CHAPTER NINETEEN

Feathering the foot pedals, Jacen gingerly tested the clawcraft's responsiveness in its first seconds of flight. It hovered effortlessly and rotated, swooping around so the walls of the auxiliary hangar careened by.

He whistled appreciatively. "Wow. I could get used to this."

Jacen had flown plenty of Imperial-based models – squints, eyeballs, dupes – and simmed on many more. He'd even simmed on the clawcraft. What pilot hadn't? And based on the sims anybody with an ounce of pilot's blood would have given a limb for the opportunity to actually fly the superior Chiss fighter. For most, though, sims were the closest they ever got. Yet here Jacen was, flying one. Flying Jag Fel's clawcraft!

The sims had given Jacen a good idea of how beautifully designed and artfully crafted the clawcraft truly was. But the real thing was so much better. He eased the yoke forward, urging the fighter toward the blackness of space waiting just beyond the magcon field. The shimmering curtain buzzed and glinted as the tips of the four forward sweeping wings nudged their way toward freedom. A second later the cockpit passed the barrier, and Jacen experienced that glorious first moment of weightless flight.

Instead of fighting the pull of gravity with sublight engines or thrusters, Jacen flipped off the repulsors and allowed the gravitational tug of Vikova's massive multi-colored sphere to take hold of the clawcraft. The fighter fell and rotated, offering an impressive view of the Chiss battlecruiser as it drifted away. Jacen might have spent some more time free-falling toward the planet below, admiring the structure and functionality of the Polar Wind out his canopy, but there was the matter of procedure. His comm had begun beeping – in time with a flashing red light on the console – and Jacen realized he hadn't confirmed any critical details with Jag. Namely, what the Chiss would do when they realized Jacen was flying Jag's clawcraft.

"Nammock dun ka, faton dra dra ot."

"Uh oh." Panic came and went in the course of a single breath. A simple Jedi healing technique had purged his body's systems of the last remaining effects of the red ale, and Jacen silently thanked the Force for the renewed clarity it brought. A critical slip might endanger Jag's fighter, and he couldn't afford that.

As the disembodied Chiss voice spoke again in Jacen's ear, he figured the first order of business was to not get blasted into vacuum dust by the Polar Wind's dorsal batteries. Clicking his comm button twice in rapid succession, Jacen drove the nimble fighter into a steep climb, skimming the battlecruiser's sleek hull. With skill that substantiated his Solo heritage he buzzed the command tower, passing within a fighter's length of the transparisteel viewport. He imagined the Chiss watch officer ducking in surprise – even the blue-skinned humanoids had to register spontaneous alarm – and chuckled.

A string of virulent Chiss shouts in Jacen's ear brought the burgeoning hilarity to an abrupt end. Thanks to his sister, Jacen knew every form and variety of Chiss curse – who would ever have guessed such a dispassionate race could express such vitriol? And he definitely was getting an earful now. Deciding to throw the flight officer for one last loop, Jacen powered up the transponder as he swung away from the Polar Wind on a direct vector for the planet below.

The incensed tirade ended as quickly as it had begun. The Chiss flight officer's contrition was not lost in translation. It is good to be flying Ambassador Jagged Fel's personal clawcraft, Jacen thought.

Laughing at his own prank, he waggled the sweeping wings in a farewell. By the time they determined he had never actually answered the comm, Jacen figured he would be planetside – and under Iliana's protection.

Iliana's protection. For some reason Jacen perceived the Vikovan leader as a force to be reckoned with, although he wasn't sure being indebted to her was a position he really wanted to be in. He might not be sure of the nuances within her planet's political and social hierarchy, or even how Iliana came into power, but Jacen was sure of one thing. Iliana knew what she wanted, and more times than not she got it.

And that meant she was not going to be happy when she found out about Jag.

Unconsciously, Jacen patted his lightsaber. Just to be sure.

The first tug of the ionosphere kicked the clawcraft abruptly to port, and Jacen snatched the yoke with both hands. Apparently the fighter's responsiveness went both ways – sensitive to the pilot, but just as sensitive to atmospheric influences.

With a steady hand on the stick and a few minor adjustments to the foot pedals, Jacen balanced the list and smoothed out the atmospheric entry trajectory.

