Chapter 12:

Of Obstacles and Setbacks

As the passing weeks turned to months, everyone slowly settled back into a routine. Paperwork, meetings, orders, chains of command and such steadily resumed a resemblance to their pre-Endor states, albeit on a much smaller scale. Adrian had begun to ramp up his assumption of duties, as he and the Empress made preparations for their upcoming coronation.

They never had a formal wedding, having been abruptly married by Palpatine in his chambers when they had merely disclosed their engagement to him. In the years that followed, family circumstances and galactic events never made way for an official celebration. Adrian had, for all official purposes, been the new Emperor as soon as the carbonite melted away from him, so the coronation would be a celebration of the return of the New Order more than a real transition of power. He and Typhani realized, however, that if they waited just another four months past the originally planned date, they could ascend on their fifty-fifth anniversary. The extra time would also allow for the preparation of a truly spectacular event.

For the moment, the Imperial Remnant enjoyed the luxury of time. The reports coming in from the New Republic, however, were not good. The extragalactic aliens known as the Yuuzhan Vong were steadily going about their business of cutting a swath of destruction through New Republic territory. Adrian kept abreast of the situation, but sat back and let the invaders do his dirty work for him, thus stockpiling and preserving his own resources. Of late, however, some of their actions made even him wince inside.

Leia Organa-Solo, the little girl he'd known on Alderaan, the spiteful young woman he had dealt with on his Death Star, the unknown daughter of one of his very closest friends, and the proven leader who still answered to the title of Chief of State from time to time, recently completely left the New Republic government and public life, citing insurmountable personal difficulties. Her husband's alcoholism over the loss of his close friend and co-pilot, the Wookiee hero Chewbacca, had been one blow to her. As Adrian read of this, it reminded him of his mother after his father passed away, and of how he and Morgana also had to take time away from their professional lives to contend with her alcohol dependency. His response to that first newsfeed detailing Leia's difficulties had been a smug chuckle. At last that festering little clump of Rebel scum was getting hers!

But then came word of worse horrors, destructive tactics even he had pushed out of his mind. The next he heard of Leia, for all official purposes his counterpart in the New Republic along with Borsk Fey'lya, she had also recently survived some substantial injuries at the hands of the Vong, who were of late conducting their own Jedi Purge. Sitting on his hoverscooter as he read, he could not laugh at Leia this time, although a twinge of jealousy coursed through him that she, not allergic to bacta, had quickly and fully recovered.

And then he got word of something no one recovers from--the loss of a child. The Vong had killed Leia's youngest son, Anakin, named for his grandfather, the man Adrian and his wife had known since he was a pre-teen boy back on Coruscant, who had transformed not only into a close and powerful Imperial ally, but also practically a member of their own family. Even in death, Darth Vader still had a room in their home. Adrian thought of his own grandchildren, and regretted that Anakin/Darth did not live to see his. "Go to your grandfather, young spirit," Adrian said softly to Anakin Solo as he closed the computer file.

Not that. Yes, he thought, Leia deserved to be reindoctrinated into the ways of order, but not even she deserved to lose a child, and certainly not three, not all of them. Shortly after young Anakin's death came word that Leia's other son, Jacen, had been taken by the Vong and was also feared dead. And then her daughter, Jaina, left her family and the Republic altogether, seeking refuge in the independent Hapes Cluster.

A strange feeling it was--very strange. The Yuuzhan Vong were tearing his arch-enemies apart, making them almost incapable of coming after him or the Imperial Remnant. He should be reveling in maniacal glory, he knew. But instead, for a fleeting instant, Adrian found himself wishing he could help Leia, as he had wanted to help her before, when he'd been forced by Vader and Palpatine to cast her back into the throes of the Galactic Civil War, a misguided decision that ultimately led to everyone's present circumstances. How different things might be now, he wondered as he sat reading at his desk in his study, if he'd been able to adhere to his original plans.

He shook his head as if to knock askew thoughts back into place. He had always been so very good at keeping separate those things personal from the professional, friend from subordinate, ally from foe, duty from compassion, and obligation from sentiment. Recently, however, the sensations, the blending of factual observations and powerful emotions, made him feel as though the injuries he'd endured had somehow destroyed the hypothetical 'firewall" in his mind. It unsettled him. He was a man of efficient order. He needed order, for everything to neatly fit within its designated container and stay there. He needed his routine back. He would demand it back, force it back if he must.

With this return to routine, the chaos ebbed a bit, especially as Adrian assimilated more and more of the events he had missed. In fact, of late, he actually spent most of his time reading, delegating much of the trivial work, the answering of messages and such, to Daala and the staff in the command center in the estate's ballroom. On one of these typical days, after he'd been home about a month, Typhani and Daala transferred him onto the sofa in his study with some reading materials he had downloaded and printed from the Bastion archive network. Daala continued her work on the computers, typing steadily, dispatching military directives, consumed in a sphere of her own, when she heard the papers drop and scatter. She chuckled softly to herself, "That didn't last long." She merely assumed that the materials had literally bored Adrian to sleep.

