Chapter 5

Coruscant

As Jag walked into the maintenance bay of the hangar in the Jedi temple, he couldn't help but smile at the way the sight before him evoked images of when he'd first met Jaina Solo. Shoulder deep in the access hatch behind the space where the astromech usually sat, a mixture of clangs and curses echoed around the vast chamber until Jag cleared his throat loudly. She extracted her arm- grease stains up to the elbow- and sat up and grinned down at her husband and son.

"Young ears, darling."

"Like it's nothing he's not already heard from my father," she scoffed teasingly, but curtailed the less-than-savory language. Pulling a rag- also grease-stained- from her pocket, she wiped her hands relatively ineffectually and then slid to the edge of the craft and leapt down gracefully, cushioning her fall with the Force. Jag leaned forward and gave her a carefully placed kiss- she somehow had managed to smudge dirt across her cheeks as well- and looked appraisingly up at the fighter. "I'm almost done here," she answered his unspoken question. "Anyway, you should hear Kyp over on the far side of the hangar."

"Oh? Is he not keeping his craft up to proper standards?"

Jaina smirked drily. "He's been a bit lax in maintenance since removing to Coruscant. You'd almost think he had other matters to distract him."

"As a Jedi, I'm sure such would never be the case." He looked up at the fighter again. "So whose craft is this?"

They walked side-by-side, Naviin staring wide-eyed around the massive bay as they circled around towards the other side. "It's Jysella's," Jaina murmured quietly. "She's out with Mirax and Syal; once they're done, they'll drop her on Ossus to bring mine and we can trade at the Venture."

"Don't sound so relieved," he teased.

"I miss Sneaky," she pouted. "Have you heard from Wedge and Iella?"

He nodded and spoke softly. "They'll leave Corellia tomorrow and rendezvous with Booster near Commenor. And…" he hesitated, "I spoke with my parents; they're lifting off tomorrow as well. It sounds like they're going to take care of a few things back on Corellia and then go back out to Bastion." Jaina looked up at him in surprise. "They offered to take Navi with them," he mumbled still quieter, not wanting their son to hear.

"Why? What did you tell them?"

He shrugged. "I didn't explicitly say what I'll be doing in the coming weeks, but they're smart enough to have guessed by now; and with Wedge and Iella joining Booster as well…"

A silence fell between them even as Naviin hurried ahead to where Kyp was working on his own fighter; he managed to cease his own curses of frustration long before the seven-year-old reached him, however. "You're thinking about it," Jaina commented mildly.

Her tone wasn't accusing, but Jag felt a little defensive. "I…wonder if there isn't some merit in the idea," he confessed. "We're talking about training squadrons here, Jaina; that's not exactly work that lends itself to a great deal of free time. And yes, Wedge and Iella, and Gennevi will be on the Errant Venture even if we were pulled away, but… they'll have their own duties and I don't want Navi to feel like he's being constantly shuffled around."

"Instead, you want to send him off to the Empire?"

"No," he countered, "I'm considering the idea, first of all, I haven't made up my mind. But it's not like we'd be shipping him off on his own, he'd be with family, and he'd get to known Wyn and Syd and Ashlin a little better, which is something Leyla never really got to do."

Jaina sighed. "I just hate the idea of him being so far away."

"You hate it because you don't know where Leyla is," Jag told her quietly. "But when it comes down to it, it might be the best idea."

She was a long time in answering, watching Kyp show Navi something on the StealthX and pick him up so he could better see the panel he'd been working on. And as she watched Kyp swing him around and saw Naviin's laughing face, with his tousled dark hair and bright hazel eyes, she smiled wistfully. "I hate the prospect of being separated from him."

"But do you hate it for his sake or for your own?" She closed her eyes. "Your parents recognized the unfortunate necessity of leaving you and your brothers in the capable hands of Winter, or Chewbacca, when circumstances dictated it."

Her answering laugh was sardonic. "And can you imagine what they'd say, now that the prospect of sending Naviin to the Empire seems to be the safest option for him?"

