Chapter 19:
A Source of Power
"The logistical reports are in. Calamari was a complete route this time," Madame Director Ysanne Isard reported to the Emperor as she strode down the ramp of her shuttle.
"As much I should expect. Flennic had nothing but good things to say about Ackbar. He is indeed an excellent commander and tactician."
"He had a good teacher," Ysanne pointed out amiably, coming in stride alongside him as they made their way through the hangar bay. Ysanne noticed how much steadier Adrian's gate had become over the past few weeks. He stopped or misstepped much less often now.
Adrian smiled slightly at the compliment. "What were the strategic results?" he asked as they entered the corridor leading to the Installation's hub pod.
"Two of their larger ships destroyed, and most of their fighters. The megonite disruption caused the two large worldships to collide, but the damage wasn't total. Flennic finished them off with the station's prime weapon."
"Excellent! I'm sure your tactical reports will be invaluable to the scientific teams. They've been working round the clock, and making good progress, I might add."
"That's good. What's the verdict so far?"
"It looks like a magnetic disruption caused by the vibrofrequency. If that pans out, it seems both Bevel and Typhani are right."
"That would make sense. Such an effect would certainly disrupt their navigation instruments."
"Yes, well, we think the megonite may also have an effect on Vong physiology itself. The moss itself is biomagnetic, you see, and so Qwi thinks the vibrofrequency may be intolerable to them, something to do with the middle ear."
"That would be an added bonus, certainly," Ysanne noted as they stopped before a viewport. "My, Adrian, this place is quite a piece of work. I can't believe you never told any of us about it."
"Of course you understand why."
"Yes, of course."
"The Maw Installation will surpass its previous splendor--and effectiveness--once we reconnect and restore the four remaining pods."
"But you've no reason to hide in the Maw anymore."
"Not at present, no, but should we have another problem like the Vong, the location will continue to be most advantageous."
"Quite so."
Ysanne was about to turn down the corridor leading to the laboratories and conference room when Adrian put out a hand to stop her. "I need to ask you about something else."
"Do we need to move to a more secure location?"
"No. It's nothing of military intelligence," he noted, glancing around the end of the empty corridor to make sure they were alone. "You were on Coruscant shortly after the Conclave on Phelarion, no?"
"Well, yes, I was. Unfortunately, I didn't make it out there in time. I was busy with Rebel affairs, and had scheduled to arrive on the third day of the conference. But, thanks to the Rebels, it didn't last that long. I talked to Typhani, I guess it would have been toward the end of the conference, and she told me that, for the moment, everything was in hand. Lord Vader and General Hublin were there with her."
"And she came to Coruscant shortly afterwards?"
"Yes. I was most glad to see her. Cos thought a season at court would do her good. He'd asked too much of her too quickly, ad he knew it."
"That's odd . . . "
"What?"
"Cos wasn't angry with her?"
"Well, he was, of course, displeased with the debacle the Conclave had become, and I think they may have discussed it briefly."
He shot her a knowing, intense glance. "Ysanne, come forth now. What did he do to her? What did he do such that Vader had to block her memories?"
Ysanne's mouth dropped open a bit, and she quickly raised a hand to cover it. "She remembers now?" she asked, quite concerned.
"Not everything, but yes. She has a general memory of something awful that happened to her on Coruscant following the Conclave. She said something about Vader finding her, in the cold. What did Cos do to her, Ysanne? I have to know."
Ysanne took a step back, and averted her eyes. "It wasn't Cos. He never touched her, not then, at least. It was Kasmiru Tiu and Roganda Ismaren."
"The concubines?"
"Yes. They felt . . . threatened, you see. They thought you were dead, as we all did, and those two and the others, they worried that if a--union--were to take place, that they would be disposed of. And so, Kasmiru and Roganda--Adrian, are you sure you want to hear this?"
He looked away this time. "Go on," he finally told her.
Ysanne lowered her voice. "They got a bagrunelle egg from somewhere. We never found out where, because Cos didn't let Kasmiru live long enough to tell us, not that she would have, anyway. I actually suspect it was Roganda who got the thing. We think they planted it in a tray of canapés that had been taken to Typhani's chambers one evening. She loved the things, you know. Then Kasmiru told the maid that she wouldn't be needed, and said that the Emperor had asked her to tend to Lady Tarkin personally. She and Roganda locked Typhani in her quarters and cut her comms."
Adrian had turned his head away, and folded his arms tightly across his midsection. "Tell me the rest," he reluctantly insisted.
"Well, it amazed us all that she still had the strength to get away from the thing once it matured. The concubines had sealed her inside her bedchamber, so the only place she could go was the balcony. There was a fountain in the corner, and she'd got behind it to get out of the wind. That's where Vader found her, but she was in shock by then. Vader found the bagrunelle as well. As engorged as it was, we knew the blood loss had been considerable. He sliced the thing to pieces with his saber. And he sat with her for the next few days as she somehow managed to recover. Vader said he'd seen to it that she wouldn't remember."
"Well, she remembered something of it, but attributed it to Cos."
"If she didn't know . . . Or, she may think Cos ordered it done to her. She did seem awfully wary of him for awhile. But Cos was furious when he found out what happened to her. He interrogated everyone, and the chambermaid implicated Kasmiru, who, of course, implicated Roganda in turn. You see, Roganda wanted Cos for herself. She had assured Kasmiru that she would dispatch the maid, but she neglected to do so. Thus, Roganda sought to eliminate her rival Kasmiru as well as Typhani. At the time, I didn't know why Cos spared Roganda, but now we know that she was one of his Hands, and up to her chin in covert operations for him. Nonetheless, she got a good reaming herself, but still nothing like what Typhani got. Are you all right?"
He didn't answer right away. "The thought of her going through that alone . . . after what Vader had already done to her . . . "
"I know. It took a few months, but we got her back on her feet."
"And this Roganda, she's living on Tallaan now?"
"Adrian, Roganda is dead! Wherever did you hear that she was living on Tallaan?"
"Typhani told me."
"Hmmmph. Undoubtedly, that's what Irek told Typhani. No. He killed her, for what she'd done to him. We let it go because, well, who could blame the lad?"
"She's fortunate she's dead," the Emperor growled warily. "They both are. Though I'd be at a loss to think of something worse that wouldn't kill them too quickly!"
