Abyss (17 page)

In her eight-year-old granddaughter’s lap lay a pale ball of fur named Anji, the last of the nexu cubs Leia had been forced to orphan at the pet expo three weeks earlier. The cub’s four eyes gleamed in the flickering light of the vidwall as she kept watch over the Solos’ modest apartment, but she held her spine quills flat against her fur and her toe claws retracted into her paws. Clearly the little creature felt content in her new home—even with dulled quills, clipped claws, and a dental implant that prevented her from biting hard enough to draw blood. The sight of the creature with Allana brought a lump to Leia’s throat, for Jacen had been just as loving and gifted with animals, and it made her happy to know that some of the good in her son had survived in his daughter.

Anji raised her head and began to scent the air, prompting Allana to frown and turn toward Leia’s end of the couch.

“Grandma, you can’t be sad. It makes Anji think something’s wrong.”

A tear welled in Leia’s eye, but she smiled and reached out to stroke the nexu’s fur. “I’m not really sad, Allana.” She opened her heart to the Force and let flow the joy that raising Allana brought her. “Sometimes I remember sad times, but having you here makes your grandfather and me very, very happy … and nothing will ever change that.”

Allana considered this, her brow furrowing in the same two places Jacen’s had at that age. Leia thought for a moment her granddaughter was going to ask whether Anji made her happy, too.

Instead, a cloud of fear came to Allana’s gray eyes, and she asked, “Even if I get sick and go crazy like Barv did?”

Leia’s heart suddenly felt like it was skipping. “Sweetheart, you’re never going to get sick—not like Barv and Yaqeel. You’ve never even
seen
the Maw.”

“But I’m in hiding, just like they were.” As Allana spoke, she shook her head, her long black-dyed hair swinging back and forth. Anji’s quills came up, and the cub began to look around for trouble. “And I
don’t
want to live in carbonite. Not ever.”

“Oh, Allana, you don’t need to worry about that.”
Now
Leia understood. She and Han had been on edge all afternoon because the Jedi Council was still trying to decide how to respond to the arrest warrants for Bazel and Yaqeel. “That’s
not
going to happen to you.”

“How do you know?” Allana demanded.

“Because you’ve got Anji.” It was Han who said this, returning to the room with a tray of hot chocolates. “Kid, do you really think
she
would let anyone put you in carbonite?”

Allana’s eyes brightened, and Leia immediately felt the girl’s fear dissipating into the Force.

“ ’Course not,” Allana replied. She began to stroke Anji’s head, and the little nexu settled back into her lap and began to growl in contentment. “She’d knock ’em flat if they even thought about it.”

“I have no doubt.” Leia flashed Han a smile that said
nice save
. As a grandfather, he seemed to have a Force-like sense of what Allana needed to hear to feel safe and loved, and—not surprisingly for Han Solo—it had nothing to do with logic. “That must be why your grandpa asked your mother to let you keep Anji.”

Allana’s eyes widened, and she turned to Han. “Forever?”

Han smiled and said, “Nothing’s forever, kid. But for as long as Anji’s happy and doesn’t start eating our friends, yeah.”

To Leia’s surprise, Allana did not seem troubled by Han’s blunt truthfulness. She merely hugged the little cub, then smiled up at Han.

“Thanks for convincing her, Grandpa.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie.” Han put the tray on the beverage table in front of the couch, then sat down on Allana’s opposite side. “Your mother used to ride rancors when she was a girl. It wasn’t that hard to convince her you could handle a little thing like a two-hundred-kilo forest predator.”

Allana’s eyes got even bigger. “My mom rides
rancors
?”

“
Used
to ride rancors. That was a long time ago.” Leia took a pair of mugs off the tray and passed one to Allana, then shot Han a warning scowl behind their granddaughter’s back. “And the rancor was tame.”

Allana’s head swung around toward Leia. “They have
tame
rancors?” she gasped. “Can
I
ride one?”

“Sure thing, kid,” Han said, smirking at how Leia’s strategy had backfired. “The next time we’re on Dathomir, we’ll find you a nice big one.”

