Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 12_ Return to Ord Mantell - Kevin J. Anderson [26]
When she needed it more than she did now.
Without a word of thanks or goodbye, Anja turned and slipped back out of Czethros's hidden warehouse. She would keep a close watch on Han Solo, and insinuate herself into his journey to Anobis. She was almost certain he wouldn't be able to resist going there now that she had challenged him.
And once he got there, he would be very surprised indeed.
Back in the diplomatic suite of Ord Mantell's most luxurious hotel, the Ord Ambassador, Jacen could not get his mind off the girl Anja.
Her sad, pain-filled eyes had seemed so out of place. Her features were delicate and beautiful... and there had been such a strength in her whip-thin body that Jacen had expected her gaze to be as steady and cool as Tenel Ka's. But her personal pain-perhaps even a slight madness-had been all too apparent in the looks sho had given Jacen and his friends.
Zekk had felt it too, because Jacen had seen the older boy's sympathetic nod when Anja spoke of her father's death, and about having been raised as an orphan. Who would understand better than Zekk how such events could change a life?
But Jacen didn't have Zekk to talk to right now. The tonner Dark Jedi had returned with Tenel Ka and Lowie to the Rock Dragon for the night.
Jacen sighed and ran his hands through his tousled curls. Why couldn't he stop thinking about Anja? He paced restlessly about the central chamber of the suite. After the long day today, Jacen had taken a hot sonic shower, but his mind did not feel refreshed. Something was bothering him, and he couldn't quite, put his finger on it. When his brother Anakin entered the room, hair still damp from his own shower, the younger boy's ice-blue gaze stopped Jacen in his tracks.
"Something's wrong," Anakin said. A statement, not a question.
Startled, as always, that his younger brother could sense things so quickly, Jacen hunched his shoulders and plopped himself down on a stone repulsor bench beside the ornamental firepit in the center of the room.
Anakin perched himself on a bench opposite Jacen and stared into the flames. "She was a very interesting person, wasn't she?" he said quietly, then waited for Jacen to answer.
Jacen glanced sharply at his little brother and stared at him for a full minute before the reason for his inner turmoil clicked into focus.
"Dad never really explained what happened to her father," he finally blurted. "He just evaded her questions with vague answers."
"Well, he said he didn't kill Gallandro. What more do you want to know?"
Jaina asked, gliding into the room and helping herself to a seat between her two brothers. She wore a loose robe, and droplets of moisture still sparkled on her cheeks from her recent bath.
Jacen set his chin stubbornly. "I want to know what happened."
Anakin shrugged. "Then let's ask Dad."
"Ask me what?" Han said, entering the room, a white sheet of absorbent material draped around his neck so that it hung down his bare torso.
He took a seat opposite Jaina and between his two sons; the four Solo family members were like points of a compass, with the artificial fire at their center. Jacen glanced at his sister. She bit her lower lip.
Anakin gestured to him, as if to say, This is your question; ask it.
Jacen knew he might sound rude, but he wanted an answer and he didn't know how else to put it. "Anja said you killed her father. You denied it, but you never explained what happened to Gallandro."
Han nodded slowly. "That young lady took me by surprise. She reminded me of an incident from my past... a time I'm not too proud of. " Jacen wondered if guilt was the source of the hesitation he heard in his father's voice.
"So, what happened?" Jaina prompted, her brandy-brown eyes alight now with interest.
"We