Ysanne nodded to him. To be infected with a bagrunelle meant torture in the severest degree as the host's gastric acids dissolved the outer membrane of the egg, thus releasing the fast-growing parasite inside. The unfortunate victim would then spend the next eighteen hours in untold agony as the maturing vermin made its way through the digestive tract, gorging itself with blood, leaving its host exhausted, anemic, dehydrated, and devoid of nutrients--and in many cases, dead. Once the matured, half-meter-long, bright blue, centipede-like creature made its way to the outside, it would turn back on its host for the kill. Within minutes of its emergence, the oxygen in the air would activate glands in the feet which secreted a neurotoxic venom capable of dissolving skin and flesh on contact, leaving the weakened victim paralyzed and covered with hundreds of infectious lesions. Then, the adult bagrunelle would lay fresh eggs in the open sores. Few victims ever got away from a bagrunelle in time, but somehow Typhani had managed to crawl away to the safety of her balcony, only to add shock and hypothermia to her injuries.
With a pallid look on his face and knots in his stomach, Adrian turned down the corridor to find his wife, only to encounter her coming toward him.
"Adrian, Bevel and Qwi think we need to move operations to Phelarion, so they can work with larger samples. The crates of megonite we brought are almost empty." Then she noticed Ysanne, a foreboding and all-too-familiar expression on her face, a look of empathy in her eyes she had not seen since . . . Typhani took a step or two backwards, the back of her right hand going to cover her mouth as her left clasped at her midsection. Adrian pulled her close to steady her, and Ysanne moved to her other side.
"I can't deal with this now! They need me back there!" She fought hard to push the unwelcome rush from her mind.
"Typhani," Ysanne said softly to her best friend as she put a hand on her back, "it wasn't Cos. He didn't do it. He didn't order it. He didn't even know. It was Kasmiru and Roganda. That's why he killed Kasmiru. Remember the court rumor that she had defied him? He executed her and severely punished Roganda for what they'd done to you. But you'd had such a time with the ordeal that they thought it best you not remember any of it. All we'd told you is that you'd been ill. When did you remember, and think it was Cos?"
"A few years ago, I suppose," Typhani responded shakily, trying to draw a few deep breaths to retain her composure.
"That's my fault. I should have told you at some point."
Typhani just shook her head at that. "It helps to know it wasn't Cos." At least not that time, she recalled with a shudder.
"Are you gong to be all right?" Adrian asked her. She nodded to him after a moment, wiping at the corners of her eyes with the heel of her hand.
The sound of soft footsteps approaching through the echoing corridor drew their attention away as Leia Organa-Solo came into view.
"Adrian, there you are. The others need you back in the conference room." Then she noticed Ysanne, whom she'd never met, but for whom she'd held unfathomable contempt as well for her torturous interrogations of members of the Rebel Alliance. She took a step back. "Hello, Madame Director," she said politely, ever an air of diplomacy in her tone.
Shocked at Leia's familiarity with the Emperor, Ysanne shot questioning glances between the two. Adrian nodded warmly to Ysanne.
"Call me Ysanne," she acknowledged congenially.
Leia continued. "My brother will join us there as well, and would like to meet you."
"Very well, then. Close, are we?"
Leia shook her head slightly. "As close as we're going to get."
"And how is that?" Ysanne queried.
"We must build a vibroweapon, one powerful enough to emit a magnetic pulse from the mineral properties of the moss strong enough to repel the Vong," the Emperor explained.
Ysanne's mouth dropped open, and her eyes narrowed incredulously. "The size of a planet, that would have to be, Adrian!"
He looked back over his shoulder at her, raising an eyebrow. "Why, Ysanne, Bevel, Qwi, and I have built things as large as a planet before," he noted curtly.
"So you have!" Ysanne acknowledged, smiling, as she followed the two galactic leaders into the Installation's scientific wing conference room. For the first time, Leia found herself glad that Tarkin and Lemelisk were alive.
-- -- -- -- --
A convoy comprised of half a dozen Lambda class Imperial shuttles and one aging Corellian YT-1300 made its way toward the moss-covered planet Phelarion. The Emperor and the Empress Apparent no longer ever traveled in the same shuttle, and so Sienar Fleet Systems had faced a rush to deliver extra vehicles to the Emperor's motor pool prior to the coronation. Landing in orderly succession on the pad atop Tarkin Megonite's main production facility, each shuttle momentarily touched down gracefully as its occupants disembarked, gathering in a group at the edge of the landing pad awaiting a transport to the main estate. The Millennium Falcon then came in behind them. landing on the far corner of the pad to leave room for other incoming vessels.
Leia, of course, felt mixed feelings upon returning to Phelarion, an uneasy sense of familiarity settling unpleasantly into her gut. Perhaps sensing this, the Empress moved to put a hand on her shoulder. "You're here as our guest this time," she reminded her.
Then quite suddenly, all heads turned in the direction of Rivoche Tarkin's rapidly approaching voice. "Ysanne! Ysanne! Uncle Adrian! We've got to do something quickly!"
"What now, Rivoche? What is it?" the Emperor asked, catching his breathless niece by her arms.
"Corulag! The Vong are headed for Corulag! Aunt Morgana can't get out! Ephin Saretti is on his way, but our cruisers aren't fast enough! He'll never get there in time!"
Adrian went white, and would have all but collapsed had he and Rivoche not been holding fast to one another. "No. Not Morgana . . . Whatever is she doing on Corulag?"
"I'll get her," Han said, thinking quickly.
"What?" Rivoche asked.
"I'll get her out. The Falcon is fast enough."
"Han, but . . . " Leia began. Then she pulled him aside. "What are you thinking?"
"What I'm thinking is that I've gone head-to-head with the Vong before, and I gotta few scores to settle. Besides, this little 'goodwill gesture' just might get us a few extra bargaining chips with Empy Willie over there."
Leia scowled. "Don't do this, Han. Don't deliberately put yourself in harm's way, not for them!"
"Leia, we gotta show the Vong they can't stop us," he insisted.
"So that's what it's about. You're looking for an opportunity to even the score, or to prove to yourself that you really can extract people? They may still have Jacen, Han!"
He glared hard into her eyes. "That's what I'd like to find out."
Then all eyes turned skyward as a New Republic E-wing fighter cleared the security perimeter. Shocked by the news of his sister, Adrian found himself temporarily unaffected by the fact that he was about to come face-to-face with the man who had dropped two proton torpedoes on his head and obliterated his beloved Death Star. "Luke!" Leia observed. "Just in time!"
