The alien was sitting motionless in a low seat in the tiny police interrogation room, a small bandage on the side of his head the only external evidence of Chewbacca’s blow. His hands were resting in his lap, the fingers laced intricately together. Stripped of all clothing and equipment, he’d been given a loose Wookiee robe to wear. On someone else the effect of the outsized garment might have been comical. But not on him. Neither the robe nor his inactivity did anything to hide the aura of deadly competence that he wore like a second skin. He was-probably always would be-a member of a dangerous and persistent group of trained killing machines.
And he’d asked specifically to see Leia. In person.
Towering beside her, Chewbacca growled one final objection. “I don’t much like it either,” Leia conceded, gazing at the monitor display and trying to screw up her courage. “But he let me go back at the house, before you came in. I want to know-I need to know-what that was all about.”
Briefly, her conversation with Luke on the eve of the Battle of Endor flashed to mind. His quiet firmness, in the face of all her fears, that confronting Darth Vader was something he had to do. That decision had nearly killed him . . . and had ultimately brought them victory.
But Luke had felt some faint wisps of good still buried deep inside Vader. Did she feel something similar in this alien killer? Or was she driven merely by morbid curiosity?
Or perhaps by mercy?
“You can watch and listen from here,” she told Chewbacca, handing him her blaster and stepping to the door. The lightsaber she left hooked onto her belt, though what use it would be in such close quarters she didn’t know. “Don’t come in unless I’m in trouble.” Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the door and pressed the release.
The alien looked up as the door slid open, and it seemed to Leia that he sat up straighter as she stepped inside. The door slid shut behind her, and for a long moment they just eyed each other. “I’m Leia Organa Solo,” she said at last. “You wanted to talk to me?”
He gazed at her for another moment. Then, slowly, he stood up and reached out a hand. “Your hand,” he said, his voice gravelly and strangely accented. “May I have it?”
Leia took a step forward and offered him her hand, acutely aware that she had just committed an irrevocable act of trust. From here, if he so chose, he could pull her to him and snap her neck before anyone outside could possibly intervene.
He didn’t pull her toward him. Leaning forward, holding her hand in an oddly gentle grip, he raised it to his snout and pressed it against two large nostrils half hidden beneath strands of hair.
And smelled it.
He smelled it again, and again, taking long, deep breaths. Leia found herself staring at his nostrils, noticing for the first time their size and the soft flexibility of the skin folds around them. Like those of a tracking animal, she realized. A memory flashed to mind: how, as he’d held her helpless back at the house, those same nostrils had been pressed into her neck.
And right after that was when he’d let her go . . .
Slowly, almost tenderly, the alien straightened up. “It is then true,” he grated, releasing her hand and letting his own fall to his side. Those huge eyes stared at her, brimming with an emotion whose nature her Jedi skills could vaguely sense but couldn’t begin to identify. “I was not mistaken before.”
Abruptly, he dropped to both knees. “I seek forgiveness, Leia Organa Solo, for my actions,” he said, ducking his head to the floor, his hands splayed out to the sides as they had been in that encounter back at the house. “Our orders did not identify you, but gave only your name.”
“I understand,” she nodded, wishing she did. “But now you know who I am?”
The alien’s face dropped a couple of centimeters closer to the floor. “You are the Mal’ary’ush,” he said. “The daughter and heir of the Lord Darth Vader.”
“He who was our master.”
Leia stared down at him, feeling her mouth fall open as she struggled to regain her mental balance. The right-angle turns were all coming too quickly. “Your master?” she repeated carefully.
“He who came to us in our desperate need,” the alien said, his voice almost reverent. “Who lifted us from our despair, and gave us hope.”
“I see,” she managed. This whole thing was rapidly becoming unreal . . . but one fact already stood out. The alien prostrating himself before her was prepared to treat her as royalty.
And she knew how to behave like royalty.
“You may rise,” she told him, feeling her voice and posture and manner settling into the almost-forgotten patterns of the Alderaanian court. “What is your name?”
“I am called Khabarakh by our lord,” the alien said, getting to his feet. “In the language of the Noghri-” He made a long, convoluted roiling noise that Leia’s vocal cords didn’t have a hope of imitating.