An unusual noise caused her to turn sharply, and to dart for the sofa. The Emperor had suddenly gone into convulsions, and began gasping unsuccessfully for air. "Adrian, what--" she began, but then realized that the situation was deteriorating rapidly. "Not now, not after all this!" she thought as she rose and turned for the door. "Typhani!" she screamed, running out of the study into the back hall. "Typhani! Where are you! Come quick!" Typhani appeared at the top of the main staircase, and quickly made her way down.

Adrian had been reading about the immediate aftermath of Yavin, and had come across his own official death notice and a report detailing the shuttle crash at Tallaan. He hadn't expected those materials to be in the download. It was all coming back now, rushing back, too fast, too much, too hard . . .

* * *

The battle raged on outside as the Rebels continued their relentless attack on the Death Star. Deep within the station, Charlie Bast had remained at his post by Adrian's side, having just warned him of the impending danger. He had already herded the others onto Adrian's command shuttle, telling them that he would get the Governor and be right back. But Adrian hadn't taken the always overprotective Charlie seriously, caught up in what he believed to be his "moment of triumph" over the Rebellion. He gave the command to fire on the Rebel base, but instead of the rising hum of the charging superlaser, they heard a loud and deep rumbling that seemed to be emanating from the central core of the battle station. "We have to move, now," Charlie insisted, forcibly grabbing Adrian about the shoulders and pulling him away from the viewscreen. Then they could hear explosion after explosion advancing quickly in their direction. Now Adrian knew the danger was real, and stayed immediately one pace behind Charlie, as his security people had trained him to do. As they ran into the corridor leading to the hanger bay where the shuttle was waiting, a gun turret charging unit exploded, bombarding them with shrapnel. Charlie instinctively turned and jumped in front of Adrian, but they had both been hit and the blast threw first Adrian into the far wall and then Charlie into him. They had only a second to recover, and without another to spare, Charlie grabbed hold of Adrian as they stumbled toward the open-grid metal stairs leading down into the hanger bay.

Just as they reached the stairs, another component exploded, and Charlie reflexively pushed Adrian out of the way, inadvertently sending him tumbling down the open-grate stairway. He slipped through the railing about halfway down, and fell to the deck below, landing hard on his side. He heard the bones break before he felt them, as more shrapnel and exploding components rained down on him. With the wind knocked out of him, he tried to get up, but then another blast hurled a scrap of machinery at him that struck him hard in the head and chest, rendering him unconscious.

Charlie, on the other hand, had been thrown completely over the top railing by the blast, taking much more of the hit from it than Adrian had, falling much further, and crashing into the deck. Still conscious, though, and driven by duty and loyalty, he scrambled to Adrian, heaved the debris off of him, and half-dragged, half-carried him to the base of the shuttle ramp, where Admiral Motti and Commander Romodi quickly pulled them aboard. The shuttle accelerated away from the exploding station at the last possible second.

Charlie then collapsed as Romodi tried to help him. Blood and foam gurgled forth from his mouth, nose, and ears, and his eyes were back in his head. Then Romodi noticed that Charlie had been almost impaled through the gut by a twisted piece of metal, and he knew it was no use. He eased Charlie's upper body back against the bulkhead as he died.

Romodi then turned to assist Motti, fearing that the scene was about to be repeated with the Governor. "What course?" someone shouted from the cockpit.

Motti had to think fast about where they were. "Tallaan! And fast!" he ordered.

General Tagge had already pulled the emergency kit. With their military training coming to bear, they worked quickly to tear through the thick fabric of Adrian's uniform and apply emergency medpacks to the worst wounds, but they knew there was no way to stem all of the blood flow. They would instead have to take steps to try to keep him from going into shock. Motti grabbed a thermal blanket from the emergency kit and they wrapped him tightly in it, then lifted him into one of the seats as the pilots alerted them that they were about to make the jump to light speed.

Raolf Motti stood over Adrian, and began to pull the seat straps tight to hold the thermal blanket in place. Adrian started to come around at that point, and began to struggle against the straps, a horrible nightmare now coming to pass. It was then that they realized he wasn't getting enough air. He had been bludgeoned in the chest, they knew, and Motti and Tagge speculated, correctly, that broken ribs may be causing his lungs to collapse. Romodi pulled the emergency oxygen system from its compartment, and they strapped the mask securely onto Adrian as he fell unconscious again. For Raolf, thoughts of Typhani, his cousin, came to his mind as he fought to save her husband. He knew too well what such a terrible loss might do to her.

