Jaina Solo is not that easy to capture. The young commander and the priest soon discover that this Jedi is not only very agile and tricky, but also has many helpful allies. There is a battle over Hapes in which Jaina and her friends cause much harm to the Yuuzhan Vong troops. To really top it all off, young Solo girl grabs a certain villip and strokes it. After a moment, the scarred face of Warmaster Tsavong Lah appears.

"Greetings, Warmaster," Jaina says mockingly. "Do you still remember me? I'm Jacen Solo's twin sister."

"You will be sacrificed to the gods," Tsavong Lah grits out. "And then I'll rip your heart out of your body myself!"

A touch in the Force prevents Jaina from immediately coming up with a suitable response to this threat.

He told me back on Duro that I wasn't worthy of being killed by him personally, Jaina hears the silent but all too familiar voice ringing in her head. That's unfair!

Jacen!

༺༻

Meanwhile on Coruscant, now called Yuuzhan'tar

"What do I have to feel, Jacen?" Vergere says disappointedly to her protégé.

"But…" the young man gasps. "Tsavong Lah just said to Jaina that…!"

"Hogwash!" the purple bird creature cuts him off. "Are you really concerned about your sister or is there another motivation?"

"What other motivation could I have?" Jacen snaps at Vergere. "And anyway…what's that to you? Me and my twin sister have been connected by a unique bond in the Force - ever since we matured in our mother's womb. No matter how good you are at controlling the Force, you have no say at all, unless perhaps there was a large clutch of eggs in your home nest at the time."

"Jacen," Vergere raises a four-fingered hand in warning. "Isn't that more of a feeling of jealousy coming from you, since the Warmaster is currently more interested in your twin sister and not in you? After all, he hasn't even given you the honor of seeing you since you've been in our captivity."

"As far as I'm concerned, Tsavong Lah can die in any battle! I don't want to see him!"

"That's enough for now, young Solo! You will not use the Force to contact your twin sister again!"

Vergere makes a movement with her clawed hand and Jacen Solo is enveloped in a blinding light. When the light fades away again, Jacen realizes that he has become blind - blind to the Force - and the Force is for him.

"And now, young Solo – scurry back into the Embrace of Pain!"

༺༻

Jaina feels Jacen's flickering presence disappear again. As if from far away, she hears the Warmaster's voice reaching her ears.

"Hello, Jaina Solo! Are you still there?"

"Um, yeah… well, you said something like tearing my heart out. Are you still going to do this with your own hands?"

"Yes, of course, you are definitely worth it to me!" Tsavong Lah asserts.

Jaina laughs. "That's all well and good – I feel honored. But if you still have your own hands, you're probably not that high up in the hierarchy after all."

"That's not true at all!" Tsavong Lah says angrily. "My left arm is a radank's leg! And my right foot a vua'sa claw."

Jaina's voice turns caustic. "Oh, really? Who cares. I advise you, let someone else carry on. One who has real authority and doesn't carry so many spare parts."

Tsavong Lah howls in anger. "With those words, you have earned yourself much pain!"

"Empty promises," Jaina says nonchalantly and with a wave of her hand she puts the villip back to sleep.

"Jacen lives!" Jaina shouts through the Trickster, as she lovingly named her ship after the Yuuzhan Vong goddess of ruse and trickery.

"I felt it too," says Zekk, standing next to Jaina.

Lowbacca bleats. "Yes, Lowie, I know," Jaina says to him soothingly. "I also feel that I will be reunited with Jacen soon, even though he seems to be in a pretty bad mood right now."

Jaina activates a second villip and looks into Khalee Lah's equally scarred and gray face - a younger version of the Warmaster with a small, thick horn on his forehead.

She doesn't even get to greet the commander. "I'll get you, human!" the young warrior hisses. "I swear it, by the gods, by my domain, and by my sacred honor!"

"Dude, just relax!" Jaina chirps cheerfully and with a gentle wave she turns the gray face inside the Villip again.

Khalee Lah stares in disbelief as his villip retreats his inner life back. "She called me dude! ... What an insult!" he shouts through the priest ship.

Harrar folds his hands in front of his chest in concern. "But that's not the main reason for your displeasure, is it, Khalee Lah?"

Two warriors pass by and grin at each other at their commander's outburst of emotion.

