[Legacy Of The Force] - 07(49)

Around these two men were arrayed aides and advisers, all dressed in expensive, subdued business garments that were so similar in style that they, too, might as well have been uniforms.

Finally Koyan’s patience broke. “What’s the holdup, Admiral Delphi?”

The woman in the white uniform moved toward him, stopping at the edge of her group as though it were an invisible national border. “Sim firings are suggesting an unacceptable chance of catastrophic failure. We’re locking down and locking out the subsystems that are most likely to be damaged by overloads. It’s just a matter of a few minutes.”

“Solo is going to jump out of there before we can even get the thing online!”

Teppler shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir. Captain Hoclaw says they’re in a brief break between conversations, but that Colonel Solo is giving Hoclaw so much to work with, she could probably stall him until her next birthday.”

“Oh.” Mollified, Koyan nodded. “All right, then.”

One of the technicians at the control board nodded in response to something he heard over his earpiece. He turned and flashed five fingers at Admiral Delpin. She, in turn, caught Koyan’s eye. “Five minutes.”

Koyan nodded and mopped sweat from his forehead and cheeks with his sleeve. “Good.”



STAR SYSTEM MZX32905, NEAR BIMMIEL

Alema wondered about worshippers. Now that she was a goddess, she should have some.

At the moment, of course, she did not look very goddess-like. She sat in the topmost chamber of Lumiya’s former habitat, the chamber with the curved, bookcase-laden walls and transparisteel dome, in a ridiculously comfortable stuffed chair … in her old body, the crippled one. In moments, though, she would shed that body again, float free through the galaxy, restore balance to the universe, and please herself.

How stupid Lumiya had been, to use this gift to further some ancient Sith agenda.

Speaking of the Sith, she would have to deal with them soon. Once she had reduced Leia to a tearful, useless wreck, as she imagined Luke now to be, she would turn her attention to Korriban and begin to exterminate the dangerous pest colony the Sith enclave there constituted.

It would take time. Her last projection to Kashyyyk had tired her immensely. She had slept for days afterward. That would probably be true again this time, but Lumiya’s notes had made it clear that with practice came stamina.

Alema relaxed, closing her eyes, and invited the immense pool of dark power waiting hundreds of meters below her, in the asteroid proper, to ascend to her, to flow through her. She stiffened as she felt the power grope its way blindly toward where she reclined. As it washed across her, it seemed to be half hot waterfall, half galvanizing electric current, but too full of malicious emotion to be cleansing or refreshing. It imparted to her a sense of greater power and destiny, yes, but it was also an invasion of her self, and that part of it she did not relish.

Now fully intermingled with the dark power, she set her mind adrift, looking for familiar presences in the Force. She knew where to start looking, at the cluster of presences where long-life patience warred with animalistic strength and rage-the world of the Wookiees.

But Han and Leia were not among those presences. Vexed, Alema broadened her search.

Minutes passed, with each minute taxing her personal energy further, and then she found them: not together, but close by each other, with thousands of lives around them-but only thousands, not millions or billions. That suggested they were on a ship somewhere between worlds. She propelled herself to be near them, then went looking among the other presences, the other glows in the Force, for one that would be suitable.

Some radiated too brightly. They would be too strong for her to merge with. Others were too dim-they would not anchor her as she needed to be anchored.

One stood out. It was bright with power, but very pure, not marked by anger or sophistication. She circled in toward it, charmed by its simplicity, its innocence.

As she touched it, she decided that it was a child-a human girl, asleep. The child stirred as Alema reached her, almost coming awake, but Alema poured out comforting thoughts through the Force-emotions of safety and security, of being in the nest, surrounded by thousands like her, all clicking and whirring on their many legs, all nearly identical.

Her emotions did not so much soothe as stifle the child, but that was enough. Alema wrapped herself around the girl.

Now she was fixed in that place. She had a base from which to go hunting.

She went looking for Han Solo.



ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO

Caedus strode into his Command Salon. Only officers were there. “Where are Jedi Solo and the guard?”

Captain Nevil pointed toward the stern doors out of the salon. “Princess Leia asked for some privacy. The guard accompanied her to your private office.”