Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 11_ Dark Journey - Elaine Cunningham [94]
Ben Skywalker, who sat enthroned on his mother’s lap, formed an opinion first. The baby crowed with delighted laughter and flailed his tiny fists. A random swing caught Han on the nose and sent him reeling back, clutching his already bruised face.
“They grow fast,” he managed.
Luke cleared his throat and Mara hid a smirk behind one hand. Her brother-in-law sent her a mock glare. “Kid takes after his mother.”
“I was aware of that risk,” Luke said lightly. “We could happily talk about Ben all night, but perhaps you should fill us in on the Hapan situation. You might start by explaining why you look like someone who went several bad rounds with a Wampa.”
“That’s probably close to the truth—or as close as I’m likely to come,” Han said, rubbing at his bruised jaw.
“He doesn’t remember many of the particulars,” Leia put in.
In a few words, she described the events that had precipitated their departure from Hapes. “Judging from the dowry gifts, it seems likely that Ta’a Chume is returning to the notion of finding an ‘appropriate’ wife for Isolder. Han, obviously, would be a deterrent. Jag Fel, the young man who stopped the fight, wonders if perhaps they goaded Han into fighting in lieu of a conventional assassination attempt.”
“That would work,” Luke agreed. “I don’t need the Force to tell me who threw the first punch.”
Han pantomimed a look of wounded innocence and touched the fingers of one hand to his chest. The expression wavered, and his eyes took on the unfocused look of someone in deep thought.
“Han?” Leia asked.
“Just thinking about what Luke said.” He glanced at his bruised knuckles. “I remember throwing the first punch, and maybe one or two after that. A few bits and pieces are coming back. There’s something else, too, something important. I can’t quite grab hold of it.”
“It’ll come,” Leia said firmly. “Don’t rush it. You’ve got several days of recovery time ahead, and the inactivity will be bad enough without you making yourself—and those around you—crazy.”
“Yeah.” Han rubbed his jaw again, let out a frustrated sigh. “I hate not remembering what I did. I always remember, even after a long night in a bad tavern.”
Mara turned to her husband. “How about it, Skywalker? Will you still fight for me after we’ve been married for twenty-odd years?” She lifted one red-gold brow.
Luke met her gaze, and her teasing challenge. “What do you mean by ‘still’? You do your own fighting. If I forget that, I’m not very likely to survive until our twentieth anniversary.”
The Jedi warrior shifted the squirming baby to her shoulder and smiled contentedly. “It’s such a comfort to be understood.”
Jaina returned from Hapes two days later, armed with Sinsor Khal’s discoveries and several data cards of related information. She and Lowbacca hurried back to the Trickster, eager to get back to work on the Yuuzhan Vong ship.
She and Lowbacca dragged the escape pod into a small enclosure and set to work. Jaina took one of several altered implants she’d brought back in flasks of a mineral-rich, rapid-growth medium Sinsor had devised. The coral creatures were still much smaller than the one they’d reimplanted in the pirate, but Jaina thought they might serve.
She took a tiny welding tool from one of her pockets and sheared off a slice of the pod’s miniature dovin basal. She fitted an implant into an irregularity of the rocklike structure and then pressed the small piece back into place.
“It should be able to heal itself,” Jaina said. “And if I’m right, this should alter the gravitic signature.”
Lowbacca let out a string of yelps and growls.
“I know they can’t trace us right now, and yes, I want to keep things that way. But the only thing better than no information is misinformation,” Jaina replied.