“Really?” Allana continued to look at Leia. “You won’t say no?”

Leia narrowed her eyes at Han. “Of course not, sweetheart. I promise.” It was a pretty safe promise to make; Dathomir was one of the last places she expected to visit anytime soon. She picked up the vidwall remote and passed it to Allana. “In the meantime, grandpa’s program has already started. Do you want to change the feed for him?”

“Yeah.” Allana pointed the remote at the signal receiver. “
The Perre Needmo Newshour
is coming up!”

“Thanks, kid.”

Han took his hot chocolate, then leaned back and wrapped his free arm around Allana’s shoulders. The ritual had started one day when a bad dream interrupted her nap, and she had come and curled up beside Han. The next day she had appeared as soon as the program started. The day after that she had been waiting on the couch when the Solos entered the room. After that, Han had started to bring in
three hot chocolates instead of one Gizer ale, and a tradition had been born. Leia sometimes worried about such a young mind being subjected to so much news, but one of the reasons she and Han liked
The Perre Needmo Newshour
was that at least a third of the items were
good
news. Besides—as Allana herself had pointed out—the Chume’da of the Hapan Consortium needed to know how the galaxy worked.

Allana thumbed the remote, and the cartoon spiders on the vidwall were replaced by the much-wrinkled image of Perre Needmo, an elderly news anchor. His Chevin face seemed to be all snout, save for his beady eyes, gray lips, and square yellow teeth. He had two tufts of unruly silver hair, one covering the crown of his narrow skull, the other hanging from his barely discernible chin.

As expected, the top story concerned the events in which the Solos had been involved that day. A small inset of the Jedi Temple hung in the bottom corner of the vidwall as Needmo’s baritone voice rumbled from the ceiling speakers.

“… legal crisis continued today when Jedi Knights Saav’etu and Warv fell victim to paranoid delusions.” File images of Yaqeel and Bazel appeared in the corners of the vidwall. “According to witnesses at the scene, the pair began to behave oddly outside the Jedi Temple and were quickly whisked inside by Han and Leia Solo. The matter escalated shortly afterward, when a GAS special tactics squad attempted to execute an arrest warrant for the two Jedi Knights. The squad was left standing outside a hangar door. The Jedi Council is said to be considering at this hour whether the Order is obligated to honor the warrant. An in-depth analysis of the precedents and constitutional implications follows this report.”

The images on the vidwall were replaced by a close-up of Jag’s crumpled limousine speeding across Fellowship Plaza.

“No one was injured in the incident,” Needmo continued, “but a diplomatic airspeeder was badly damaged when Jedi Warv was sedated and fell on the roof.”

Leia glanced over and saw her granddaughter frowning in concern. “Allana, you know that Barv and Yaqeel wouldn’t want you to be worried about them, don’t you?”

Allana nodded. “ ’Course I do. They’re my friends.”

When her frown did not disappear, Han asked, “Why do I hear a big
but
coming?”

Allana rewarded him with a big smile. “ ’Cause you’re pretty smart, Grandpa,” she said. “Maybe Barv doesn’t
want
me to worry, but I can’t help it. He and Yaqeel are my friends.”

“I worry, too, sweetie,” Leia said. “But we have to try not to. Master Cilghal is working very hard to help Barv and all of the other sick Jedi Knights, and there’s no one more capable. She’ll figure it out.”

The reassurance did little to lift the cloud of doubt from Allana’s brow. “Not if the Jedi Council gives them to Chief Daala.”

Leia started to say that the Masters would never do that, then stopped herself. Obviously, that wasn’t true. The Council wouldn’t still be in session if the Masters weren’t at least
considering
turning Bazel and Yaqeel over to Daala, and Allana was smart enough to realize that.

Leia looked to Han and found no help there. Earlier, he had wanted to storm into the meeting so they could argue the case themselves. But Leia had insisted that their presence would only be an unwelcome distraction, that they had to trust Kenth and the other Masters to reach the correct decision on their own. Now, after five hours of suspense, she was beginning to wonder whether she had made the right call.