When the shuttle exited hyperspace just outside of the Tallaan system, the hull breached, and the atmosphere in the cabin quickly leaked out. As everyone began to suffocate, base self-preservation reflexes began to kick in, and Tagge scrambled for the oxygen. Motti overtook him, though, pulling him off of Adrian, and they fell to the shuttle deck at his feet--dead.

* * *

By the time Typhani and Daala rushed back into the study, the convulsions had thrown Adrian from the sofa to the floor, and Typhani sank down next to him and pulled him up into her lap. "Daala, get the oxygen machine, quickly! It's in our sitting room!" she shouted as she hovered over her husband. Daala tore out of the room and up the stairs to the master suite.

"It's all right, Adrian. Calm down now," Typhani soothed, instinctively rocking him back and forth.

Daala quickly returned with the oxygen, but with the memories he had just recovered, he resisted them as they tried to get the mask on him. "Stop fighting it. You have to catch your breath," Typhani told him as she held the mask in place and Daala pulled his hands away to keep him from grabbing at it. It was several more minutes before the crisis ebbed. "There, you've just gotten winded, that's all," Typhani reassured him as she took the mask away.

Daala looked around at the scattered papers on the floor, and quickly discovered what had set him off. "Oh, no," she said as she took up the pages describing the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin.

"What?" Typhani asked.

Daala held the printouts down where she could see. "Yavin, Tallaan," she explained.

"You remember it now, don't you?" Typhani asked, concerned.

"We were running--everything--exploding--coming apart--it was awful!"

"Yes, but you made it."

"Not so well."

"It's over, Adrian. It's all in the distant past now, and you've come through the worst of the aftermath. Now that you remember, you can go on," Typhani reassured him as she helped him sit up against the base of the sofa until he completely reoriented himself.

But no sooner had Adrian's episode subsided when Daala's began. She had run too hard and too fast up and down the stairs. It started slowly at first, just a couple of slight coughs, but then she couldn't stop it, and the stabbing pains came on quick and hard like white-hot metal rods being driven repeatedly into her chest. One trembling hand went to her throat and the other to her chest as she sank into a chair and doubled over in convulsive coughing, gasping spasms of her own as the fire rose into her throat and her air passages began to swell shut. With Adrian settled, Typhani scrambled to her feet and came toward Daala with the oxygen mask. She pushed it away.

"No, it'll make it worse!" she gasped painfully, then started to get up.

Then Typhani remembered something she had seen upstairs. "Where are your inhalers?" she asked urgently.

Daala's face began to turn a deep red as she tried to draw enough of a breath to answer. "In the bathroom, near the sink," she rasped, then slumped onto the desk as another coughing salvo tore at her own injured lungs.

Now it was Typhani's turn to run upstairs. She returned with both inhalers just as Daala was about to pass out. She grabbed one of the inhalers and drew as deeply as she could from it as Typhani and Adrian looked on, concerned. At last, her breathing grew easier, and she wiped away the tears that had streamed from her watering eyes as Typhani pulled her hair back out of her face.

"How did you know," Daala asked, her voice barely above a raspy whisper.

"I saw them in your bag. Daala, what in the universe . . . ?" she asked as she handed her a glass of ice water.

Daala looked down at Adrian, then back up at Typhani. She still did not know that Typhani had filled Adrian in on her long and troubled field history. "It was during one of the battles I was in. I, uh, I accidentally inhaled some hot gasses. I've had it treated several times over the years, but it's been getting worse," she explained weakly. She then fearfully awaited Adrian's reaction. If she was breathing burning gasses, then he would know that whatever ship she had been commanding was most likely destroyed. But in his present state of mind, the fact didn't register.

"I think we need to get you both upstairs for the day," Typhani suggested. Daala only nodded. She didn't have the strength to help Typhani, but, to her surprise, the rather strong Phelarian woman did not really need her help. She pulled Adrian first up onto the sofa, then transferred him to his hoverscooter. Daala followed behind them as they went upstairs. With an inhaler in each hand, she went to her room to lie down.

Typhani transferred Adrian onto their bed, and settled him in for a nap. Again, he was being far too quiet, and that concerned her. "Are you all right now? What is it?" she asked as she sat down next to him. But he only stared past her into space. She leaned closer to him. "Adrian, talk to me," she insisted. It still took him another moment.

"Charlie. He pulled me out," he said weakly.

"Yes," she said softly.

"He tried to warn me, but I didn't . . . " he trailed away. He thought of the friends, close associates, and even relatives who had been on the station and on that shuttle with him, particularly Raolf Motti, his second-in-command. He had known Typhani's younger cousin since he was only ten years old--they had helped raise him--mentoring him through the loss of his father, the legendary Grand Admiral Selden Motti, and then his mother, and then through the Academy. After Raolf's graduation, Adrian took him under wing permanently, And then he remembered it was Raolf who had strapped him into the shuttle. "If I had only reacted just a couple of minutes sooner, we would have all . . . "

"Shhhhh, it's all right now," she told him. "That was a very long time ago."