"I'm sure your Rebel-sympathizing-family are just secretly horrified at the fact that you have in-laws living amongst their old nemeses."

"Your dad defected to those Rebels," she elbowed him in the side.

"Your dad almost had a promising career as an Imperial officer."

"You know," she cocked her head, "who needs them to fight; we can do it for them."

"We really do have a very complicated family dynamic, don't we?" He reached down and pulled her hand into his. "I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Smiling up at him, she let her eyes flicker once over to where Kyp was sitting on the edge of the cockpit, talking to Naviin who had managed to work his way up into the cockpit of the fighter while they were talking- probably with some Force-assistance from Kyp. He was so short that they couldn't even see the top of his head over the edge, but then he pulled himself up so he could grin broadly down at them and wave. Jaina waved back. "Even Kyp?"

Jag chuckled. "Even Kyp." He glanced down to their joined hands. "Your hands are filthy."

"Yeah? Well guess what?"

"Hm?"

"Now yours are too."

X-X-X-X

Wild Space – Planetoid 5249125

As they disembarked the shuttle on a world that was, by the looks of things on their approach, hot and muggy, Leyla felt a wave of apprehension wash over her. It wasn't due strictly to anything about this unknown and untested small planet that was teeming with life- sentient, animal, and plant- so much as the feeling in her own mind, however ridiculous, that she was about to commit to something with no chance of going back, no possibility of return. However grudgingly at the moment, she did trust Cem- though she filed away the realization that she really didn't know her uncle at all for further consideration- and as much as she may be uneasy around Nabrin and Thrawn, there was no indication from either of them that they were playing any sort of game.

No, the three leaders of this crazy endeavor were clearly worried about the possibility of galactic devastation in the semi-near future and, as a Jedi Knight- and yes, as a Solo, a Skywalker, a Durron, and a Fel- she really saw no viable alternative to learning as much as she could about the matter, whether or not she would remain out here in the Unknown Regions for any lengthy duration of time.

It was obvious that Cem and Thrawn were banking on secrecy to win the battle for them. In turn, that led Leyla to the assumption that they thought that, whatever it was they had to tell her and Vulcor, or show them, it would convince them of the necessity to remain with the Empire of the Hand, to join forces with them to defeat whatever new evil was threatening the galaxy. At the present moment, Leyla was uncertain how she felt about that presumption, especially when it came to Vulcor, who had been so adamantly against making this journey in the first place.

The burden of proof, such as it was, was certainly on Cem. Then again, with more than four million dead bothans on Torolis…

Torolis. She'd looked up the basic data on the planet after Vulcor had relayed news of the 'plague' to her.

Colony world; Bothan Space; population- approximately six million.

Six million.

Her next steps were stiff as she tried to comprehend the ramifications of that statistic. A vague sense of spatial awareness allowed her to duck away as Vulcor went to lay a curiously concerned hand on her shoulder, as he sensed her sudden disquiet. The remainder of the walk through the hangar, the descent in a keycoded turbolift, the traversal of three corridors in a duracrete-reinforced bunker beneath the surface of the unnamed planet all passed in a daze of semi-awareness as her mind worked overtime to process things.

Directed to a chair, she sat and finally got a bearing on her surroundings; they were in a high-tech conference room with an elaborate comm-transceiver setup, sophisticated computer software apparatus, and multipurpose holoscreen and holocam that must have allowed for both in-room data-analysis and the reception of outside transmissions.

The attendance of the meeting was sparse- herself and Vulcor; Thrawn, Nabrin, and Cem; one other chiss, a female, and a reptilian humanoid of a species Leyla did not recognize, with skin of a motley green and orange that was visible beneath dark scales on the being's face.

