• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Kalarba,” Kyp said with a nod. “That’s why you chose to meet here. We’re only a jump away.”

“You’ll have to move fast regardless. Skidder’s slated to be transferred to another ship and handed over to some top commander. Once that happens, your chances of getting near him are probably next to none.”

Ganner tightened his lips and nodded. “Thanks for bringing this to us, Karrde.”

Karrde got to his feet. “You’re certain Skywalker won’t object.”

Kyp gave his head a shake. “Rescue is our mandate.”

Several thousand demonstrators—most of them Drall and humans but with some Selonians mixed in—railed from behind the majestic gates that had once allowed Governor-General Marcha of Mastigophorous to maintain a tranquil enclave for herself on that part of Drall. Squads of Public Safety Service guards reinforced the fence that encircled the compound, though in fact any determined Drall could simply have burrowed their way onto the grounds.

From a round-topped window in the sitting room that overlooked the estate’s expansive front lawn and Marcha’s beds of prize nannariums, Jacen trained electrobinoculars on some of the placards and signs hoisted high by the vociferous crowd.

“ ‘Jedi warmongers,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘Servants of the dark side.’ ‘Corellia will live to see Coruscant die.’ ” Lowering the binocs, he swung to his younger brother. “Here’s one you’ll like, Anakin: ‘Solos, go home.’ ” He bit his lower lip and shook his head. “Wait’ll Dad gets wind of this.”

The shuttle that had delivered Anakin and Jacen to Drall sat on a shrub-enclosed permacrete pad behind Marcha’s hemispherical white manse, close to the river. Beyond the pad, manicured lawn stretched to the edge of luxuriant forest. Droid servants busied themselves outdoors and in, trimming the hedges that lined the estate’s brick walkways and making minor adjustments to the fountain in the central foyer.

“I don’t know how word got out that you boys would be stopping here before continuing on to Centerpoint Station,” Marcha said as she served pieces of dark-brown, homemade ryshcate, heavy with vweliu nuts. “But don’t feel singled out. Most of that crowd has been here for the past month. Things are even worse in Coronet and on some of the worlds of the Outlier systems. And on Talus and Tralus the Federation of the Double Worlds has recently formed a coalition with the archaeologists the New Republic forcibly removed from Centerpoint.”

“The Centerpoint Party,” Marcha’s nephew Ebrihim said as he reached for a wedge of the sweet cake. “Extremists who have borrowed freely from the rhetoric of the old Sacorrian Triad.”

Nearby, and attentive to every word, stood Q9-X2, Ebrihim’s jet-black and bullet-headed astromech droid, who, when it spoke, was usually quick to express a high opinion of itself.

“Because this system is comprised of worlds captured by Centerpoint Station and installed into orbit around Corell,” Marcha said, “the party advocates increased representation in the New Republic Senate.”

Ebrihim nodded in affirmation. “With five votes instead of one, the party leaders believe that they might have been able to prevent Coruscant from commandeering Centerpoint.”

Furred and somewhat chubby bipeds, Ebrihim and Marcha had clawed feet, elongated whiskered muzzles, and small ears set high on their heads. Like most Drall they were keenly intelligent and honest to a fault, if at times maddeningly fastidious. But where age had tempered Ebrihim’s tendency to pontificate, Marcha—while some years Ebrihim’s senior—was as fervently self-reliant as Jacen remembered her being during the Centerpoint Station crisis, almost eight years earlier.

What had begun then as a family holiday had turned into open rebellion, with the Sacorrian Triad making use of Centerpoint Station’s awesome interdiction and nova-inducing power to force the New Republic into recognizing the sector’s autonomy. Ebrihim, hired by Leia to tutor Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin, had ended up being their rescuer by spiriting them from Corellia