"No. It isn't all right," he said, and looked away, upset by his own error in judgment as much as the loss of his associates and the station itself.

Typhani seemed surprised at his intense emotional reaction over the memories. The Adrian she knew pre-Yavin would have insisted that it was his officers' duty to protect him, and let it go at that. He would have told her sharply that Raolf knew full well what he was getting into, and that he had been on the station by his own choice. As she pulled a comforter over him, she remembered the discussion she and her family had on Bastion, during the evening when they were considering Viorska's proposal, about whether the ordeal may have changed Adrian's personality.

"You just rest quietly," she told him. "I need to go check on Daala." To Typhani's relief, she lay sleeping quietly, breathing easily, her inhalers within easy reach on her night table. Adrian had drifted off as well by the time she returned to him. Typhani went into their sitting room and pulled the pocket doors closed behind her. She sat down tensely, contemplating the double-crisis she had just abated, and the scope of what was going to be expected of her in the coming future.

It wasn't long before the comm in their suite beeped, and Typhani picked it up quickly before it woke Adrian. "Oh, Scythi," she said to her daughter, relieved. Lyscithea could tell immediately that something was wrong. "Your father had a really bad episode this afternoon. He had downloaded some materials from Bastion, and whatever he was reading triggered something. He finally remembered leaving the station. He's all right now, but he really scared me," she explained.

"Where was Daala?" Lyscithea asked.

"That's another story. There's something wrong with her, Scythi, and I'm afraid it's bad," her mother explained, and then told her the rest of what had happened.

"Where was Raycellna?" Lyscithea asked, perturbed that her mother had been forced to handle both crises alone.

"She'd gone to the market. And, I didn't want to call security away from the perimeter or involve the command center staff out in the other wing. I don't want them to know . . . to know how vulnerable he still is," she said.

"Mother, you've got to get some more help in there, else you're going to end up on your back as well! A nurse, a medical droid, something!" Lyscithea insisted.

"I know," Typhani acknowledged, not wanting to admit such.

"Listen, I'm coming over there. Kormath is on Eriadu and Bharina has the day off, so I'll have to bring the boys, but I'm on my way, okay?" Lyscithea insisted.

"Good," Typhani said. "I think the boys might take your father's mind off things for awhile." By the time Lyscithea and her sons arrived, it was nearly Taeodor's bedtime anyway, and so he crawled up on the big bed with his Grampa Adrian, insistently thrusting a holoplate book reader at him.

"Oh, all right," he capitulated as he switched off the evening news on the holovision and loaded the cartridge for The Three Little Ewoks. "After all, it's been an awfully long time since I used to read to your mother and your Aunt Lyjéa when they were your age."

Wilhuff and Bevel, on the other hand, headed down the back hall toward the playroom when they noticed Daala in their grandfather's study, having resumed her work. They had brought a sizable fleet of toy spaceships along, and were carrying on a mock space battle when Daala noticed them.

"Hey, there, you two!" she called to them, her voice still quiet and raspy.

"Do you have a cold?" Wilhuff asked as he entered his grandfather's study.

"No, I just lost my voice for a little while," she told them. Deep down, Daala regretted that she had never become pregnant, although she knew it had been for the best.

"Will you tell us some more stories about some of your battles? I heard you did some really cool stuff!" Wilhuff asked.

Ah, the innocence of childhood, Daala mused. If they only knew . . . But they didn't know. To them, she was a glorious war hero who had valiantly defended their grandfather's legacy. She needed them.

"Okay," she said as she slid from the computer chair into the floor with them and spread out the assortment of toy spaceships. "Way out in the Outer Rim, there is this really disgusting planet called Mon Calamari where these slimy, squid-like, Rebel-scum aliens live," she began. The two boys sat fixated on her, wide-eyed.

After she finished the story of Mon Calamari, Daala took one of Wilhuff's spaceships and positioned it between two of Bevel's, as if Bevel's ships were closing in. She looked decisively at Wilhuff. "All right, now what are you going to do?" she asked.

"Uh . . . I don't know," Wilhuff said, looking up at Daala, perplexed.

"Well, then, you just got captured by the Rebels, and they will execute you." Daala explained. She then reversed the configuration and asked Bevel the same question. He sat thoughtful for a moment, studying the toy ships intensely.

"Jump to light speed!" Bevel exclaimed. He then picked up his ship, moved it ahead of the other two, then smashed the two opposing ships together while making an exuberant explosion sound that only kids can make. "Dead Rebels!" Bevel exclaimed, grinning widely. Daala's mouth dropped open, and she stared in awe at the six-year-old genius who sat before her. Even a child's computer game had taught him about the vortex that is created when a large ship jumps to light speed, and that such a maneuver can cause a suction effect that will pull any objects behind the ship into a weak singularity, usually destroying them. That's why you never pursue an enemy too closely, not unless you can knock out their hyperdrives first. Basic freshman stuff from Carida. Only then did she fully realize the risk that Bel Iblis had taken in his attempt to capture her, and the utterly unnecessary one that she had taken in her attempt to get away from him. More blood on her inept hands. Masterful strategy--from a six-year-old. Of course, little Bevel hadn't intended to hurt her, but she again found herself devastated, and in need of her inhaler.