"Yeah, yeah," Han said. "He can take over for me here. I gotta get moving." Han then promptly jogged back across the landing pad toward the Falcon as Luke climbed out of his fighter. The two met briefly on the tarmac, and then Luke approached the group as Han made fast for his ship.
The Jedi Master stopped a few steps out as the Emperor turned to face him. Luke put his hands together before him as a Jedi gesture of humility. "It is an honor to meet you at last, Your Excellency," he said, not putting much emphasis on the word honor. He had taken his diplomatic cues from his sister.
Adrian merely looked past him as the Falcon's engines started, mouthing his sister's name.
"Not to worry. He'll get her," the Jedi assured the Emperor.
"I hope you're right," Adrian finally acknowledged, then drew himself up. "So this is the maverick young pilot from Tatooine who dispatched me into a quarter century of oblivion and tossed the galaxy into never-ending upheaval!" His contempt for Jedi was one thing Adrian could not, would not, hide, even in the face of the most formal diplomatic proceedings.
Luke smiled it off, but stood his ground. "Be sure, Your Excellency, that I personally regret the injury and death that resulted from the destruction of your battle station, but the weapon had to be stopped. Perhaps now we can move ahead without any further harm to one another." Indeed the events of the next few days would determine that as the group moved inside to Tarkin Megonite's main conference room to continue the scientific summit.
-- -- -- -- --
The group of New Republic and New Impyria scientists had determined prior to departing the Maw that the best vibroweapon would be a well-compacted, meter-high crystal created from megonite moss, a diamond-like structure, that would vibrate at the frequency of a megonite warhead, placed somewhere in the galaxy's Deep Core. Amplification platforms placed strategically around the galaxy would pick up the crystal's signal, reverberating it outward, thus driving the Vong out of the galaxy and keeping them out. But the type of crystal needed to accomplish such a vibrofrequency would require an unprecedented density and standard of clarity and perfection, such that all feared the ideal weapon might remain only a theory on Qwi Xux's datapad.
Bevel Lemelisk spoke vehemently to explain why. "To compact the megonite into a crystal form of that size and structure would take millions of years and more pressure than anything we've got or can possibly fabricate," he observed. "We'd need an almost--supernatural--power source for this, to get it the right size to vibrate at the correct frequency! We need to move on here!"
"But we've nothing else to move on to!" Jil Bramm insisted.
"Perhaps the Jedi can help," Luke offered, speaking up from his corner.
"All right. Let's hear it," Daala said, folding her arms across her chest. After all, the Jedi at Skywalker's Academy on Yavin IV had somehow managed to cast seventeen Victory class Star Destroyers to the edge of the system.
"I believe that the Emperor and Empress have the power, if properly harnessed, to generate sufficient energy to mold the necessary crystal."
"Look, Jedi, we're dealing with an invasion here. We don't have time for this hocus-pocus," the Grand Admiral snapped sternly, raising her hand to him in a push-away motion.
Luke resumed his place, having planted his seed. Perhaps a little more frustration among the group of geniuses assembled before him would spawn its growth. In the interim, the time had come for his own private audience with the new Emperor.
Flanked at a slight but still safe distance by the Emperor's guards, Luke and Adrian strode along at an easy pace through the plaza between the Tarkins' main house and the office complex, discussing at first matters of state and military. Then, Luke briefly shared with the new Emperor his experiences with the clone of the old one. While Adrian did not lend credence to the Jedi "religion," as he and other lead Imperials had oft termed it, he had never denied the power that Force-users possessed, having seen Vader and Palpatine apply it many times over. And so, he came back to a point the Jedi had made earlier in the conference room.
"You have an idea of how the crystal we need could be created, perhaps through the use of the powers of the Jedi, no?"
"You and Lady Tarkin," Luke began to explain calmly, "the two of you, together, possess the capability to generate enough energy to create the crystal."
The Emperor stopped mid-stride, glancing sharply over at the Jedi Master, the lack of credence coming back across his thin face. "What can you possibly mean by that?" he retorted incredulously.
"You are both Force-sensitive," Luke continued, "extremely so. You, as a pair, are something known as a latent diode. You have never perceived your Force-sensitivity because you are latent. The strange perceptions, experiences, and abilities your wife has experienced, however, are a result of her non-latent sensitivity. She merely requires training."
"No," Adrian told him. "It's not what you think. Her perceptions are not from what you and your kind refer to as 'the Force'. Instead it is something similar, and yet quite different at the same time."
"I don't understand," the Jedi Master said, wrinkling his brow.
And now the Emperor would deal the final blow to the Jedi, not only to the Master who strolled casually beside him, but to the whole lot, before their numbers undesirably reached their pre-Clone Wars levels. But this time, instead of wreaking ruthless havoc upon the unfortunate and misguided dredges, he would ply gently, as his predecessor had, something to which he was only recently becoming accustomed.
"Our galaxy has undergone momentous transformations in the last century, transformations previously unprecedented in our entire history. The Jedi have suffered much, and caused much suffering, throughout these times of change. So perhaps it's time that the Jedi adapt as well."
"Adapt?" Luke queried, becoming somewhat suspicious of the Emperor. Recent rumors had put him behind the Peace Brigade.
"Yes. We're not all that different, you know, although we are bitter philosophical rivals."
"We?"
"Yes. The Jedi and those of us here in the Outer Rim, we who believe in and tap into something we call the Power of the Essence. You see, we also use thought patterns and energy fields to enrich and transform our lives, and to manipulate our environment, but it's not like your mystic Force. For the first part, we do not believe in manipulating each other with such power. To do so without permission is considered mind-rape, the worst possible sacrilegious defiling of another being--and of the Essence, or, the Universe itself. Hence, what you do with your Jedi mind-tricks to control others is most heinous blasphemy to us. We believe it acceptable to use power gained in a secular way, such as through military or political channels, to control others, but not spiritual energy."
"I've only read of this," Luke admitted. "I didn't know that anyone still practiced that belief system. Please, go on. I'd like to know more. Perhaps it would help us to--coexist--if we better understood each other's beliefs."
The two paused to sit by the fountain Basilisk in the plaza.