Cem glanced around the room. "Leyla, Jedi Vulcor- Major Ra-ban is our chief communications officer for this outpost," he nodded towards the reptilian figure, and then turned to the third chiss in the room. "Commander Suyani is our military liaison, though we have few forces here. You may speak freely in front of them. Outside this room, however, Mitth'raw'nuruodo is Crahsystor; Csun'abr'inrokini is simply Syndic. Orders sent outside this post are issued in my name only. The Ascendancy has too much interest in Syndic Nabrin, and hearing the name 'Thrawn' again would unnecessarily distract certain outside parties, though most senior commanders within the Hand are aware of the situation. Understood?"

"How did you maintain secrecy prior to three months ago?" Vulcor frowned. "You weren't here to issue orders."

"Few orders were being issued," Cem answered easily. "The resources of the Hand are many, and they are too spread for the Ascendancy to have ever hoped to locate and absorb them all; Thrawn expended a great deal of time and energy in making contact with the old posts which are still viable- and they waited, standing by for our signal, for some time." He took a few steady breaths and looked from Vulcor to Leyla and back again. "Soon though, you will understand that military forces will ultimately count for little, with what we are up against."

Leyla interrupted him before he could continue. "I want to talk about Torolis."

"We'll obviously cover that before-"

"Now, Cem." He looked at her with surprise that was just barely visible behind his eyes. "Something doesn't add up. I don't know why I didn't see it before."

Thrawn looked at her steadily. "What troubles you, Jedi Solo-Fel?"

Vulcor muttered something under his breath about normal beings not needing to ask that question when discussing the matter of millions of dead sentients; Leyla ignored him. "Alpha Red," she began slowly, "failed its intended purpose for one main reason: mutation." Nabrin inclined his head jerkily at the mention of his failure and that of his scientists. "The pathogen built upon itself, interacted with each host even as it killed indiscriminately, thereby facilitating the spread with astounding speed even as it changed to the point that it could jump across species barriers and affect organisms to which it was not originally tailored. All within minutes."

Glancing around quickly, as though aware of a trap but not yet seeing it, Cem nodded unsurely.

"You told us," she continued, looking between her uncle and the two chiss leaders, "that the pathogen which later came to be known as Alpha Red originated in a campaign against another species, the vagaari. Using that pathogen as a blueprint," she met Nabrin's eyes, "you kept the pathology of the product essentially the same but tailored the genetics to organisms that carried signature traces of Yuuzhan Vong species. The same product, a different species- the same weaknesses. The same propensity towards mutation."

Nabrin nodded slowly. Leyla shifted her eyes back around to Thrawn and then to Cem. "On Torolis, four million bothans died. The disease was tailored to the bothan race and released on Torolis, and four million bothans died."

Cem shook his head. "Leyla, I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but-"

"The population of Torolis is six million," she hissed. "Four million bothans died on a world with another two million humans, and rodians, and gamorreans."

Cem opened his mouth but Thrawn held up a hand and cut him off, peering intently at the young Jedi. "Good," he murmured, "now follow it through. What does that tell you?"

She was too riled to be perturbed by the calculating intensity in his tone. "It tells me one of two possibilities must be true," she answered him coldly. "The first- that whoever came to be in possession of your project took it, adapted it, and perfected it, maintaining the frightening efficiency of the spreading of the disease without retaining the properties that enabled it to mutate so effectively. But," she eyed Nabrin with a hard gaze, "I don't think that's what happened.

"You documented the adaptation of a pathogen from the vagaari to the Yuuzhan Vong; therefore, your thief had a logical starting point from which to adapt it to bothans… or sullustans… or rodians. Because as you've just admitted, the two carried a common pathology, altered only on the genetic level.

"And while someone had spent twenty years creating the means with which to incur instant death on any number of species, you must have been doing something about it- the only thing you could. You've been tailoring a second substance specifically designed to counter the common pathology that must have surely been the starting point in creating the pathogen which killed four million bothans on Torolis." His silence and the Force were all she needed to know that she was right. "Only bothans died on Torolis because you gave it just enough time to spread- and then killed it before it could mutate across species lines; before it could be carried off-planet."