"Good move, Bevel," she complimented the younger boy. "Why don't you two go on into the playroom now. I need to go upstairs for a little while."

"What did we do?" Bevel asked his older brother as they entered the playroom.

"I don't know," Wilhuff answered, "But you have to come rescue me from the Rebels now," he said as they continued their games.

As Daala sank into the chair next to her bed, she was certain that Adrian would strip her off all rank and position and send her packing straight back to Pedducis Chorios, alone--and dying. "Just don't hurt me, Adrian," she said aloud but softly. "I can't stand anymore pain."

Despite all of Typhani's assurances, Daala still feared Adrian's reactions to what she had done, and his reprisals for her errors. Even after being intimate with him years ago, she still did not realize that she was well inside the boundary of his personal sphere--the one and only place one could truly hope to survive his imperious ruthlessness. Few had ever learned this lesson, that the only way to be completely safe from Tarkin was to be extremely close to him. Very, very few, however, were ever allowed to get that close.

Daala finally rose and went into her bathroom to get into the steam shower, hoping it would again soothe her tired and burning lungs. Just as she was about to turn on the water, though, her chest began to close up on her all over again. She started back for the inhalers on her night table, but caught herself on the edge of the vanity as she nearly stumbled, coughing and gagging uncontrollably. No air. She wasn't going to make it this time. The room began to spin and fade to black as she crumpled to the floor.

Downstairs, Lyscithea rounded up her sons in preparation to leave for the evening. "Mother, I really wish you'd consider what I said earlier, especially if Daala is ill," she insisted, hoisting a very sleepy Taeodor to her shoulder.

"I know, Scythi. I'll start looking into it tomorrow," Typhani assured her daughter, then went up to bed.

"Is Daala all right?" Adrian asked her when she came to bed.

"Yes, I think so. She was back downstairs finishing whatever it was she was working on," Typhani told him.

"I wonder which time it happened," he speculated. "She could have some very serious long-term problems from that, depending on what she inhaled."

"I don't know," Typhani said as she turned off their lights. "She so very sensitive and closed-up about her past. And another thing concerns me about her. She doesn't vent. After everything that has happened to her, she seems to still be holding it all inside."

"She's always been that way," he told Typhani. "It might be good for you to try with her, though. But I'll warn you that I'm afraid if she starts, she'll never stop. I got her to open up once about everything that had happened to her at the Academy, and that was an all-night affair."

"I don't care for you choice of words, Adrian," Typhani teased him.

"Now what did I say?"

"All-night affair!"

"Oh, don't you even go there," he said, swatting playfully at her. "You know, speaking of unpleasant memories, looking back on it the way things are now, it seems so unnaturally disgusting, almost as if it were Scythi or Lyjéa. Sometimes I just can't believe we thought up something like that, and that I actually, well, you know."

"I've thought the same thing about her. Right after I brought her here, I remember wishing that you'd just brought her home and that we'd simply taken her in instead of sending her to the Installation and trying for a surrogacy." Typhani revealed.

Seemingly surprised, he turned slightly to face her, now able to manage it a little better. "I actually considered it, but by that point, we had already . . . done the deed."

"We really screwed up, Adrian," she told him. "We're very fortunate that we can see what happened for the mistake it was, and that it hasn't ruined our marriage. But I told Daala once that if it had, we would have deserved it."

"Our bond is stronger than that," he reminded her. "If you recall, we discussed that, whether we could withstand it. On that note, at least, we were right." And then they drew customarily close to one another as they drifted off to sleep.

Daala stirred around midnight. She could breathe, slightly, but now the deep, burning sensation had been replaced by a painful, aching pressure with intermittent stabbing pains. She had never blacked out from it before. Her head throbbed and waves of nausea coursed through her midsection. It was time to get help, she knew. But then she remembered all too fearfully what the doctors had told her last time . . .

"Not now!" she demanded of herself with staunch resolve as she pulled herself stiffly from the cold bathroom floor and made her way to her bed. "This can't happen to me now! It wont!" It would be just another reason, she feared, for Adrian to send her away. He had no tolerance for weakness among his military personnel, she remembered.

To her ultimate relief, her episode as well as Adrian's had subsided by the following day, and for the next couple of days, all went well. Then it at last came time for the inevitable. Adrian had gathered her entire field history. He needed to know how seriously she had been injured and if her overall health was compromised, so that he could accurately assess how much responsibility to give her, or even if he should move her to another position. Even though Typhani had summarized everything for him, he was indeed most displeased with what he had found. In many instances, Daala had been taught enough to know better, and he was reacting quite strongly.