“I’ll call you Khabarakh,” she said. “Your people are called the Noghri?”
“Yes.” The first hint of uncertainty seemed to cross the dark eyes. “But you are the Mal’ary’ush,” he added, with obvious question.
“My father had many secrets,” she told him grimly. “You, obviously, were one of them. You said he brought you hope. Tell me how.”
“He came to us,” the Noghri said. “After the mighty battle. After the destruction.”
“What battle?”
Khabarakh’s eyes seemed to drift into memory. “Two great starships met in the space over our world,” he said, his gravelly voice low. “Perhaps more than two; we never knew for certain. They fought all the day and much of the night . . . and when the battle was over, our land was devastated.”
Leia winced, a pang of sympathetic ache running through her. Of ache, and of guilt. “We never hurt non-Imperial forces or worlds on purpose,” she said softly. “Whatever happened, it was an accident.”
The dark eyes fixed again on her. “The Lord Vader did not think so. He believed it was done on purpose, to drive fear and terror into the souls of the Emperor’s enemies.”
“Then the Lord Vader was mistaken,” Leia said, meeting that gaze firmly. “Our battle was with the Emperor, not his subjugated servants.”
Khabarakh drew himself up stiffly. “We were not the Emperor’s servants,” he grated. “We were a simple people, content to live our lives without concern for the dealings of others.”
“You serve the Empire now,” Leia pointed out.
“In return for the Emperor’s help,” Khabarakh said, a hint of pride showing through his deference. “Only he came to our aid when we so desperately needed it. In his memory, we serve his designated heir-the man to whom the Lord Vader long ago entrusted us.”
“I find it difficult to believe the Emperor ever really cared about you,” Leia told him bluntly. “That’s not the sort of man he was. All he cared about was obtaining your service against us.”
“Only he came to our aid,” Khabarakh repeated.
“Because we were unaware of your plight,” Leia told him.
“So you say.”
Leia raised her eyebrows. “Then give me a chance to prove it. Tell me where your world is.”
Khabarakh jerked back. “That is impossible. You would seek us out and complete the destruction-”
“Khabarakh,” Leia cut him off. “Who am I?”
The folds around the Noghri’s nostrils seemed to flatten. “You are the Lady Vader. The Mal’ary’ush.”
“Did the Lord Vader ever lie to you?”
“You said he did.”
“I said he was mistaken,” Leia reminded him, perspiration starting to collect beneath her collar as she recognized the knife edge she was now walking along here. Her newfound status with Khabarakh rested solely on the Noghri’s reverence for Darth Vader. Somehow, she had to attack Vader’s words without simultaneously damaging that respect. “Even the Lord Vader could be deceived . . . and the Emperor was a master of deception.”
“The Lord Vader served the Emperor,” Khabarakh insisted. “The Emperor would not have lied to him.”
Leia gritted her teeth. Stalemate. “Is your new lord equally honest with you?”
Khabarakh hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do-you said yourself he didn’t tell you who it was you’d been sent to capture.”
A strange sort of low moan rumbled in Khabarakh’s throat. “I am only a soldier, my lady. These matters are far beyond my authority and ability. My duty is to obey my orders. All of my orders.”
Leia frowned. Something about the way he’d said that . . . and abruptly, she knew what it was. For a captured commando facing interrogation, there could be only one order left to follow. “Yet you now know something none of your people are aware of,” she said quickly. “You must live, to bring this information to them.”
Khabarakh had brought his palms to face each other, as if preparing to clap them together. Now he froze, staring at her. “The Lord Vader could read the souls of the Noghri,” he said softly. “You are indeed his Mal’ary’ush.”
“Your people need you, Khabarakh,” she told him. “As do I. Your death now would only hurt those you seek to help.”
Slowly, he lowered his hands. “How is it you need me?”
“Because I need your help if I’m to do anything for your people,” she said. “You must tell me the location of your world.”
“I cannot,” he said firmly. “To do so could bring ultimate destruction upon my world. And upon me, if it were learned I had given you such information.”
Leia pursed her lips. “Then take me there.”
“I cannot!”
“Why not?”
“I . . . cannot.”