"Yes, not many do outside of the Senex. Our religion originates in that sector, on a planet called Aquilae. My family is for the most part atheistic, as was I, until I met Typhani and the rest of the Mottis. Typhani's cousin Raolf, he was absolutely zealous on the matter. Not a greater Jedi-hater ever lived, save Palpatine. In a way, an ironic way, I suppose, it's two variations of the same thing, our religion and yours. Uncanny, isn't it, that the belief systems that seem most similar end up being the bitterest of enemies, as if we're fighting for the same territory, or, perhaps, the same thought-wave channel," Adrian told Luke in as congenial and casual a tone as he could muster when dealing with the man who had unleashed two proton torpedoes directly at him. For the future sake of the galaxy, however, he needed to make this point and make it well. "You see, we believe in something we call the 'Power of the Essence,' which is actually the divine creative energy of the Universe. And then we have the Trinity of Being, which consists of Life, Sentience, and the Collective Unconscious. The latter, I suppose, is what you Jedi keep in your holocrons. We have no holocrons because we believe that everyone can tap into the Collective Unconscious. So in a way, everyone has a holocron reader in his or her head. We do, however, believe in keeping detailed records of our lives for future generations, but these are personal records kept in familial archives, and are not considered doctrine as many Jedi holocrons are. And as for the Power of the Essence, there is no 'Light Side' and no 'Dark Side.' The Essence contains both, you see, as does each and every sentient being in the Universe. Hence, our respective beliefs are very similar, but ours lacks the arcane weaponry, strict dichotomy, and elitist trappings of the Jedi."
Luke looked somewhat sarcastically at Tarkin, and tried to lighten the subject in order to return the conversation back to the matter of the crystal. "Now since when did you ever have a problem with the elitist?" he half-teased.
"When it destroys order," Adrian replied sharply. Luke nodded.
Adrian continued. "If you Jedi wish to continue in your ways--and I think to do so in the face of what has happened would be foolhardy at best--but if you do choose to continue, then I strongly advise that you should find a remote safeworld somewhere to concentrate your population so that you do not draw uninvited attention to those around you. Should any clan or system require your services, they can ask. However, I can assure you that no Jedi will be allowed to live in New Impyria. Perhaps you can negotiate with the Chiss, Sssi-rusk, or the Hutts, or find neutral territory with 'amicable local authorities,' such as Daala did on Pedducis Chorios."
"I see," Luke half-muttered, having hoped for a slightly better reception from the new Emperor. However, considering the torpedoes, he knew he should have expected a chilly reception at best.
Still, Tarkin had a point about a safeworld for the Jedi, a suitable endpoint to the Great River, if the many powers gathering to find a solution to the Vong invasion could find success in their purpose. On that thought, Luke sought once again to draw the conversation back to the point at hand. "Despite our different beliefs, despite the names by which we call the divine forces to which we align ourselves, you and Lady Tarkin can create the crystal we need, with my guidance, of course."
"All right, I'm listening," Adrian conceded.
"I can show you how to channel your complementary energies through each other, cycling, building the power. I can harness it, harvest it from your auras, and direct it into the megonite."
"I have to tell you that this sounds at best very fanciful and far-fetched. I've never had a thing to do with the Jedi or your Force, save trying my best to destroy them. Yet I don't see what harm it could do to let you try your Jedi sorcery in that we have no other solutions at present," Adrian mused. He had begun to suspect that the Jedi was laying a trap for him and his wife, and Luke's next comment confirmed, then undermined, that suspicion.
"Well, that's just it," Luke continued as he turned even more serious in his tone. "The amount of energy created will be incredibly intense. In your . . . compromised condition, it could prove rather draining, perhaps debilitating, perhaps . . . there's a chance that perhaps you won't survive it."
"If he is planning to try to kill us, why would he say so, especially when doing so at present would cast the very galaxy into the laps of the Vong?" Adrian thought. "Could he possibly be serious about this?" Adrian shuddered a bit, but not enough for Luke to notice outwardly. Yet, unbeknownst to Adrian, Luke picked up the tremor inwardly through the Force.
"I see," Adrian said quietly. "So you really believe this Jedi-energy-cycling feat will work?"
Luke answered straight away. "Yes, Your Excellency, I do. In fact, I feel that it's our best and only chance right now."
"You must understand how preposterous this sounds," Adrian commented.
Luke only nodded.
-- -- -- -- --
Han Solo exited hyperspace at Corulag to encounter a huge Vong worldship and an entire fleet of support fighters. Saretti and the New Impyrial fleet had indeed not arrived yet. Corulag didn't stand a chance. The Vong had struck hard and fast this time. He knew he had to get in quickly, and so he pulled up the coordinates of Morgana Tarkin's compound in the Falcon's navicomputer.
Morgana had sent the servants away, telling them to do the best they could for themselves, then sealed herself into the bunker she had installed under her main house after the firebombing incident years earlier. As she waited either for rescue or for the end, she composed messages to friends and loved ones on her datapad, two blaster pistols and a rifle close at hand. A strange juxtaposition for humanity, she thought, but not so strange for these times. Deep down, she knew the fleet would not make it in time to save her. Nonetheless, she thought, she'd spent eighty active and vibrant years, her only real regrets being her hand in the loss of one brother and the years taken away from her relationship with the other.
To Gilad Pellaeon, she composed a simple, one-word message, "Yes." To Rivoche, an eternal welcome home. To her niece Lyjéa who would one day assume her mother's role as Empress, she assured that insight served far better than eyesight. And her remaining thoughts she would pour out to her brother until the end came. Then she heard the engines of an incoming ship, heard them stop. It had to be Vong, she knew. No. She would not allow them to take her and use her as a weapon against her brother. She quickly put her datapad into her breast pocket and took up one of the blaster pistols, positioning the barrel strategically under her chin. Then she waited until she knew for sure.
"Morgana!" Han shouted as he blasted his way into and tore his way through the house, the Vong attack already well under way. Of course they had spotted him slipping through their blockade, so he knew he had to find the Emperor's sister quickly, or not at all.
Morgana recognized the voice as human, but she did not move, suspecting a Vong-sympathizing decoy or another hapless hostage sent to lure her out. Han continued to search every room of the house, keeping his eyes sharp for hiding places. Standing nearly on top of the concealed entrance to the bunker, hidden under a central hallway, Han called out again. "Captain Morgana Tarkin! It's General Han Solo, New Republic!"