"Close the door, Daala," he told her sternly when she came back from the command center. She glanced over at his terminal as she did so, and readily recognized the end of the file on the screen. She went white and her knees almost buckled. "Sit down. Right here," he demanded, indicating that she should take the chair right next to him at the computer as he scrolled back to the top of her file.

Too close, she thought, but she reluctantly complied. His scooter was across the room on the other side of the desk, and so she could get away from him quickly if she had to.

"Let's start with generalities. Your own private little war," he said precisely, and looked away from her. His disapproval cut her to the very soul, as she always knew it would. "What in the universe were you possibly thinking, Daala?"

She swallowed hard. Her voice came quiet and raspy again. She did not look at him. "I . . . um . . . I just wanted to hurt the Rebels as much as I could for what they had done to the Empire. I knew I had no chance of defeating them, so I just wanted to cause damage. Lots of it."

"Well, you certainly accomplished that, but what was your master plan? Your overall strategy? Your end goal? What did you want to come of all that damage?" he asked. He knew there was none, and that infuriated him. Strategic planning was the first concept he had ever taught her.

Daala looked down into her lap and answered him only with her silence.

"I thought so. Daala, had you forgotten everything I ever taught you?" he admonished her harshly. Again, and as usual, Daala forced her hot tears deep inside. She would endure this because she deserved it.

He continued angrily. "All right then, let's start back at the beginning. So the Rebels who had stumbled into the Maw took off with Qwi and the Sun Crusher. Now, Daala, you knew full well that that weapon had impenetrable armor and capabilities that could damage your fleet or be turned against the lab itself, and yet you took off after them straight away with no plan and all of your resources, leaving the lab utterly unprotected! And to make matters worse, you didn't even get out of the Maw without such a major loss. If you had only taken the time to think and plan, and left the Hydra behind to protect the Installation, not only would it have not been lost, but it would have been there when you got back from your little escapades with the Gorgon. With two Destroyers and the prototype, you could have easily routed the Rebels. I'm afraid your only saving grace in this instance is that you had enough presence of mind to core-dump the computers!" Daala thought back painfully to Tol Sivron's pleas for her to leave him some protection at the lab.

Adrian continued, his voice taking on a very sharp edge. "So let's move on to Calamari, shall we? How many times had I warned you about Ackbar? I think you conveniently forgot where he was from in your effort, as you put it, to cause lots of damage. And then all you managed to do was hit civilian targets and lose the Manticore. Mine or not, ten-year-old tactics, Daala? Wouldn't you have figured them out by then?" He sighed and looked away in disgust. Daala drew even deeper into herself.

"And the Jedi, Daala? What sort of asinine stupidity had gotten into your head! Of what possible value was that target! Lord Vader and I had wiped the Jedi out of this galaxy before you were even born. A handful of them camping out in the jungle should have been of no concern to you. You had finally gotten your hands on a ship bettered only by the Executor and the station itself, and you let damaged fighters back on board in the middle of your battle, if you can call it that? You knew better! You never do that! I just got off the comm with Gilad. You nearly got both of you killed in that debacle!" But the pilot of that fighter had been a woman, Daala recalled silently. She never knew that it was the Jedi woman Callista herself that she had let on board, and that Callista had used her fighter and a hanger bay of others to blow the entire backside out of the Knight Hammer, and fill her lungs with burning toxins.

Adrian was getting a bit carried away by this point. "And Bel Iblis! Why, Daala, why didn't you just jump to hyperspace? You would have crushed both of Bel Iblis' ships and saved the crew who ended up having to save you! My little grandsons are better at tactics than that. Little Bevel craves praise and attention. He showed me what he did," he criticized her coldly. Daala began to wring her hands and bit her lower lip to contain her emotions. He continued. "It seems I was very wrong about you." That stab was too much. "Or there was something else going on that I don't understand," he said, yet allowing her a chance to explain. "Is there something you're not telling me?" he asked, and then he reached out toward her chin to make her look at him again. Afraid that he was going to strike her as her nightmares had so often demonstrated, she cried out and raised her hands protectively to her face, then turned out of the chair and ran from the room, one hand going to her chest.

Adrian realized then that he'd lost his temper. "Oh, no," he said, glancing around to see where his scooter was. "Daala, come back!" he called after her. He had judged his timing badly, and forgotten about how she might react. Typhani and Lyscithea had gone into town, and Raycellna had just left to go to Ultimart. He thought once about calling the command center, then decided against it for the same reason Typhani had. Even if Kormath or Dwyll were home, or could send Bharina, it would be nearly an hour before they would arrive. And worse, the remote to activate his mobility assist droid was on his table in the upstairs sitting room. He'd been feeling a little stronger lately, had even been pushing himself around in the office chair with his feet, and knew he had to get to his hoverscooter and get upstairs--quickly.