"Easy enough," Jacen said to no one in particular.

Now it was time to contact Vikovan Control. A short conversation confirmed the coordinates of his landing destination – the Vikovan Palace. Coupling that information with experience, he started the first sweeping loop of his approach. Carefully performed S-curves were critical for bleeding kinetic energy and speed safely… and another great opportunity to see exactly what this flying masterpiece could do.

He was barely into the upper stratosphere when the comm chimed, interrupting the peaceful interplay of pilot and fighter. A high cloud enveloped the clawcraft, and for a brief moment Jacen pretended he was alone, truly alone, and that no one was demanding his attention. Then the cloud was gone – and the chime was back.

Glancing at the comm frequency, he confirmed his hunch that the incoming transmission was from the Polar Wind and not Vikovan Control. In the middle of pondering how and why to explain his presence in their Ambassador's personal fighter, the Chiss forced his hand.

"Knight Solo, what is your destination?"

"How'd you know it was me, Major Nuruodo?"

There was a distinct pause. "Simple deduction, Knight Solo. Ambassador Fel has not pulled a stunt like that since… A Chiss would not abuse the privilege of flying for the CEDF. Such a brazen maneuver could only be –"

"You thought I was Jaina!"

Another pause.

"Admit it. You thought I was Jaina."

"Admittedly, Knight Solo, I believed you to be more… controlled than your sister."

"Ah." Jacen's mouth curled. For some reason that thought was troubling, even though the Chiss warrior meant it as a compliment. While considering the implications, he straightened from the latest turn, then feathered up on the foot rudders to decelerate his descent.

"Your destination, Knight Solo?"

"Right. About that… Uh, hold on." The clawcraft shuddered as it shed velocity. Time for the repulsors. The problem was, Jacen was distracted enough that he had momentarily forgotten where the repulsors were located. The Chiss had made enough modifications to the TIE cockpit that the placement wasn't instinctive. To top that off, everything was written in Chiss.

"Your destination." Shawnkyr sounded… perturbed.

"Yeah. Give me a sec." Jacen released the comm trigger, then ran his finger in a scanning pattern from one section of the controls to the next. No. No. The wingtips started to chatter. Come on. You just used them to lift off the flightdeck, bantha brains. The simple thought triggered his memory and Jacen's hand shot to the control.

"That one!"

Jacen flipped up the two switches simultaneously – port and starboard – and waited for the distinct sensation of floating that would follow once the field generators countered the effects of gravity.

What happened instead caused his stomach to do somersaults and his heart to jump in his throat. Somehow the fighter lurched to starboard, and Jacen found himself hanging precariously in his crashbelts as the clawcraft began a spiraling dive toward the planet's surface.

"Knight Solo, I must insist you explain why you are in possession of a fighter that belongs to the CEDF, and that you make your intent known," Shawnkyr snipped amidst the blare of warning klaxons.

"Why don't –" Jacen slapped off the repulsors amid his grunted response. "– you ask Jag?"

"Ambassador Fel is currently unreachable, and – Are those alarms?"

With some muscle on the yoke and fancy footwork – literally – Jacen convinced the clawcraft to emerge from the corkscrew fall. He grinned as the fighter planed and leveled. "Lost your Ambassador, Major Nuruodo?"

"From a certain point of view, Knight So-"

"Jacen. Call me Jacen." Unsure of his next step, he scrutinized the repulsor controls. Having corrected his course and heading, Jacen was nearing his final approach.

"Jacen," Shawnkyr replied begrudgingly.

"Thanks. Just for that I'll tell you what I do know…" Jacen paused when the clawcraft began to rattle again. He needed to get those repulsors working.

"Which is?"

"Jag's gone on a mission with my sister." Probably just a glitch on those repulsors last time. "Top secret." The Chiss are maintenance freaks. "So secret even I don't know the details." Jag is a maintenance freak. "He said the mission was crucial to Chiss, uh, relations." They wouldn't leave Jag's clawcraft half-repaired. He'd have their blue hides. Daring fate, Jacen chanced a restart on the repulsors. "He said to tell you to che-EAAAACK–"

Fate, of course, thought it a laughing matter. The clawcraft pitched abruptly to starboard before tumbling end over end into a twisting plunge. Everything out the canopy was a mess of greens, blues and earthen tones – like one of Jaina's awful fingerpaintings from their childhood – that spun and spun endlessly while alarms clanged from every corner of the cockpit.