Thrawn answered her evenly, without pause. "Yes; you see then the direness of what we face? That we must accept such heavy sacrifice before the battle has truly begun?"

"I see that you knew the when and the where in well-enough time to have prevented that sacrifice!" she exclaimed.

"And then what?" the clone asked reasonably. She blinked. "The substance fails; does our quarry give up?"

"You knew about Torolis, you know about Sullust and Falleen-"

Thrawn held up a long blue finger. "Precisely," he murmured. "It would really come to a game of chance, would it not?"

"I don't-" she stared at him for a long minute, uncomprehending, aware of Vulcor's rising emotions throughout the exchange as he sat stiffly by her side. A cold and unpleasant sensation began to twist through her gut as she considered it. "You only know about those systems that have seceded," she concluded flatly.

His lip curled in a sardonic smile. "We've made some intelligent guesses- Thyferra, Dac- but the only ones we've managed the wherewithal of tracing and tracking are, in fact, those who have been threatened into secession. But there is a big difference between blackmailing the Bothan Council on Bothawui into seceding and… say… blackmailing Cha Niathal into breaking her sworn oath of loyalty to the Galactic Alliance in her capacity as Supreme Commander."

Closing her eyes and falling heavily back in her seat, Leyla could feel the sense of hopelessness try to creep up on her but she shoved it forcibly back. Looking blearily up at Cem, she shook her head. "From the beginning?"

He nodded. "From the beginning."

X-X-X-X

Coruscant

Specially-elected Chief of State Polla Essada found herself inundated with work the moment she took up her new position. That fact wasn't surprising in and of itself, but just the sheer quantity of information, proposals and requests that found their ways onto her desk in the first day alone had her astounded and overwhelmed.

On the third day of her new job, she found herself meeting with assorted military advisers, some in person and some on holocom, and she frowned heavily at what they had to report. "I was of the impression that the system secessions in the past several months were wholly unrelated to one another?" she said questioningly. "You're telling me now that several of them are forming their own confederation?"

Her chief Intelligence adviser, Heol Girdun, nodded uneasily. "It is possible that some systems feel… vulnerable… without the power of the collective Galactic Alliance behind them, and that these measures are for peace of mind more than any true cause for concern. But reports do indicate that a number of recently departed systems are entreating to pool military forces and intelligence operations.

"And has anyone told them that returning to GA membership would solve any of that unease and vulnerability?" Essada asked, lips quirking. Girdun shrugged, face blank. "Very well- do we have any particular reason to be concerned with these events? I mean, Rodia isn't exactly known for its military strength."

"No," Cha Niathal spoke in her gravelly voice from the holocom display, "but Sullust and even Bothawui are. We cannot afford to discount the threat that is posed by the Sorosuub corporation if, for whatever reason, some anti-GA force began utilizing their facilities to supply an opposing navy. It is my suggestion that we monitor the activities of this newly-forming confederation extremely closely… and that we make it clear to whatever leadership emerges in the coming days that any military operating within Galactic Alliance space and without the consent of that Alliance will be viewed as a potential threat- and will be dealt with accordingly as such."

Ithorian Senator Ryoqim, one of the three available members of the Naval Oversight Committee, looked at the Mon Cal admiral somberly. "We must not allow paranoia to guide our actions, Admiral Niathal," he spoke in a grave, rumbling voice. "To be wary is commendable, but let us not forget the principles of freedom upon which this Alliance is based. Acting in haste could well send us all spinning down a path from which it is difficult to leave."

Essada nodded gratefully at the ithorian and looked back up at the holoscreen. "You both make excellent points," she conceded. "Given our lack of true understanding of motivation, it seems prudent that we maintain vigilance in regards to the actions of this new confederation," she smiled a bit apologetically at the peace-minded senator. "But Senator Ryoqim is, of course, quite right- our principles will certainly not allow us to act in any manner ill-befitting our great standing in the galaxy."