Below, Morgana drew the blaster carefully away from her chin. What she had just heard was so uncanny that she couldn't help but believe it. Han stepped aside, readying his blaster, as he heard the slight hiss of a bulkhead hatch under his feet. One square meter of the marble flooring hydraulically lifted up before him. He took aim, but set for stun, just in case. Then he lowered his weapon in relief as a silver-haired Eriaduan woman climbed out of the bunker, handing him the rifle as she holstered the two hand-blasters about the belt of her flight suit. She knew of the scientific summit between her brother's government and the New Republic, but never dreamed that the likes of Solo would come the her rescue.
For a very brief moment, Han also found himself caught up in the surreal nature of the moment--an eighty-year-old woman in a flight suit with a blaster on each hip and fire in her piercing blue eyes. "Only a Tarkin," he thought, one corner of his mouth turning up into a smile.
"You?" Morgana asked.
"Yeah. I'll explain later. C'mon, we gotta move!" They could already hear exploding weapons and other ships overhead. Morgana knew the Millennium Falcon's reputation far too well, and she knew she would be safe.
For an instant.
She drew first, firing rapidly at the two Vong commandos advancing on them between the ship and the house. Of course, their blaster bolts lacked total effectiveness against the organically engineered Vong armor, and so Morgana quickly drew her other blaster as Han shouldered the rifle. If they could even knock this squad of about six Vong back for just a few seconds, they could make the ship.
But the Vong knew the Millennium Falcon's reputation also, as well as that of its captain.
Back-to-back, as both had been trained in the Imperial military, Han Solo and Morgana Tarkin shot their way toward Han's ship. Their mutual training, something their bodies had never forgotten, proved their most valuable asset at the moment. Each knew what the other would do, should do, and could act accordingly.
"Back me up!" Han shouted as he neared the Falcon's boarding ramp, which he had left lowered. He would advance forward up the ramp, knowing his ship well, in case more Vong commandos had already boarded. Morgana kept her back pressed to his, her face a defiant snarl, firing at the Vong with a pistol in each hand.
"There's more!" she shouted as more Vong came around the north side of her compound. "There's the leader! He's got a bioweapon shoulder cannon! He's heading straight for us!"
"One-eighty!" Han shouted. Morgana remembered the command, and she and Han spun around to change positions in an instant, moving in unison like a well-oiled gun turret.
Han squinted, setting the rifle's sites on the juncture between the Vong leader's chest plate armor and helmet.
Yet his adversary lowered his bioweapon cannon, and motioned for his companions to stop the assault. Han almost squeezed the trigger anyway, but then in the momentary lull of fire, he faintly heard the Vong leader shout something in his direction. He lowered the blaster rifle only slightly, and cocked his head.
"Solo! Ah, Solo!"
"What is it? Come on!" Morgana shouted.
"Get on board! Go on!" he called back to her.
Morgana scrambled on board the ship as the Vong squad leader continued his approach. Han experienced a momentary twinge of urgency mixed with relief as he heard the Falcon's engines whir out of idle in preparation for lift-off. Then he remembered. Morgana was a captain, and a very capable pilot herself. But he'd heard no more rounds from her blasters. The Vong had not wanted the ship. Be damned if they'd get it! Over his dead--
No.
He drove the thought violently from his mind. It had been over Chewie's dead body that his beloved Falcon had escaped before. He would not make the same mistake again.
Now the Vong squad leader drew close enough that Han could hear him without straining. "We have your son, Solo! You want to see your son, Solo? You want him to live, Solo? Or you give us another?" Then the squad leader held out his clawed hand in a mockery of invitation. Han gritted his teeth in raw anger and started to raise the rifle again, but found himself dumped on his backside as Captain Tarkin had activated the hydraulics to lift the boarding ramp. He rolled backwards into the cabin, barely managing to keep from firing the rifle.
"No! Wait! They have my son! They've got my son!" Han shouted to Morgana as she whirled around in his chair to face him, somehow looking as though she had always belonged there. No, he couldn't ask her to stay, to sacrifice herself for Jacen's sake, but perhaps he'd just fallen into the best possible situation. He stared hard at Morgana, almost threateningly. Climbing to his feet, he pointed a decisive index finger at her. The words fell out of his mouth. "Can you fly her?"
Morgana smiled. "Why, yes, General. Don't you remember? She was to have been mine, my fortieth birthday present from my brother. I'd always wanted a prototype YT-1300, but you and your Wookiee-friend rather spoiled my day!"
Han took another step toward her. "They have my son, and they recognize me. They probably recognized the ship on my way in. I have to go back. I have to go with them or they'll kill my son! They just told me he's alive! Please, take the ship, get yourself outta here." He hesitated for a moment. "Tell my wife . . . If you make it back to Phelarion, tell Leia that I've gone after Jacen. Tell her Jacen's alive, and I ain't comin' back without him!"
"But General, you mustn't--"
Han put up his hand to silence her, then turned and punched his fist into the control to lower the ramp again. As he took the first step down, he turned back to her over his shoulder. "Not a scratch!" he insisted.
Morgana just nodded, closing the ramp behind him. "I hope he knows what he's doing," she muttered as she punched the Falcon's throttle, giving the sublight engines the full power she would need to attempt a penetration of the Vong blockade. As she did so, a smile of exhilarated pride came across her face. At long last, and by fate alone, she sat at the helm of Solo's ship, what was to have been her ship. She flew, and fought, valiantly, laying hard and relentlessly on the forward guns, gyrating the Falcon between convoys of Vong coralskippers, damaging many as she did so. Even Han would have been proud to see her do it.
-- -- -- -- --
Meanwhile, back on Phelarion, Luke had decided that he must approach Typhani about her special skills, confident that she would survive the forthcoming ordeal. After all, he realized, a healing that would send Cilghal into a nine-hour recovery trance would be little more than the stroke of a hand to Typhani after she had completed the proper training.
"You could be perhaps the greatest Jedi healer who ever lived," he told her as they walked through the plaza. She just laughed at him.
"No, I don't think so," she dismissed. "Luke, I am the Empress of New Impyria, a Jedi-free zone. That is an all-inclusive role in and of itself. I am not a Jedi, nor can I ever be a Jedi. Such is against our cultural values, our religion--and against my grain, for that matter." She hesitated for a moment, then continued. "The Jedi have caused my family great pain." Then she stared past him. "The Jedi and the Sith, for that matter." She, too, had a point she longed to discuss with the Jedi Master.
"The Sith?" Luke queried, his interest piqued.