"-peat! Check what?" Shawnkyr shouted in his ear.

"Not good." Generations of pilots' blood ran option after option through Jacen's mind.

"Knight Solo!"

His hands flew and feet danced looking for a solution, and all the while his stomach tossed along with the nauseating fall.

"Your status!"

With a bellow, Jacen finally just tried to muscle the fighter into conforming to his demands.

To no avail. The world below just kept spinning. His brain kept on whirling too, and his insides revolted in new ways.

"Jacen!"

Shawnkyr! With the ground rushing at him, Jacen realized she might be his only hope. He stopped arguing with the fighter and triggered the comm. "Starboard repulsor malfunction." A quick breath. "Need. Help."

"Malfunction? What are you talking about? I personally ordered Jag's clawcraft repair-"

"Not fixed!" Jacen was certain he was going to be sick, but he focused on staying calm, on not giving into his fears. That wasn't easy with the Vikovan Palace now clearly evident amidst the swirl of images beneath him.

"That is impossible."

"Tell that to Jag –" Breath. "– when you peel the remains –" Breath. "– of his clawcraft –" Gasp. "– off Iliana's roof."

"Turn on the data relay."

Jacen drew his eyes away from the churning vision of impending doom to look for the switch. "Frag! Everything's in Chiss."

"Transponder section," Shawnkyr barked. "Upper right –"

Saw it. "Got it!" Punched it.

Then he waited. Fortunately, Shawnkyr was quick.

"The power junction relay is shorted. Follow my procedures."

"Go!"

"Blue switch to power down."

"Done."

"Underneath release switch to drop panel."

Jacen flicked the panel's emergency release. "Done."

"Remove starboard relay." Jacen already had yanked out the duplicated yellow wires. "Stub port relay." His fingers were a blur of motion. "Tie into starboard re-"

"Way ahead of you, Major." He might not be half the starship tech his sister was, but Jacen had been rewiring shorted relays for as long as he could remember. "Initializing repulsors. Now!"

With a sudden jolt the clawcraft righted itself. Just in time to reveal that Jacen was seconds away from crashing the starfighter straight into a massive stone wall. The Palace, presumably.

"Jacen? Are you –"

"Ambassador Fel!" Vikovan Control was on the emergency comm channel. "Follow approach vector one-two-four immediately!"

"It worked," Jacen told Shawnkyr. "Gotta go. Thanks, Major." He pulled on the yoke with all his strength and swerved the fighter into a sharp turn to port. He closed his eyes – that way when he told Jag he didn't know how close he'd come to crashing, it would be the truth.

He opened his eyes and checked his heading. A small shift of the yoke and he was right back on course for the Palace's hangar. Jacen flicked the comm switch. "My apologies, Control. Just… ah… well, a slight malfunction. Situation normal."

"Copy, Ambassador," the male voice replied. Quite skeptically, it seemed. "You are cleared to land in bay 94."

"Ninety-four," Jacen said. "Vanguard Lead out."

Much to Jacen's delight, the last thirty seconds of his flight were entirely uneventful. He set the clawcraft down smoothly, then slumped back in the seat and ran his fingers through his hair. How is it, he wondered, that I can fly through an entire battle and not fear for my life, but a simple atmospheric descent is too much for me to handle? A few deep breaths and a long moment immersed in the Force cleared his mind and slowed his pounding heartbeat.

"I survived this," he muttered. "Iliana can't be any worse."

He unbuckled his crashbelts, hit the cockpit's hatch release, and hopped out. After a quick tug smoothed out his flight suit, Jacen strode quickly toward the group of Vikovan dignitaries who had gathered in the hangar bay to greet Ambassador Fel. No doubt it was already clear to them that he was not the man they were expecting, so there was no point in delaying the inevitable.

As he drew closer Jacen appraised the individuals waiting for him. Iliana, of course. A dozen of her advisors he recognized from the fete. Six of her guards, decked out in full armor and armament. And standing between Iliana and one of the guards, a man dressed in prisoner's garb and restrained on the wrists and ankles by stuncuffs.

