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As Exar Kun turned back to face him, leaving Dorsk 81 unharmed, Kyp spread wide his arms in complete acceptance of his new instructor. “Teach me more about the ancient Sith ways.”

Kyp swallowed, then made his voice strong, because this was what he really wanted. “Tell me how to use these new powers so I can crush the Empire once and for all.”

21

On Coruscant, Chewbacca and Threepio took the twins through the sculpted duracrete columns at the entrance to the Holographic Zoo of Extinct Animals.

At home the pestering children had rapidly worn down even Threepio’s patience programming and had driven Chewbacca into a roaring frenzy. Getting Jacen and Jaina outside seemed like a good idea for all concerned. The foursome took transit tubes across the upper skyscrapers in old Imperial City to reach the rooftop levels of the Holographic Zoo.

At the Zoo’s gaudy archway Chewbacca let his furry arms dangle behind him; his huge paws engulfed the tiny hands of the children. Chewbacca took two sprawling strides forward, then waited for the twins to catch up before he took two more steps and waited again. Threepio scuttled ahead as if he were in charge. He had just undergone a deep oil bath so that his gold alloy plating gleamed in the artificial lights.

They stepped under the grandiose arches. Threepio went to the cashier kiosk, punching in Han and Leia’s credit code. Chewbacca, impatient with Jacen’s and Jaina’s short legs, scooped up the twins, one in each arm, and strode forward.

They endured a dull preshow in an empty waiting room filled with chairs, cages, and sockets to accommodate the bodies of all alien visitors, until the far doors automatically clicked open. Chewbacca, still carrying the twins, marched down a sloped tunnel to the lower levels. Threepio hurried after, trying to lead the way, but he could not get past the bulky Wookiee.

Arcing, glowing lights shot overhead, inept simulations of stars and comets and planets. As they passed motion sensors, booming godlike voices echoed in stereo from microspeakers in the walls.

“Journey down the corridors of time! Travel the lanes of space! You will experience forgotten wonders from a long time ago and far, far away. You will see extinct creatures lost from our galaxy but recreated here—and now!”

The walls around them darkened. Streaks of light shot out, funneling down in a crude animation of starlines for a fake journey into hyperspace. The floor beneath their feet rumbled and vibrated in the simulation. The children were startled, but Chewbacca groaned at the corniness of it. The illusion ended, and the recorded voice spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “We have arrived … at a universe of possibilities!”

They stood before a choice of several doorways.

“This way children, this way,” Threepio said, stepping forward. He had already scanned the data brochures about the exhibits, and after correlating them with the twins’ interests, decided exactly which dioramas he would show them first. “Let us go see the mammoth krabbex of Calamari.”

As they stepped through the portal, holograms flared, surrounding them with a turbulent oceanscape, a jagged reef thrusting out from white foamy waters. Standing in a swirl of green-and-purple seaweed battered by the rushing waves stood a segmented crustacean, a ten-legged krabbex with dual mandibles in its mouth, twin rows of spines down its back, and eighteen glossy black eyes, four of which were on its front grasping claws. The krabbex reared up and let out a bellow like a wampa ice creature set on fire.

The twins watched as three green-skinned mermen thrashed out of the foaming waves, cocking jagged spears made of pale bone. The mermen hauled themselves onto the reef and attacked.

The spears pierced the exoskeleton of the krabbex, and the monster clipped at them with its pincers. It swung to the left and grabbed one of the mermen, slicing into his smooth green flesh and dragging him out of the water, where his fused finned legs