X-X-X-X

Wild Space – Planetoid 5249125

"The collaborative effort between the biotechnicians of the Inrokini project and New Republic Intelligence," Cem began speaking steadily, "was under the ultimate authority of Intelligence chief Dif Scaur and Alpha Blue director Jan Ors, and overseen directly by project leader Joi Eicroth. The fact that the substance was being derived from a pre-existing pathogen was kept to as few of the parties involved as possible- but there were seven NRI biotechs working on it as well who may have been able to guess that fact based on what they were given to work with. It's difficult to say.

"Of those seven techs," the screen came to life behind Cem and profiled any available information they had on them, "three were immediately identified as killed in the line of duty in the latest days of the war, though Intelligence files on them were, at the time, under the strictest security. Two carried on with Intelligence to help build up such agencies, also under Scaur's direction, as the Galactic Alliance Guard and the GA Intel Service.

"Two more," the screen changed behind Cem as he ran down the seven subject, "were not as readily identified in the days after the security breach. Neither appeared to carry on in a government capacity, and their files documenting their history of work with NRI were locked down and closed. It wasn't until years later that Thrawn and Nabrin gained the wherewithal to access those files, but by then they had identified the initial source of the security breach."

Leyla stared at the screen; on the left was a lurrian male, a hairy species known for their abilities at genetic manipulation and bioengineering- indeed, the planet Lur boasted of an efficient use of genetically-altered domesticated animals that served in capacities to make up for a lack of more traditional planetary technology. The species had a history of being used and enslaved, usually in the interests of abusing their scientific capabilities.

On the right was a bothan.

"It was the bothan, wasn't it?" she asked quietly.

Cem nodded. "Very good; how did you know?"

She drew a heavy breath. "Two reasons. First- a lurrian would not have needed eighteen years to adapt the project however he saw fit. Second- ar'krai."

"Ar'krai was a major consideration in the early days," Cem nodded towards Thrawn and Nabrin, who must have been nearly alone in their crusade at first. "Unfortunately, too little was known to allow it to be the only consideration, and resources had to be expended tracking down two leads. And then, after months…" he paused. "The leads went cold."

Vulcor looked at him stonily. "How cold?"

Thrawn answered. "Hopelessly so. For some five years, we were forced to divert our attentions; Nabrin into creating and perfecting a product that would successfully nullify the deadly effects of the base of the pathogen; myself, into establishing contact with old resources of my fallen but sizeable Empire. Some of my old peoples had long maintained their faith, their loyalty, and their militarism- those such as the eickarie," he nodded towards the reptilian comm officer. "And out here… carefulness and isolation have been our allies, while Nabrin, operating for several years within the Ascendancy, was forced to hide his new endeavors, lest the project become known and a target for sabotage."

Leyla cocked a brow. "And aren't you at all concerned that Cem's disappearance will have compromised your secrecy?"

Vulcor muttered something else, too low for even Leyla, seated beside him, to catch. Thrawn looked drily amused. "Not at all; in fact," his eyes glittered, "I'm quite counting on it."

She frowned in confusion, but Cem continued the sordid tale, shooting a quelling look at the chiss clone. "The trail was stumbled across again when, twelve years ago, a devastatingly deadly explosion and fire destroyed an entire scientific complex on the Bothan colony world of Kothlis- a symbolic location, perhaps, given the world's proud Rebel history and its role in the downfall of the Second Death Star.

"It was not the first potential lead, but diligent work by Major Ra-ban and others on his team flagged the event and began accumulating and analyzing as much data as possible in the time it took to recall Thrawn from such remote and forsaken worlds as the one we are on right now," he coughed and Thrawn raised a blue-black brow smoothly but did not comment. "Of particular interest was the epicenter of the explosion and the death toll it wrought on one particular lab of the complex- as well as the fact that two charred bodies recovered after the fact were of the project director and an assistant engineer who were not supposed to be there at the time of the incident."

"And was the suspected culprit of the initial slicing among the dead?" Vulcor asked sharply.

