[Dark Nest] - 1(117)

Leia cast a nervous glance at Alema, who was continuing to mumble and thrash against her restraints, then asked, “Could it be something coming down the Run toward us?”

“Sure,” Han said. “If it had the mass of a battle fleet.”

“I see what you mean.”

Leia studied Alema for another moment, then checked the Twi’lek’s vital signs again. The monitor showed her deep in the REM state, but Leia remained suspicious. She withdrew a hypo of tranqarest from her jumpsuit pocket and pressed it to Alema’s neck.

“Whoa!” Han said. “She has a head wound!”

“She’s young.” Leia hit the injector and held it down until the hypo stopped hissing. “A little coma won’t hurt her.”

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Han said.

Alema stopped thrashing and fell silent, and her vital signs dropped into the coma range. Leia thumped the Twi’lek on the eyelid just to be sure, then nodded when there was no reaction.

“Let’s go see if we’re still having that mass fluctuation.”

Han raised his brow. “You think she was-“

“I don’t know,” Leia said. Leaving instructions for the Noghri to blast the Twi’lek at the first sign of trouble, she left the hold. “But it never hurts to be careful.”

“You don’t think you’re overdoing it?”

“Han, she sabotaged the Falcon and gave me a beating,” Leia said. “And there’s every chance my message didn’t get through to Luke and Mara. If the Shadow had a stowaway aboard-or if Tahiri and the others are as far gone as Alema-we might be too late already.”

“Okay, there’s that,” Han said. “But-“

“Han, you do understand how good Alema is?” Leia stopped and turned him to face her. “How lucky we were to knock her out?”

“Yeah, I understand.” There was barb to Han’s voice. “But we’ve still got to keep her alive.”

“Even if it means she might escape and blow us all to star-dust?”

“Yeah, even if it means that,” Han said. “Because what happened to her is probably happening to Jaina and Zekk, and maybe Cilghal can learn something from Alema to help us fix it.”

“That’s why you’re so worried about her?” Leia was glad to hear the ruthlessness in his voice, to know that so many decades of strife and danger had only made him shrewder and more stubborn. “I was starting to think you’d gone soft.”

She took Han’s arm and started up the access corridor. They had lost so much during the war that it was impossible to believe they had come out stronger or happier. But they had emerged together, with a better understanding of each other and a bond that had survived the deaths of a son, a close companion, and more friends than Leia could name. No matter how alarming this latest crisis, no matter how frightened they were for Jaina, they would face it together-and together they would do whatever was necessary to prevail.

They reached the flight deck and found Juun staring at the navigator’s display, so engrossed in star plotting and continuum calculations that he did not notice the Solos’ presence. Leia could see that he was attempting a broad-spectrum variable analysis with a ten-decimal accuracy parameter. With his eyes bulging and his cheek folds flared in frustration, it looked like he would blow a circuit before the navicomputer did.

Leia brought her mouth close to Han’s ear. “I hope you’ve been backing up our navigation log.”

“You bet,” Han said. “I knew what you were thinking the minute we realized we were coming down on an abandoned planet.”

“Really.” Actually, Leia had been too busy trying to cold-fire the repulsor engines to be thinking much of anything, but she wasn’t going to admit that to Han. She didn’t want him thinking Juun was a better copilot than she was. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” Han flashed a cocky grin. “And I charted everything in sensor range on the way out.” The grin grew larger and cockier. “There might be another dozen stars inside the nebula.”

“A dozen?” Leia gasped. Then, not wanting Han to see just how well he really did know her, she assumed a more subdued tone. “So there might be another five or six habitable planets, plus a few moons, if we’re lucky.”

“Five or six? There’ll be a dozen-even two!” The indignation in Han’s voice faded quickly to concern. “But will anyone want to colonize there? It’s still outside the Galactic Alliance, and it’s not easy to reach.”