Finally, Jaina asked, “What are you doing here, Mother?” Little Killik healers began to crawl out of her suit and launch themselves into the darkness. “We thought you were going to open negotiations with the Chiss.”
“I had another idea,” Leia said. “One that might actually work.”
Jaina and Zekk waited patiently for her to elaborate.
“There’s no sense explaining it twice,” Leia said. “Let’s wait until Ray-er, UnuThul is available.”
A hurt look came to the faces of Jaina and Zekk. Leia felt a pang of regret, but she did not apologize. Too much depended on her plan, and she could not risk having the pair speak against it before she had a chance to present it to Raynar.
“What about Dad?” Jaina asked quietly. She glanced toward Han, who remained with Luke and Mara but was looking over at his daughter and Zekk. “Is he still going to cut our tether for staying?”
“It may take some time for your father to accept this,” Leia said. “He still has nightmares about whatever happened
to
him
after
that misunderstanding with the Kamarians.”
“We’re not Kamarians,” Jaina objected. Zekk absentmindedly rubbed his forearm along the back of her neck, and Han made a sour face and looked away. “We’re still his daughter.”
“Just give your father some time,” Leia said. She did not know how to explain-without offending Jaina and Zekk - what she knew in her heart: that Han was not as disappointed with Jaina as he was angry in himself; that he blamed himself for not protecting her from what she had become. “This is going to be hard for him.”
“It will be hard on us all, we think,” Zekk said.
Raynar slipped away from Luke and Mara-who were now crawling with Killik healers-and returned to Leia. He fixed his gaze on her, and suddenly her vision darkened around the edges. His blue eyes seemed the only lights in the chamber, and she felt an enormous, murky presence pressing down on her inside.
‘Wow you can explain this slaughter, Princess Leia,” Raynar said. “Why did the Jedi kill all these Kind?”
“Quite simply, we had no choice,” Leia said. “They were attacking Luke and Mara.”
This drew a round of suit-muffled chest pulsing from the entourage of Unu.
“Strange,” Raynar said. “This does not look like the Skywalkers’ nest. Are you sure they were not the ones attacking?”
“It’s complicated.” Leia started to suggest they come back to that in a moment, but the presence in her chest grew heavy, and she found herself explaining more about the mission than might have been wise. “This nest was drawing the Colony into a devastating war. We hoped to undermine their influence so you would consider our peace plan.”
Han’s jaw fell. “Leia! How about a little tact?”
“We prefer her candor,” Raynar growled. His burning eyes continued to hold Leia’s gaze. “But this slaughter was pointless. Eliminating this nest can only turn us against your plan.”
“Unfortunately, we had no choice.” By the sound of Luke’s voice-Leia remained unable to see anything but Raynar’s eyes - he was floating over to insert himself into the conversation. “They were trying to eliminate us. It was self-defense.”
“Self-defense?” Raynar sounded outraged. “The Kind fight only when they are attacked.”
“Yeah,” Han said. “You’re a lot like the Chiss that way.”
Raynar turned to glare at Han. Leia’s vision returned to normal, and she found Han sneering confidently back at Raynar, looking as though he were staring down an Aqualish bar brawler instead of the leader of an interstellar civilization.
Leia slipped between the two. “Let me show you something.” She addressed herself not only to Raynar, but to the entire Unu entourage. “You need to understand something about this nest, and then we can talk about whether the Colony truly wants peace.”
Without waiting for permission, Leia turned toward the ceiling, leading Raynar, Han, and the Unu through the body-filled darkness toward the nursery entrance. Luke and Mara, who had stopped using the Force to compensate for their injuries, remained behind at the insistence of the Killik healers, and Jaina and Zekk stayed with them. Leia did not understand why, but there was a lot about her daughter and Zekk that she did not understand right now.
After a few moments, they reached the cave that Bugs Two and Three had blasted through the ceiling, and the smell of decay grew sickening. Kyp and the other Masters were inside the nursery gathering Chiss survivors and searching for Lomi Plo, so Leia opened herself to the battle-meld and urged them to have the bugcrunchers stand down.