Cem shrugged. "We don't think so; it is unlikely, in any event. As best as we've pieced together, the bothan who first took the notes- a Vren Uly'ran- passed them along to a rogue faction who continued to pursue the matter of ar'krai against the Yuuzhan Vong long after peace was made with them and their living planet disappeared into the Unknown Regions. That leader disappeared within three months following the lab explosion, but as he was purportedly searching for Zonama Sekot at the time, none among the Bothan leadership could publicly acknowledge much about him. In all likelihood, Uly'ran was rewarded for his loyalty to the ar'krai cause with a mysterious death as well. He would have known too much."

The frown on Vulcor's face was only deepening, and his consternation was rising considerably. "This sounds like an awful lot of guesswork to have determined much of anything at all," he remarked caustically. "Why would you think that lab had any connection to Alpha Red?"

"Oh, there is no doubt of it now," Cem assured him. "But at the time… shipping manifests were sliced, revealing the use of some known but extremely rare substances- chemicals, microorganisms- which Nabrin was able to identify as key elements in the original form of Alpha Red. It was not the most definite of leads, but all that was available with which to work, at the time."

"But the lab was destroyed," Leyla prodded, "Even the overseers of the project were dead."

Thrawn nodded heavily. "This is, unfortunately, where we make the jump from discussing the possible genocide of a surrendered race to the potential genocide of several innocent ones. Further examination of the complex- an unfortunately lengthy process, due to the general secrecy of the whole laboratory- revealed the fact that one being had disappeared from Kothlis two months prior, one who worked in a neighboring facility to that which we suspected was manufacturing the Alpha Red."

"Who was it?" Leyla asked softly.

Cem nodded to the eickarie major, and the screen abruptly shifted. "One who had every reason to hate the Yuuzhan Vong," Cem murmured quietly. "But possibly just as much reason to hate the New Republic, the Chiss, the Empire, and…" he looked pointedly at Leyla, "the Jedi."

She swallowed and looked away from his hazel eyes to the screen, that was displaying limited biographical information about a Yanis Kloru. But she was stuck, staring wide-eyed, at the being before her, unable to even read the pertinent information. "An ithorian?"

"Ithor," Thrawn murmured. "The Alderaan of the Yuuzhan Vong war."

A hot flash of anger surged through Leyla. "You were an Admiral for the Empire that destroyed Alderaan, how can-"

"Alderaan was destroyed by an Emperor, not an Empire, Jedi Solo-Fel; it wasn't destroyed by the Imperial Navy and it certainly wasn't destroyed by me. I suggest you remember that, in the future."

His words were sharp, yet not laced with malice, but Leyla still felt herself caught in the sheer authority of his manner, of his words- and she began to wonder vaguely how much of an affectation his coolly calculating mannerisms which she'd thus far witnessed were. And it occurred to her that this was one being she never wanted to cross.

Silence tinged with the slightest discomfort hung in the air, until Cem cleared his throat and continued. "Ithor," he nodded. "Targeted by the Yuuzhan Vong when it was discovered that a certain pollen reacted dangerously with most Yuuzhan Vong life forms; the site of the first major collaborative effort between the New Republic and the Emp- Imperial Remnant," he corrected drily, "as well as my father's forces from the Empire of the Hand. The battle was won- Ithor was lost. Jedi Knight Corran Horn dueled for the planet- and won," he conceded, "but made the miscalculation of assuming there was any honor to be found in the invaders. The planet was poisoned in retribution for his slight towards Domain Shai, and to ensure the destruction of the toxic substance. But the true devastation," he closed his eyes, "was, perhaps, an avoidable mistake.

"I was there," he confessed. "And good intentions be damned… the fires that engulfed the planet were solely the fault of the commanders who failed to recognize the devastation that would occur when the destroyed worldship slid back into the atmosphere. The battle went to the defenders, in a purely technical sense… but the Yuuzhan Vong won much more that day. And one of their successes was the creation of Yanis Kloru."

X-X-X-X