"I don't know. I'm not sure." Then she turned to face him directly. "Look, I know you all have certain powers. I don't deny that. I know you can influence other beings, and that the Sith Arts are . . . degenerative . . . "
"Please, go on," Luke prompted her as she struggled to get to her point. "What do you know of the Sith Arts?"
"Only what I watched Palpatine go through during the last years of his life prior to Endor. The physical deterioration, his health . . . " Then she lowered her voice. "That negative energy the Sith generate, can it influence others, of its own accord?"
"Yes, of course it can. Why do you ask?" Luke sought to reach out to her mind at this point, but then pulled back, respectful of what her husband had said earlier about trespassing upon the minds of others.
"It's Adrian. He spent all those years around your father and Palpatine, after all. He's only fifty-seven, you know, taking out the years in the carbonite. Before Yavin, he'd started having some of the same symptoms as his predecessor, the premature aging, the physical degeneration . . . His hair, for instance. It had thinned out so just before Yavin, and nearly turned white, but now it's coming back, and coming in dark at the roots, not gray. I mean . . . Look at Valdemar. Biologically, they're the same age, but Adrian . . . Oh, Luke, people used to say the most awful things! They'd call him a living cadaver, a walking corpse!" She met his eyes then. "And he isn't driven by rage anymore. Now I know he never practiced any of the things Palpatine and your father did, but I've often wondered if . . . if perhaps Cos was, you know, doing tings to Adrian, using him somehow, without his knowing it?"
Luke could sense that the disclosure had been difficult for her, and so he let her catch her breath before continuing. "Oh, yes, that's quite possible. Because of your husband's Force latency, Palpatine could very well have been using him as a channel, a Sith amplifier of sorts, indeed without his knowledge."
Typhani looked away, and now she was wringing her hands. "Do you know how aberrant that is to us?"
Call it coincidence, but Luke answered. "Yes, Lady Tarkin, I do."
"Are there . . . residual effects?" she asked, worried.
Luke leveled with her. "There may be. Perhaps I can help."
"No, no, he's had enough! And he mustn't know I've discussed this with you."
"But if there is still a layer of negative energy in his aura, something Palpatine put there, if I could latch onto it and pull it away, it could help him tremendously, make him stronger."
She turned on him. "And why would you want to do that?"
"Because he's going to need every nanogram of strength he can muster to help you make the crystal."
She winced. "Yes. He told me. I don't know whether I believe such or not."
"But when you are close to him, you can feel his energy, and it magnifies your own, doesn't it."
"Yes," she admitted.
"This will all be clearer to you once I've had a chance to work with both of you," he assured her.
To that end, Adrian had the servants clear the gymnasium, a large, well-lit room just off the conservatory, leaving only a few low benches along the windows. The following afternoon, Luke met the Emperor and Empress there to test their abilities and to work with them on enhancing their energies. Remembering what Rivoche had told him back on Coruscant, he instructed them to face each other. Still a bit bemused by his interest, they showed him, as Rivoche had, their various methods for "merging essences," as they had called it. With each demonstration, Luke could detect a sharp increase in the aural energies in the room, but certainly not enough to create the crystal. He was careful not to use the term "the Force" with them.
"It seems that with the two of you," he began to explain, "energy enters your bodies at two main points, at the solar plexus and at the center of the clavicle. It's good that you two are almost the same height. Let's try a more direct connection." They only looked at him, not quite understanding. He put a hand on each of their backs and pushed them closer together. "Wookiee hug," he explained. "And can you open the fronts of your robes in those two places? Direct contact will work best."
Typhani's cheeks blushed a slight red. "But we only do that when we-- Never mind." She suddenly understood, and loosened two snaps on her gown just below her breasts as Adrian loosened his collar a bit
"That's better," Luke acknowledged once they had achieved the connection. Indeed, it was. The feeling had always been an utmost pleasure for them, but they had always just let their energies merge and blend, as if by osmosis. They were about to discover a whole new dimension to their abilities as the Jedi Master continued. "Now, both of you close your eyes. I want you to visualize your energies coursing through each other as light, yours yellow and yours blue," he directed as he touched each of them on the shoulder. Typhani had no trouble creating her yellow light in her mind's eye, but it took the latent Adrian a bit longer to muster his blue. "Now," Luke said, standing back from them, "imagine your light-energies coming together as a ring, a spiral or a pinwheel as you like, going round and round through each other. You've got to synchronize your thought waves."
For a long moment, the Imperial couple did not move, trying to achieve what the Jedi had instructed. When they did, they shot apart, taken utterly aback by the raw power of their mutual energies. Luke, too, felt as if a huge but invisible weight had been brought to bear on top of him. Both wide-eyed and catching their breath, the Tarkins stared at each other in awe. "You did that, didn't you?" the Emperor asked sharply.
"No, Your Excellency. You did it yourself! Now, please, let's try again. You have to be able to control the power, and maintain the cycles." By the end of the afternoon, they could do that. Tomorrow, Luke thought, he would teach them to speed the cycles up, and build the energy. Then he would know whether the megonite crystal would be feasible.
The next day, all seemed to be going well to that end. Suddenly, though, Adrian pulled away, and nearly stumbled to the bench by the window. Typhani joined him, placing a hand on his forehead, concerned. Too hot.
"This is exhausting," he said as he tried to catch his breath.
"He can't do this! It's too strenuous!" the Empress protested to Luke.
"No, no, we have to try. It's . . . rather obvious that there really is something to what he says. I've just got to get my strength up, that's all."
"Adrian . . . "
He leaned closer to her. "I've seen the Jedi do things like this, Typhani. Gideon and I once saw four of them raise a crashed shuttle packed with schoolchildren on a field trip out of a sumptuous bog without even touching it. Just four men! The craft rose into the air, as if its repulsors had reactivated, but the repulsors were gone, sheared off in a midair collision that caused the ship to crash in the first place! Then they set it down on solid ground just as gently as you'd set a teacup back in its saucer, so that our squadron could get to it and get the kids out! I didn't believe it at the time. Gideon and I argued for days about what we'd seen, and I even contacted Raith to ask him if the craft might have had some sort of emergency repulsorlift. It didn't."
She looked away, and only nodded slightly.
"Actually, I think you've got the idea now," Luke interceded, sitting down next to the Emperor. "Since it is rather exhausting for you, let's not waste any more energy on unnecessary practice. You two cycle better than a new ion engine!" he encouraged them.
Luke then sought to return to a topic he'd discussed with the Empress two days previous. "Your Excellency, you never sensed anything of this kind in the presence of Vader or Palpatine?"
