blurted, looking around the quarters.

Leia noticed that he still wore the black cape Han had given him as a gift; but now Kyp seemed to carry it as a symbol over a light jumpsuit, a reminder to himself of what he could become.

“He’s gone off to Kessel with Lando,” Leia said, a tired smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Lando wants to try running the spice mines.”

Kyp frowned uncertainly. Luke sat down on one of the self-conforming cushions and leaned forward, weaving his fingers together. He directed his intense gaze at Leia. “Leia, we need your help,” he said.

“Yeah, I figured that out,” Leia answered with a touch of irony. “I’ll do everything I can, of course. What do you need?”

“Kyp and I have … made our peace. He has the potential to be the greatest of the Jedi I am training, but there’s one thing he must do before I can consider him completely absolved.”

Leia swallowed, already afraid of what he might say. “And what is this ‘one thing’?”

Luke did not flinch. “The Sun Crusher must be destroyed. Everyone in the New Republic knows that. But Kyp must do it himself.”

Leia simply blinked, unable to say anything. “But … how can he destroy it?” she finally said. “As far as we know, it’s indestructible. We already