Looking around again to quickly map out the route he would have to take, he put the heels of his hands against the computer credenza and pushed backwards. Fortunately, the rolling office chair moved easily, and he was able to turn around and reach his desk. He pulled himself around the edge of the desk, and then pushed off again in the direction of his scooter. Now he had a problem. The seats were at different elevations, and the arm on the office chair did not move, preventing him from simply grabbing the handlebars of the scooter and pulling himself across. There was only one way. He had to try. He could hear Morgana's encouragement again as he pulled himself as close to the scooter as he could get. He would only have to stand for a second or two--surely he could manage that. He raised the arm on the scooter seat that was closest to him, put the brake on, then grasped the handlebars as firmly as he could. He looked down to make sure he would have the most secure footing he could manage, then pulled up hard. The office chair rolled away behind him, and he landed at a sideways angle, halfway in the scooter seat and half out. He gathered enough strength then to grab for the other armrest, then finally managed to pull himself upright. Nearly breathless himself, he backed out of his study and headed for the lift.

Daala lay face down across her bed, coughing hard and gasping for air, her inhaler clutched tightly in her hand. She hadn't bothered to close or lock her door because she didn't think he could get to her. She nearly jolted herself off her bed, badly startled when she heard the hoverscooter enter her room. Adrian came alongside the bed and reached for her, but she pulled away from him. "I'll go!" she said tightly between painful gasps for air. "I'll go, just don't hurt me!" Horrible images flooded back of what he had done to others who had failed him.

He seemed alarmed. "What?" he asked. "Do you think I would harm you?" She doubled over again, coughing hard. "Daala, you can't go anywhere like this! Besides, you aren't going anywhere. Im not going to send you away. And I wasnt finished talking to you," he assured her. She raised her head then, and he could see clearly that the handful of tissues she held, as well as the front of her blouse and the bed comforter, were spattered with small droplets of blood. Daala stared down at the stained tissues in her hand, then looked back up at Adrian, deep fear in her emerald eyes.

Adrian then moved beside her night table, picked up the comm port, and alerted the guards at the security perimeter to send the medics in, telling them, "Admiral Daala has become quite ill." He then called Typhani on her mobile transponder. To his relief, she and Lyscithea were just then coming around the corner toward the security perimeter.

Typhani and Lyscithea ran into the room on the heels of the two medics, who hovered intensely over Daala. "Not again!" Typhani exclaimed, and almost pushed one of the medics out of the way to get to Daala.

"We need to get her into town," the other medic alerted them. "She needs a respiratory therapist--fast!"

Later that evening, Adrian and Typhani sat on either side of Daala as she rested and recovered from this latest episode. Typhani caringly sponged at her face with a cool, damp cloth. "Any ideas?" she asked. "She seemed fine when we left."

"Oh, I . . . I think I might have set her off this time. We were, well, reviewing things. I'm afraid I got a bit coarse with her," he admitted. They thought Daala was asleep, but she weakly opened her eyes and looked up at Adrian.

"I thought they had killed you," she said quietly, barely above a whisper.

He looked down at her in renewed understanding, and took her hand. "Is that what it was all about?" he asked. She mustered a small nod.

"The leader of that Jedi camp," she continued, her words labored. "He was the one who fired the torpedoes into the Death Star's reactor. He's the one who hurt you, Adrian. I just wanted him and his kind out of the universe!"

"Shhhh, this is too hard for you," Typhani consoled her.

Adrian just shook his head and smiled down at Daala. "Well, if you'll rest and get over this, perhaps we can accomplish that and worse the second time around," he encouraged her. She nodded again, and managed a slight smile herself.

On their way home for the night, Adrian told Typhani, "Did we ever mess up! Her entire botched career has been a personal vendetta over me."

"She's not the only one," Typhani assured him. When they reached the house, she went into her private office and came out with a datacard. "It's time you saw this as well," she said. Adrian put the datacard into his mobile computer and read the summary of Darth Vader's scathing report about the circumstances and aftermath of the Thirteenth Imperial Diplomatic Conclave, the disaster hosted by one obsessively bereaved Lady Tarkin the year following the Battle of Yavin. "And not one single pellet of our megonite has ever gone to the Rebels," she told him when he finished reading the report, "not even during the recession following the peace accord."

Adrian was absolutely beside himself. He couldn't help but realize how fortunate he was, to be so loved. But as he read on, as Typhani started to doze off next to him, his feelings of warmth and affection turned to anguish.

"Interrogation . . . " he read aloud, looking sharply down at his wife.

She opened her eyes abruptly. "That's in there?" she asked, it having been many years since she had reviewed the conent of the report.

"Darth actually put you through that!?" Adrian seethed angrily.

"Yes."

He set the computer on the night table and pulled her to him, grasping her by the shoulders. "How?"