Stuncuffs. Jacen couldn't help but smile.

A disturbance in the Force yanked his focus back to the prisoner. A long, vicious scar crossed the left side of his face, and his flaming red hair made a sharp contrast to his dark eyes. The man was peering at Jacen so intently that his hand reflexively moved to his lightsaber. He felt the man's intention the split-second before –

"A Jedi!" the prisoner exclaimed, already spinning toward the guard at his side and reaching out with his cuffed hands. "I've been betrayed!"

– but not soon enough to stop him. The prisoner snatched the guard's blaster pistol from its hip holster and opened fire at point blank range. The guard dropped.

Another shot, and the next guard fell too.

Jacen burst forward, powering his feet with the Force and igniting the lightsaber in his hand. The prisoner spun toward Iliana with the blaster held ready. For a moment Jacen considered throwing his blade to slice the pistol in two, but he knew that would endanger too many innocent bystanders. Instead he extended his other hand and prepared to stretch out with the Force –

When one of the surviving guards delivered a violent chopping blow with his arm that knocked the pistol clean out of the prisoner's hands. Another guard charged the prisoner, but the red-haired man somehow ducked around the attempted tackle.

Jacen was closing the distance rapidly, but the melee in front of him already had become impenetrable chaos. The advisors were scattering in all directions. The four surviving guards were a blur of motion. The prisoner bobbed and weaved, punched and lunged. Iliana backed away. Shouts. Punches. Screams.

He was almost there now. The prisoner was prone. Two guards had him pinned him to the floor while the other two moved in –

The distinctive high-pitched pwing of a single blaster shot sheared the air.

The prisoner slumped lifelessly at the very moment Jacen's boots thumped to a stop. He looked up to see Iliana aiming the discarded blaster pistol straight at the prisoner's chest. Two guards took up positions at her sides while the other pair rose to their feet.

At some point during the melee klaxons had begun to sound and emergency lights had started flashing. Blaring sirens echoed throughout the hangar bay in a deafening peal.

One of the guards tapped his wrist. "All clear," he said. "Repeat, all clear."

A moment later the spacious chamber fell eerily quiet.

With a hiss Jacen's lightsaber retracted into its handle. "Why did you do that?"

Iliana met his gaze and narrowed her eyes. Then she glanced away, took one last look at the corpse, and passed the blaster pistol to the closest guard.

"He was beaten," Jacen said. "It was over."

"We don't know that," Iliana replied. Her voice was as cold as ice.

"Two of your guards had him –"

"He already had killed two others. He was still a threat."

"How?"

"Tell me, Jedi Solo," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "What were his capabilities? His skills? His means of attack even while prone?"

Jacen hesitated. "I didn't mean –"

"Not all of us are blessed with magical powers to foresee the future." She shrugged. "Perhaps if I could have known with certainty he was no longer a threat…"

"The risk was low," Jacen insisted. "You didn't need to kill him."

Iliana remained impassive. "It was necessary."

In the Force he sensed not a single shred of regret or remorse in Iliana's presence. There was something else whispering in the ether too. Something… elusive.

Betrayal.

The prisoner had felt betrayed. Had been betrayed. How? And why? Most importantly, by whom? Jacen didn't have time to figure that out right now. Yet he perceived something in the Force all the same – the prisoner wasn't the only one being betrayed.

Iliana raised an eyebrow.

For the briefest instant his heart stopped beating, Jacen wondered if Iliana had attended the Princess Leia Organa Solo School of Intimidating Demeanors. "Your Grace?"

"Unless you suddenly have become a master of disguise," she said, "it would seem you are not Ambassador Fel."

Jacen swallowed hard. He was very glad his lightsaber handle was still in his hand, not clipped back to his belt. "True."

Iliana only continued that most unnerving stare.

"The Chiss haven't contacted you?"

Stare.

"They will shortly."

Stare.

"I apologize for the error. It won't happen again."

Stare.

"Well… um… I can explain."

"Indeed?" Iliana began to stride toward the open portal on the far wall, and motioned for him to follow. "Then by all means, Jacen Solo, please do."