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A very large egg basket.

The Jedi warrior ripped a flat stone tile from the roof and rose to her feet. Three things happened in rapid succession:

The west gate opened to admit Isolder. The “old man” whipped a blaster from the oversized basket and pointed it at the prince. Tenel Ka hurled the tile with all her strength, sending it spinning toward the assassin.

Her aim held true, and the tile struck the arm holding the weapon with a force that spun the assassin around and sent him tumbling down the stairs. The shot went wild, pinging down into the orchards, sending golden fruit plummeting and launching birds into startled, squawking flight.

The palace guards were upon the assassin before he’d reached the bottom. Ubris, an impressive female warrior who’d been with the prince since before Tenel Ka was born, hauled the assailant to his feet and jerked off the hood.

A hush fell over the courtyard. The assassin was a young woman, and her face was familiar to them all.

Tenel Ka climbed down a trellis and stalked toward the defiant woman. She stopped a few paces away and gazed into a face very like her own.

“Greetings, cousin,” she said coolly. “Aunt Chelik must be desperate for the throne if she is willing to sacrifice her own daughter to get it.” Without waiting for a response, she turned to the guard and nodded. Ubris hauled the traitor away.

Tenel Ka took a long breath, for she understood the sentence awaiting her blood kin. An attack against a member of the royal family was punishable by death, but recently this law had proved an insufficient deterrent. At this rate, the prison yards would soon rival the palace kitchens for legal carnage!

She turned away and went to greet her father. The prince stood inside the west bailey, listening to his bodyguard’s description of the near escape. He was a tall man with a fighter’s disciplined physique. Pale gold hair was pulled severely back into a single thick braid, framing a face that was exceptionally handsome even by Hapan standards. From a few paces away, he didn’t look much older than Ganner Rhysode. Only the fine lines around his eyes and the weariness in them suggested the weight of his years.

The gaze he turned upon Tenel Ka was both proud and somber. “Princess, they tell me that I owe you my life. Clear thinking, quick action—essential qualities for a ruler.”

Tenel Ka suppressed a sigh and turned up her cheek for her father’s kiss. “Welcome home. You had a profitable trip?”

“Walk with me, and I’ll tell you about it.” He smiled down at her. “But please—not on the rooftops.”

They left the kitchen area for the protected inner gardens. Even there, Tenel Ka kept alert, scanning the arbors and alcoves for signs of movement, comparing the length and shape of shadows to the objects that cast them.

“You know of course that your mother has opened Hapes to refugees,” Prince Isolder began.

Tenel Ka’s face clouded with dismay at her father’s formal, distant tone. Things between her parents had been strained for quite some time.

“The people displaced by war need a haven,” she observed.

“I don’t disagree. But the queen mother’s decision ensures that we will face the invaders. I’ve spent much of the last year finding and studying what information we have been able to amass. The more we understand these Yuuzhan Vong, the better our chances of survival.”

It was on the tip of the Jedi woman’s tongue to say that she knew far more about the invaders than she wished to.

“You were among them for a time,” he went on. “Tell me what you learned.”

One grim picture after another flashed into Tenel Ka’s mind: scenes from the terrible days of captivity in the Yuuzhan Vong worldship, the battle that followed, the agony of leaving behind the young man she had loved since girlhood. What could she tell her father of this?

“They are devoted to their religion,” she said at last.

He nodded. “I have read the debriefing given Elan, the traitor priestess. The Yuuzhan Vong venerate two gods in particular: Yun-Harla, the Trickster goddess, and Yun-Yammka,