She averted her eyes and swallowed hard, obviously haunted by the memory. "The scan grid . . . and the mind probe. He took me aboard the Executor. He said that he had to have definitive proof of what I knew and when I knew it, and that a complete interrogation was the only way. He'd been so kind to me, but then he turned savage again. Cos laid most of the blame for Yavin on him, you see. I--I didn't think I was going to leave that ship alive . . . "

He clutched her protectively close. "I feel so terrible that you had to go through something like that, especially alone. If that's not a testament to your strength . . ." He trailed away, unable to find words that could provide adequate comfort.

"Shea was with me. He helped me through it. I thought for a moment that he was going to try to take Darth on." Her fingertips moved to her temples. "Next to Scythi's birth, that was the most excruciating experience I ever had!"

"I know, Typhani. I know." This time, it was he who rocked her. The mind probe droid concept had come to fruition in the Maw. It revulsed him to learn that technology that came from his own research lab had been turned against his wife by those who were supposed to be his allies. What other atrocities, he thought, would yet come back to harm them? He, like Daala, had become a victim of his own viciousness.

They brought Daala home from the medcenter two days later, but she would require numerous regular follow-ups. Wrapped tightly in a warm robe, she stepped tentatively into Adrian's study as he sat at his desk stamping documents, now that his official seal had finally arrived.

"There you are," he acknowledged warmly as she stood in the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, thank you," she said in her now permanent quiet voice. "Adrian, I can understand if you don't want me around, or if you want to assign someone else . . . " She looked away.

He hovered around the desk toward her. "Nonsense, Daala," he said as he approached one of the large leather chairs in the sitting area and indicated for her to take the other next to him as he transferred into the one he had chosen. She just watched him, wide-eyed.

"Yes, I figured out the other day that I can do this by myself now. Thank you for alerting me to that," he told her. She had not even thought about how he had gotten back onto his scooter and upstairs. She sat down next to him.

"Daala, I know you've had a very rough time. I'm sorry you had to experience that. But there are things far worse. I would . . . " he began, then looked away. "No I wouldn't."

"What?" she asked softly, perplexed by his conversation.

"I was going to say that I would gladly trade records with you, but I certainly wouldn't wish such horrors on you," he said.

"Adrian, what are you talking about? You've had a glorious history," she reminded him.

"In the field, of course, well, except for Yavin. That's not what I meant," he said quietly.

"What, then?" she asked, growing concerned.

"When I found out I had been promoted to Moff of the Seswenna Sector shortly after Ghorman, I made a special trip home to Eriadu to tell my father myself. After thirty-seven years of trying, I thought that perhaps at last I'd met his expectations. My new status as a worthy son lasted less than five minutes. We didn't know that he had an aneurysm near the base of his brain. It burst in the excitement of the moment, and he collapsed, dead before he ever hit the floor. Ever since then, I have endured persistent Rebel rumors that I killed my own father. That only fueled my anger and hatred toward them, and, of course, it was only the beginning of our differences.

"You lost five ships, if we attribute the scrapping of the Gorgon to wear and tear. Granted, it is a difficult thing to lose five ships over a career, but it is far, far worse to lose five children over a lifetime, for seemingly no reason at all. And to watch the one person you love and care about more than anyone else in the universe suffer and struggle through that, nearly losing her own life in the process, and to know there is nothing you can do about it--there is no greater sense of loss or defeat or helplessness in the entire galaxy. You know, I would have just as soon lost five Death Stars to have all of my sons and daughters here with me now.

"And then our struggles with Lyjéa. She has always been so much closer to me. I could do all of these wonderful and awe-inspired things, could build any kind of superweapon imaginable, could plan tactics for any battle possible, but I couldn't fix her vision." His tone became more tense as he continued. "How do you comfort an eight-year-old who has just come out of major brain surgery crying out for her father, when the doctors have just told you that it has been for nothing!" He looked away and was quiet for a long moment.

"Then I would go to the war and take it out on the Rebels," he continued. "I suppose they have always wondered why I am the way I am. Ruthless, cold, heartless, cunning, unfeeling, evil, and whatever else they choose to call me these days. They don't deserve to know. After all, how can you care for Rebels when your heart's full stock of feelings are so sorely needed at home? The Rebels are the cold, heartless, unfeeling ones, instigating insurgency, destroying order, interrupting normalcy, causing wars that draw so many away from where they're needed the most! They won't get away with it, not in the end."

Daala looked on at him in awe and admiration, her understanding of and respect for him deeper than it had ever been. She had meant to ask him about something.

"About Lyjéa," she began. "You told me back at the lab that her blindness is due to a head injury. I was wondering whether the new cell regeneration formula they gave you on Lumin might help her?"

He stared at her for a long, silent moment. "There, you see, Daala!" he finally said. "Now do you understand how important you are to us?"

Meanwhile, the Yuuzhan Vong began to set their sites on a distant border . . .

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