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“No. No. Warn Mara first. Get Han, come back,” Leia answered.

Silence. The warm echo at the back of her mind faded, cooled, vanished. She counted off almost a minute. Then, “OK,” Jaina pinged back.

Leia sank back down, dropped the pebble, and rested her elbows on her knees.

Four armed Duros waited for Mara at the top of the lift.

“Charming,” she said. “A welcoming committee. I need to speak with the admiral.”

“You’re under arrest,” the Duro wearing the most stripes on his collar snapped.

“On what charge?” Mara demanded.

“Trespassing on military property, to starrrt.”

“Mm.” Mara flexed her hands, holding them close to her blaster and lightsaber. “Tell you what. You can try to lock me up, in which case either you’ll end up on the floor or else as Yuuzhan Vong sacrifice bait … or you can take me to see Admiral Wuht first. If he still wants me locked up, I’ll go peacefully. Think you could handle that?”

The lead Duros’ eyes blinked once. “This way,” he ordered.

She followed him, ready to make a break the moment he took a wrong turn. But less than a minute later, the escorts marched her into a private dining room, where a Duros sat next to two burly humans. The Duros’ charcoal-gray uniform had filigreed epaulettes, white shoulder cords, and a row of stars around his collar.

“Admiral,” Mara said. “My name is Mara Jade Skywalker. I urgently need to speak with you.”

Admiral Wuht cocked his long head to one side. He glanced at his human guests. “Interesting,” he said. “These gentlebeings just predicted that you, or one of your kind, would force your way in to see me within the hour. And here you are.”

Mara got a good look at the humans. The nearer one wore close-cropped hair and sat with his shoulders slumped. The other had a bizarre, distant look in one eye, probably a malfunctioning prosthetic. They openly wore the clasped-hand Peace Brigade insignia, one hand recognizably human, the other hand completely tattooed.

They always left off the claws.

“Good,” she said. She leaned both hands on the back of the nearest repulsor chair. “Admiral, I don’t know what you’ve been told about the chances of a second Yuuzhan Vong attack on this system, a final one, but we have reason to believe it’s imminent.”

“They are coming to take possession of the planet’s surface,” the slump-shouldered human said. “They have no interest in the Duros’ cities, and there is no reason we cannot coexist peacefully with them.”

Mara glared. “So you sold them what, half a million refugees to be sacrificed?”

He spread his hands. His bad-eyed friend slipped both hands under the tabletop.

Mara got a grip on her lightsaber, beneath her long tunic. “I know you’ve been told to believe they have no use for your orbital cities, and that they’ll leave them alone,” she told the admiral. “I assume you struggled with the decision to let them take hundreds of thousands of lives, down there, once this slime got to you. But your own people are your priority, and this is war. Am I close?”

The slumped one crossed his arms. “I think it’s time you left, Green Eyes.”

Mara shook her head. “We transmitted back to Coruscant,” she said. “We requested reinforcements. They turned us down.”

Again, the admiral’s glance flitted sideways. His large eyes narrowed, then he looked at her again. “Please make your point, Jedi Jade Skywalker.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t already seen it,” she said. “Have you heard how they destroy technology? Did you see that creature out there, chewing on Orr-Om? Don’t you realize they consider technology—all technology—to be an abomination, an offense against their gods? Can you really believe they would leave you your cities?”

“We have been given those assurances,” he answered. “It is as you say. My responsibility is to my people. Sadly, I cannot help evacuate your downside settlements. We did try to warn SELCORE against colonizing that surface. Duro swallows everything that touches it.”

“So get out of here,” Bad-eye said.

“I’ll leave when it’s time to go.” Mara watched his shoulders. If they twitched, she was ready. “First—”