"Why no, not that I . . . " Typhani shot Luke a warning glance, and started to say something when her husband continued. "You know, now that you mention it, there always seemed to be this, I don't exactly know how to describe it, this drive of sorts, always in the back of my mind. If ever I wavered on anything, any action or decision, and it wasn't often that I did, but if so, this--this feeling would kick in and boost my resolve somehow, always in favor of the Emperor's will, it seemed." His hand had unconsciously gone to the back of his head.
"He may well have been influencing you," Luke offered.
"Well, I'm sure he was, but not in that way. He knew how I felt about that sort of thing, and . . . " Then a most unsettling thought came over Adrian. "Would Cos have cared enough o respect his beliefs?"
"So you knew Palpatine was the Sith Master?"
"Yes, of course I did. He never told me himself, but when your father first referred to his 'new master' after his altercation with Kenobi, I knew it could be none other than Palpatine, because that is who your father served. A lot of things suddenly made sense then, what happened at Naboo, how the Clone Wars started. Of course, I'd suspected it early on, but I didn't know for sure until your father's transformation. As long as Cos kept it to himself, I didn't--"
Luke interrupted. "Are you sure he kept it to himself? You've both indicated that he harmed you in other ways."
"Adrian, perhaps we--" Typhani began, but Luke didn't let her finish.
"If he didn't keep it to himself, Your Excellency, if he did somehow implant some type of negative energy in you, it could still be there. It could very well be why you look and feel seventy-seven instead of fifty-seven. Think of what the Sith Arts did to Palpatine himself."
Typhani started to intercede again, but Adrian took her hand. "It's all right," he told her. Then to Luke. "Such is awfully mystical and at best highly theoretical. How could such a thing be detected?"
"I could tell, Your Excellency. Any Jedi Master could. And, believe me, you'd feel much better without it."
"How? How could you determine such a thing?"
"You'd . . . have to let me look."
The Emperor drew up and away slightly. But then he thought back to the no longer so mystical and theoretical energy cycles he and his wife had just created. "And . . . if you found something, something of Palpatine's . . . "
"I could draw it away, cast it into the Force," Luke explained confidently. He looked around the room for a moment. "Is there someplace else we could go, someplace you'd be more comfortable?"
This time, Typhani got in edgewise. "Adrian, no! He's trying to trap us! He'll hurt you!"
"If he does that, he doesn't get his crystal, does he?" Then he leaned very close to her. "Do you remember how we used to get ill after being around Cos too much?"
"There's a daybed in the conservatory," the Empress conceded at that realization.
"I know that after what happened at Yavin it's got to be awfully hard for you two to trust me, so this is what we're going to do," Luke began as Adrian lay down on the daybed. He then instructed Typhani to sit on the edge of the bed next to her husband and take his hands. "Now then. You can pull him away if there's any trouble, both physically and through the F--through the Essence." Typhani only nodded, and Adrian could tell that her hands were trembling slightly. Closing his eyes, Luke then cupped his hands gently under the Emperor's head.
Though the sensation was not at all painful this time, it brought back terrible memories of a time when it was. Gasping abruptly, he shot up off the daybed and into his wife's arms, wrenching his hands from hers and clasping them to the back of his head. She'd seen him do that before--shortly after they'd moved to Coruscant, shortly after Adrian had gone to work for Palpatine against the Jedi.
That mysterious bout of migraines. Adrian had not been poisoned, not in the conventional way, at least. They both realized then. "He was doing it all along!" Adrian gasped, his emotions a mix of anger, betrayal--and fear.
"What has he done to you?" Typhani whispered, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.
"It doesn't matter now. Let's just get rid of it," Luke insisted.
Reluctantly, Adrian lay back again, and Typhani held fast to him. Luke once again entered a Jedi trance, permeating the new Emperor's aura to cleanse it of the influence of the old. By the time he'd finished, Adrian had fallen asleep.
"Just let him rest," Luke said as Typhani tucked a throw over her husband.
"I just can't believe he was doing this to us!" she cried, moving to the window.
Luke ambled over behind her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "He did things to you, too, didn't he?"
"Oh, yes," she answered shakily. "And not all of them so mystical." She shook her head and wiped at her eyes as she went to sit back down next to her husband.
-- -- -- -- --
His training exercises completed, Luke found his sister pacing nervously in the enclosed garden off the conservatory. "Hey, don't worry. Han will get Lady Morgana out, and he'll be fine. He always is."
"I know, I know. It's not just that. It's the crystal as well."
"What about the crystal?"
"Why can't you and I do this?" Leia asked her brother as she stopped pacing and turned abruptly on her heel. Although she had made some progress with the Tarkins, she couldn't quite call it peace. She didn't want them to have the credit for saving the galaxy.
"Because the principle behind the power of a latent diode is that their energies are complementary, opposites. Since we're twins, our energies are too much alike for this. It's a totally different kind of power," Luke explained.
"Power I don't want Tarkin knowing he has," Leia said, concerned. "If he gets too much too fast, he'll think he can just push right over us--again!"
"He can't do anything with it without Jedi training or a proper channel," he assured her.
"So you will be the channel?" she asked.
"If they can create the energy," Luke said, "I can channel it into the megonite to create a crystal of sufficient size, yes."
"But do you think Tarkin can withstand it in his weakened condition?" Leia asked.
"You care?" Luke asked, almost sarcastically.
Leia hesitated. "I'm not sure, but I know you do," she observed.
"I don't know. The process may kill him," he answered. "I discussed that with him."
"He knows? And he's willing to go ahead with it?" she asked, strained.
He turned to face her. "Yes," he said simply.
She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, perhaps that would be for the best."
"But what if it doesn't kill him? What if they're successful, and the crystal works? Can you forgive and let go then?" her brother asked pointedly.
She let out a long sigh and averted her eyes. "We've come to an understanding, a truce if you will, a pact not to harm one another any more in the future. But I can never forgive Tarkin for Alderaan," she insisted.
"Then that's a burden you must bear, Leia," he warned her matter-of-fact.
"I understand that, Luke, but I feel it is my duty to bear it." She looked back into his eyes then. "I must bear the burden because part of it might have been my fault. I might have been able to save Alderaan, and perhaps the entire galaxy from this blasted war, and the Vong, had I not been so young and stupid!"
Luke stopped suddenly and seized his sister by the arm. "What?"