"Challenge accepted!" Khalee Lah roars.

With his blood already whipped to a boiling point, he rushes at the two silent blasphemers and effortlessly kills them with his amphistaff. With a decidedly neutral expression on their faces, two other warriors rush over to carry away the bodies of their comrades.

"The battle was a defeat," Khalee says frankly to Harrar when they are alone in the room again. "The Jeedai escaped. It seems that I was infected with heresy when I spoke to you about Tenel Ka in this way. Otherwise the gods would have at least allowed me to fall gloriously in battle if this Jeedai cannot be converted to the True Way. My failure now tarnishes the name of my domain. And the name of the Warmaster you call your friend."

Harrar recognizes the implied request. He takes a mechanical explosive device from the infidels and hands it to the warrior. "I will report to Tsavong Lah that his blood relative died in battle through Jeedai tricks, sacrificed by his own men. Take this with you on your ship and it will happen like this."

Khalee Lah bows his head respectfully, accepts the mechanical abomination and leaves the room without another word.

Harrar awakens the Villip, which connects him to the Warmaster.

"Well, my friend, how is this part of the Twin Sacrifice mission going?"

Tsavong Lah's expression at this question is not necessarily one of skepticism, but Harrar senses that something must have happened since their last conversation on this matter that he was not informed of. "I am saddened to inform you that your son was killed by fire from our own troops."

Tsavong Lah raises an eyebrow on his stony face. "How could this happen?"

"Warmaster, Jaina Solo has proven herself to be a worthy opponent beyond expectation," says Harrar. "She manipulated the individual gravity signatures of our ships in such a way that the Yammosk believed they were enemy ships. So fire was opened on several of our frigates - too early, before we realized our mistake. So it might be a while before the twin sacrifice takes place."

"That is the will of the gods," Tsavong Lah replies, seemingly unmoved. "Continue the pursuit and we will discuss this matter further later."

Harrar is taken aback. The fact that the Warmaster is so indifferent about Jaina Solo's escape fills him with great concern. Does the Warmaster no longer believe that the mission will be successful? Or is Tsavong Lah simply saving the punishment of the unsuccessful priest – friendship or not – for later?

Less than two minutes later, Khalee Lah is back in the priest's private room. In his long-clawed hand he holds the explosive device, which is still intact.

"It didn't work," he squeezes out. "Fucking technology!"

Before Harrar's very eyes the commander smashes the malfunctioning device with verve on the black shiny floor, where with an audible clank it bounces up a few times – followed by Harrar's warily looking black eyes – until it ceases to move and lies still – without an explosion.

Harrar does suppress a sigh of relief, then he gives the young man a knowing smile. "Well, things like that happen sometimes. But maybe the gods don't like that you want to run away from your fate like that, Commander."

"But what should I do now?" Khalee Lah shouts. "I swore a blood oath to the Warmaster to capture the Jeedai for this twin sacrifice!"

"An oath, my dear friend, can be redeemed with things other than blood."

Khalee Lah's yellow maa'its are getting bigger. "What do you mean, Your Eminence?"

"We will seek an audience with the Queen Mother of Hapes to negotiate certain benefits for our fleet on Hapes. It could be arranged for Tenel Ka to also take part in this conversation."

"Tenel Ka?" asks Khalee Lah, suddenly filled with euphoria. "What should I do?"

"First of all, don't do anything," the priest instructs the young man. "As long as we are down there in the royal palace or even on the planet Hapes only, you say nothing, do nothing, and above all, do not shout or kill anyone, especially not emotionally, unless I specifically order it."

Priest Harrar looks down at the planet Hapes. There's a lot of green down there, rivers and white glaciers on both polar ice caps - a diverse world that he's looking forward to enter. Not that he wants this war to end here and now, but he longs to have a real home to call his own in the not too distant future - one that is not constantly flying from place to place - either to attack or on the run.

"If we just talk on Hapes now and don't leave any troops behind, would your Eminence like to use the forces saved in this way to make a well-planned advance into the so-called Chiss Ascendancy?" the commander tears him out of his leisure again.

Harrar raises a hand.

"Maybe after the twin sacrifice," he tells Khalee Lah, but he actually hopes that a fight with this not yet very well-researched and therefore unpredictable opponent will only take place much, much later.