She fixed him with her best regal stare. “I am the daughter-the Mal’ary’ush-of the Lord Darth Vader,” she said firmly. “By your own admission, he was the hope of your world. Have matters improved since he delivered you to your new leader?”
He hesitated. “No. He has told us there is little more that he or anyone else can do.”
“I would prefer to judge that for myself,” she told him loftily. “Or would your people consider a single human to be such a threat?”
Khabarakh twitched. “You would come alone? To a people seeking your capture?”
Leia swallowed hard, a shiver running down her back. No, she hadn’t meant to imply that. But then, she hadn’t been sure of why she’d wanted to talk to Khabarakh in the first place. She could only hope that the Force was guiding her intuition in all this. “I trust your people to be honorable,” she said quietly. “I trust them to grant me a hearing.”
She turned and stepped to the door. “Consider my offer,” she told him. “Discuss it with those whose counsel you value. Then, if you choose, meet me in orbit above the world of Endor in one month’s time.”
“You will come alone?” Khabarakh asked, apparently still not believing it.
She turned and looked him straight in that nightmare face. “I will come alone. Will you?”
He faced her stare without flinching. “If I come,” he said, “I will come alone.”
She held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded. “I hope to see you there. Farewell.”
“Farewell . . . Lady Vader.”
He was still staring at her as the door opened and she left.
The tiny ship shot upward through the clouds, vanishing quickly from the Rwookrrorro air-control visual monitor. Beside Leia, Chewbacca growled angrily. “I can’t say I’m really happy with it, either,” she confessed. “But we can’t dodge them forever. If we have even a chance of getting them out from under Imperial control . . .” She shook her head.
Chewbacca growled again. “I know,” she said softly, some of his pain finding its way into her own heart. “I wasn’t as close to Salporin as you were, but he was still my friend.”
The Wookiee turned away from the monitors and stomped across the room. Leia watched him, wishing there was something she could do to help. But there wasn’t. Caught between conflicting demands of honor, he would have to work this out in the privacy of his own mind.
Behind her, someone stirred. [It is time,] Ralrra said. [The memorial period has begun. We must join the otherrs.]
Chewbacca growled an acknowledgment and went over to join him. Leia looked at Ralrra- [This period is forr Wookiees only,] he rumbled. [Laterr, you will be permitted to join us.]
“I understand,” Leia said. “If you need me, I’ll be on the landing platform, getting the Lady Luck ready to fly.”
[If you truly feel it is safe to leave,] Ralrra said, still sounding doubtful.
“It is,” Leia told him. And even if it wasn’t, she added silently to herself, she would still have no choice. She had a species name now-Noghri-and it was vital that she return to Coruscant and get another records search underway.
[Very well. The mourning period will begin in two hourrs.]
Leia nodded, blinking back tears. “I’ll be there,” she promised.
And wondered if this war would ever truly be over.
The mass of vines hung twisted around and between half a dozen trees, looking like the web of a giant spider gone berserk. Fingering Skywalker’s lightsaber, Mara studied the tangle, trying to figure out the fastest way to clear the path.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Skywalker fidgeting. “Just keep your shirt on,” she told him. “This’ll only take a minute.”
“You really don’t have to go for finesse, you know,” he offered. “It’s not like the lightsaber’s running low on power.”
“Yes, but we’re running low on forest,” she retorted. “You have any idea how far the hum of a lightsaber can carry in woods like this?”
“Not really.”
“Me, neither. I’d like to keep it that way.” She shifted her blaster to her left hand, ignited the lightsaber with her right, and made three quick cuts. The tangle of vines dropped to the ground as she closed the weapon down. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” she said, turning to face Skywalker and hooking the lightsaber back onto her belt. She started to turn away-
The droid’s warning squeal came a fraction of a second before the sudden rustle of leaves. She whirled back, flipping her blaster into her right hand as the vornskr leaped toward Skywalker from a branch three trees away.
Even after two long days of travel, Skywalker’s reflexes were still adequate to the task. He let go the handles of the travois and dropped to the ground just ahead of the vornskr’s trajectory. Four sets of claws and a whip tail took a concerted swipe at him as the predator shot by overhead. Mara waited until it had landed, and as it spun back around toward its intended prey, she shot it.