She sighed again. "Let's find a place to sit down. This is going to take awhile."
Much as Luke had done to her on that bridge in the Ewok village back on Endor before he faced their father for the last time, Leia poured her heart out to her brother, some of it angrily, some of it tearfully, recounting to him all that the Tarkins had told him. "I don't know what to believe, Luke, about Palpatine abdicating!" she cried, leaning her head on his shoulder. "If it was the truth, then--then--by the stars, Luke, I bear as much responsibility as Tarkin!"
He cut in, squeezing her tightly. "No, Leia, that's not true, because you didn't know. You couldn't have known."
They sat like that for a long time, arm in arm, Luke comforting his sister through the Force, waiting for Han's return. Enough time had now elapsed for him to have reached Corulag, extracted Morgana, and returned to Phelarion. "If he's not back by nightfall, then you can worry," Luke told her.
Raycellna brought them a tray of tea and wafers, and just as they finished it, Luke sensed something. He squeezed Leia's wrist indicatively. "Here they come," he reassured her. No sooner had he uttered the words than the Millennium Falcon entered Phelarion's atmosphere. Leia jumped to her feet, and with Luke and two guards in tow, she made her way toward the mine production building at a light jog, then a hard run as the ship touched down. It seemed to take the power riser forever to reach the roof.
The Millennium Falcon's ramp lowered, and Morgana Tarkin came down it, looking much worse for wear of her latest ordeal. Leia stopped mid-breath. Morgana met her eyes, then looked away. "I'm alone," she said softly. "Come with me, dear. I have a message for you, from your husband. He saved my life, you know. He's all right, as far as I could tell. He's . . . he's gone after your missing son. Your boy is alive."
"Jacen!" Leia gasped.
"I begged General Solo not to go back. I shouldn't have told him I could fly the ship. He asked me if I could, quite abruptly, and I answered before I knew what he had in mind."
"I'll go get in touch with Lando," Luke offered, leaving his sister with the Captain.
-- -- -- -- --
When General Lando Calrissian arrived on Phelarion, he met briefly with Morgana to learn from her what had transpired between the Vong and his buddy. "Where's the ship?" he asked when she'd finished relaying the story for the second time in as many days. She looked away for a moment. No. She'd had her day. She looked back at Calrissian, and smiled. "She's in the hangar at the security perimeter."
As Lando set out in search of Han, Luke and Typhani gathered a group of workers from the mine and instructed them to begin making preparations for the attempt at the crystal. Leia, in the interim, sent word to Ackbar that they were making ready for the attempt and that he should organize the placement of hundreds of signal amplification beacons and then come to Phelarion to retrieve the crystal, should the Tarkins be successful. With the Emperor and Empress occupied, and the Empress Apparent needed close at hand in case something should go wrong, Rivoche agreed to serve as her family's diplomatic liaison and meet the New Republic Fleet Commander at Port Tarkin. Adrian and Typhani retired to their suite to rest and prepare for the coming attempt at the crystal. Luke assured them he would come get them when the workers had completed the preparations.
Adrian thought back to his last moments aboard the Death Star as he considered that these may well be the final hours of his life. He and Typhani were on the settee in their sitting room off their bedroom, waiting, holding fast to one another.
Typhani finally spoke, her voice shaking. "Adrian, we don't have to do this," she reminded him.
He gazed into her eyes as they began to fill with tears. "Yes we do. You know we do."
"This is about Alderaan, isn't it?" she asked insistently.
He nodded slightly. "Yes. Alderaan . . . and Ghorman, Calamari, Omwat, Despayre--all of it. But it's also about Phelarion, and Eriadu, and Bastion, and our new nation, and our grandchildren . . . "
"But you might not survive this! I can't go on without you! I can't lose you again!" She cried openly now. Adrian took her face in his hands.
"Yes you can, Typhani. You did it before. You did it for twenty-five years. You're strong, and you can handle anything. That's why I fell in love with you."
She shook her head. "No. It was you. You were my strength! Knowing that you weren't really gone, and the hope that you might one day be brought back to me, that's the only thing that kept me going all those years!"
He drew her close and held her tightly. "I'll always be with you. We'll always be together," he reassured her, but it was little reassurance in the face of what was to come as someone knocked softly on the sitting room door.
Luke Skywalker stepped quietly into the room. "We just got word that the Vong are headed for Yavin and Yaga Minor. There's no time now. We have to proceed," he explained. Adrian and Typhani nodded to each other as they joined hands and rose from their settee to follow the Jedi Master out to the obelisk. Adrian turned back slightly to take in what might be one last glance at their suite, at the rooms where so much had transpired between them, and at last at the bed that he and his wife shared. On the way out to the plaza, he stopped at his study door one last time, just in case, and made sure the box of datacards containing his parting instructions for Typhani, Aerom, Valdemar, Daala, and Lyjéa remained in plain view next to his Imperial seal.
Outside, Luke had arranged for the grounds workers to move a large stone vessel from one of the gardens into the former burial chamber beneath the obelisk, and the moss harvesters had heaped it full with several dozen buckets of megonite. Luke stood behind the vessel, and indicated to the Emperor and Empress that they should stand directly beneath the apex of the obelisk. He addressed them as they took their positions.
"You must course your energies through each other, just as I showed you earlier. Most importantly, don't let go of each other. You must remain in contact for the energy to build sufficiently. Are you ready?"
Adrian addressed the Jedi decisively. "No matter what happens," he told him, drawing his wife close, "finish the crystal. Whatever you do, don't stop on my account." Then he turned back to Typhani, and their gazes met for what could possibly be the last time.
"I love you," they both said as each locked into the other's embrace.
"Be strong, Typhani," Adrian told her.
"Don't leave me!" Typhani cried as she felt their mutual energies connect, something they'd felt many, many times over the decades, but never before understood its nature, its power.
As they began to cycle their energies, a green light began to glow at the apex of the obelisk, and then spiral its way down the inner walls of the structure, following the metal beams that held the exterior black marble facing in place. Luke had deemed the obelisk the perfect draw for the energy, and as it gained strength and moved down toward him, he realized that he'd been right.
Adrian and Typhani began to move around just a bit to maintain their balance as the energy built and threatened to push them apart. At that, they mentally drew into each other, bonding their very souls as the green luminescent energy began to cascade over them.
Then Adrian went limp as he lost consciousness.
"No!" Typhani cried out as she sank to the floor with him, but she did not let go.