Leia would not have blamed Han if he had just left her hanging, watching with an amused smirk as she tried to come up with a reassuring answer for Allana. And maybe with something less important than their granddaughter, he would have. But there were a handful of things that Han Solo never gambled with, and Allana was one of them.

After a brief silence, he just squeezed Allana’s shoulder and said, “Hey, even if the Jedi Council
does
give Barv to Chief Daala, it won’t be forever. We’ll do everything we can to get him back. Okay?”

“You promise?” Allana asked. “We’ll work just as hard as Master Horn and his wife, right? Everyone knows they’re not giving up until they get Valin and Jysella back.”

“Yes, just as hard,” Leia said. “We won’t give up, either.”

“And that’s a promise, kid,” Han added.

For Leia, any doubts about letting Allana see the news vanished.
She and Han were raising more than their granddaughter. They were raising the heir apparent to the Hapan throne, and Leia could imagine no better way to prepare Allana than to show her how Han and Leia Solo responded to adversity and uncertainty.

“And when your grandfather decides to do something,” Leia added, “it’s pretty hard to stop him.”

“Yeah,” Allana said, nodding. “He’s as stubborn as a ronto in rut.”

Han snorted, and Leia’s brow shot up. “
Where
did you hear that?” she asked.

“I overheard Master Durron say it,” Allana said, looking worried. “Why? What’s a rut?”

“It’s when you keep doing the same thing over and over just because you’ve gotten used to doing it that way,” Han said. When Leia let her breath out in relief, he looked up and winked. “You thought Kyp meant something else?”

“Not at all,” Leia said. “What else
could
he have meant?”

Allana frowned first at her, then at Han. “I’m not a baby, you guys. Mom taught me how to tell when someone’s fibbing. You could have just said you’ll tell me later.”

Leia smiled. “And so we will.”

“When you turn fifty,” Han said.

Allana rolled her eyes and looked back to the vidwall, where the screen now showed an image of Melari Ruxon and Reeqo Swen walking away from the Temple without their robes or lightsabers.

“The crisis appears to be having an effect on Jedi morale as well,” Needmo reported. “Shortly after the incident, two apprentices were seen departing the Temple. In a subsequent interview with journalist Javis Tyrr, the two admitted they had resigned from the Order. Tonight we’ll examine whether those resignations are meant as a warning to Chief Daala, and how a mass resignation of Jedi Knights might affect the stability of the government. We’ll also discuss the Chief of State’s surprising assertion that, like high-ranking military officers, Jedi remain subject to government authority even after they resign.”

Melari and Reeqo were replaced by an image of Tahiri Veila in shock shackles and manacles, heavily guarded and being led into the
Galactic Justice Center. Han came off the couch sputtering and spewing hot chocolate; Leia simply dropped hers.

“What the blazes?” Han shouted at the vidwall. “Now they’ve gone too far!”

“The former aide-de-camp to rogue-Jedi-turned-Sith-Lord Jacen Solo has been arrested on charges of atrocities against the galaxy,” Needmo reported. “A former Jedi Knight herself, Tahiri Veila has been accused of several crimes during the recent civil war, including the assassination of the Imperial Remnant’s popular head of state, Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon. We’ll have a rundown of the complete list of the accusations against her in the analysis segment of our program.”

“I can’t take it.” Han pointed at the remote in Allana’s hands. “Turn it off, sweetheart.”

Allana pointed the remote at the control receptor, and the vidwall paled back into a transparisteel viewport looking out over Fellowship Plaza toward the Galactic Justice Center. Han stood fuming for a moment, then turned to face Leia.

Before he could speak, Allana said, “I don’t understand. Did someone
else
kill Admiral Pellaeon?”

“No, dear,” Leia said. “There were a lot of witnesses, and they all say it was Tahiri.”

“Then
shouldn’t
she stand trial for it?”

Leia looked to Han for help, but he was still gnashing his teeth and shaking his head. She looked back to Allana.