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“All the drive units are installed,” Cilghal continued, “and the hull is almost complete. We tested the sublight engines just yesterday, hauling the whole spacedock facility once around the planet. It will take another two months to complete the inner bulkheads, staterooms, and crew quarters.”

Leia tore her gaze from the activity and nodded at the ambassador. “As always, I’m astonished at the resourcefulness and dedication of the Calamarians. You have given so much after your enslavement by the Empire, after the attacks you’ve suffered. I feel reluctant to ask for further help—but I desperately need to speak with Admiral Ackbar.”

Cilghal straightened her sky-blue robes. “We have respected Ackbar’s request for privacy and his need for contemplation after the tragedy on Vortex, but our people remain proud of him and support him entirely. If you wish to bring further charges against—”

“No, no!” Leia said. “I’m one of his greatest supporters. But circumstances have changed since he exiled himself here.” Leia swallowed and decided that she would get further if she trusted Cilghal. “I’ve come to beg him to return.”

Cilghal flushed with an olive tinge. She moved quickly, gliding across the floor of the orbital station. “In that case, a shuttle is ready to take you down.”

Leia gripped the widely spaced arms of the passenger seat as Cilghal maneuvered the egg-shaped shuttle through sleeting rain and knotted gray storm clouds.

Whitecaps stippled the dull surface of Calamari’s deep oceans. Cilghal swung the shuttle lower, seemingly unconcerned with the storm winds. She held her splayed hands over the controls and bent to the viewing panels. The high-resolution viewing instruments had been designed for wide-set Calamarian eyes, and the blunt controls were adapted for the digits of the aquatic people.

Cilghal maneuvered the shuttle like a streamlined fish through water. The vessel curved away from small marshy islands—sparse dots of habitable land where the amphibious Calamarians had first established their civilization. Narrow rivulets of rainwater trickled down the passenger window as Cilghal turned broadside to the wind.

The Calamarian ambassador nudged one of the bulbous control knobs and spoke into an invisible voice pickup. “Foamwander City, this is shuttle SQ/one. Please provide a weather update and an approach vector.” Cilghal’s voice sounded smooth and soft, as if she hadn’t needed to shout in her entire life.

A guttural male voice came over the speaker. “Ambassador Cilghal, we are transmitting your approach vector. We are currently experiencing rising winds that are well within seasonal norms. No difficulties expected, but we are issuing an advisory against topside travel for the afternoon.”

“Acknowledged,” Cilghal said. “We were planning on making the rest of our journey underwater. Thank you.” She signed off, then turned back to Leia. “Don’t worry, Minister. I can sense your anxiety, but I assure you, there is nothing to be concerned about.”

Leia sat up, trying to quell her nervousness until she put her finger on its cause. “I don’t doubt you, Ambassador, it’s just that … the last time I flew in a storm was on Vortex.”

Cilghal nodded somberly. “I understand.” Leia sensed Cilghal’s sincerity, and the look on her fishlike face was comforting. “We’ll be safely landed in a few minutes.”

Through the mists and the whipping spray Leia watched them approach a metal island. Lumpy, but smoothed, like an organic coral reef, Foamwander City rose in a hemisphere out of the whitecaps. A forest of reinforced watchtowers and communications antennas rose from the top of the city, but the rest of the drifting metropolis had soft angles and polished outcroppings like a Mon Calamari star cruiser.

The bright lights of thousands of above-surface windows shed jewels of light even through the whipping rain. Below the hemispherical dome Leia knew that the floating cities had underwater towers and descending complexes like the mirror image of a Coruscant skyline. The inverted skyscrapers