• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Leia made ready to leap into action, ready to do anything necessary to save her son. But a paralyzing realization brought her up short. “I can’t contact Anoth. Even I don’t know where the planet is!”

Terpfen stared at her, but she couldn’t read expressions on his angular, aquatic face. She continued. “It was kept secret from me, too. The only ones who knew were Winter—and she’s on Anoth—and Ackbar, who is now hiding on Calamari, and Luke, who’s in a coma. I don’t know how to get there!”

She steadied herself, trying to recall how fast-thinking she had been in her younger days. On the first Death Star she had taken charge during Han and Luke’s ill-planned rescue. She had known what to do then. She had acted quickly and without hesitation.

But now she had three children to care for, and her new priorities seemed to scramble her single-mindedness. Han had already departed to search for Kyp Durron and the Sun Crusher. She’d been left here with the twins, supposedly to keep them safe. She couldn’t just leave now.

Ambassador Cilghal seemed to sense her thoughts. “You must go, Leia. Go save your son. Your twin children will be safe here. The Jedi students will protect them.”

As if suddenly freed of something she hadn’t known was binding her, Leia felt plans plunge into her conscious mind. Relaxing, she became cool and decisive. “All right, Terpfen, you’re coming with me. We’ll go to Calamari as fast as we can. We’ll find Ackbar, and he can take us to Winter and Anakin.” She looked at the traitor with a complex mixture of anger and hope, pity and sorrow.

He turned away. “No. What if the Imperials activate me again? What if I am forced to commit some new sabotage?”

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” she said in a hard voice. “But I want you to come see Ackbar.” She thought of the Calamarian admiral’s misery, how he had gone to hide in the wilderness of his planet so others would not have to look at his shame. “You’re going to explain to him that he wasn’t at fault in the Vortex crash.”

Terpfen worked his way back to his feet. He wobbled on his feet, but finally stood finn. “Minister Organa Solo,” he said. His voice sounded as if he had swallowed something unpleasant. “I—I am sorry.”

She shot a look at him, but she felt adrenaline pumping through her, a need to be on the move, to do anything possible. Hesitation could mean the loss of everything.

“Apologize when this is all over,” she said. “Right now I need your help.”

10

The Millennium Falcon emerged from hyperspace near the coordinates of the destroyed Caridan star system.

Han Solo polarized the segmented viewport to look out at the rubble that had recently been a group of planets and a burning sun; now he saw only a slash of still-glowing gases, a sea of radiation from the supernova. The sheer destruction was on a scale greater even than when he had emerged from hyperspace to find Alderaan reduced to broken debris—back before he had even met Leia, before he had thrown his lot in with the Rebellion, and before he had believed in the Force.

Carida’s exploded star had spewed stellar material in a thick band around the ecliptic, vast curtains of roiling gases that glowed and crackled with intense energy across the spectrum. A shock wave plowed through space, where it would dissipate over thousands of years.

Under his high-resolution scanners Han spotted a few twisted cinders, burned-out lumps of worlds that had been the outer planets in the system. Now they shone like embers in a dying fire.

Lando Calrissian sat beside him, his mouth open in amazement. “Boy, that kid sure knows how to cause damage.”

Han nodded. His throat felt dry and raw. It felt strange not to have Chewbacca in the copilot’s seat. He hoped his Wookiee friend was having an easier time on his mission than Han was.

The Falcon’s sensor banks barely coped with the overloading energies that pulsed through the wreckage of the Caridan system. X rays and gamma rays hammered against his shields. But Han saw no sign of Kyp.

“Han, what do you think you’ll find with