The Grand Admiral shifted his gaze slightly. “You would be well advised to keep your counsel to yourself, maitrakh. This particular son of the clan Kihm’bar has lied to me, and I do not take such matters lightly.” The glowing gaze shifted back. “Tell me, Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar, about your imprisonment on Kashyyyk.”
Leia squeezed her lightsaber hard, the cool metal ridges of the grip biting into the palm of her hand. It had been during Khabarakh’s brief imprisonment on Kashyyyk that he’d been persuaded to bring her here to Honoghr. If Khabarakh blurted out the whole story—
“I do not understand,” Khabarakh said.
“Really?” the Grand Admiral countered. “Then allow me to refresh your memory. You didn’t escape from Kashyyyk as you stated in your report and repeated last night in my presence and in the presence of your family and your clan dynast. You were, in fact, captured by the Wookiees after the failure of your mission. And you spent that missing month not meditating, but undergoing interrogation in a Wookiee prison. Does that help your memory any?”
Leia took a careful breath, not daring to believe what she was hearing. However it was the Grand Admiral had learned about Khabarakh’s capture, he’d taken that fact and run in exactly the wrong direction with it. They’d been given a second chance … if Khabarakh could hold on to his wits and poise a little longer.
Perhaps the maitrakh didn’t trust his stamina, either. “My thirdson would not lie about such matters, my lord,” she said before Khabarakh could reply. “He has always understood the duties and requirements of honor.”
“Has he, now,” the Grand Admiral shot back. “A Noghri commando, captured by the enemy for interrogation—and still alive? Is this the duty and requirement of honor?”
“I was not captured, my lord,” Khabarakh said stiffly. “My escape from Kashyyyk was as I said it.”
For a half dozen heartbeats the Grand Admiral gazed in his direction in silence. “And I say that you lie, Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar,” he said softly. “But no matter. With or without your cooperation I will have the truth about your missing month … and whatever the price was you paid for your freedom. Rukh?”
“My lord,” the third Noghri voice said.
“Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar is hereby placed under Imperial arrest. You and Squad Two will escort him aboard the troop shuttle and take him back to the Chimaera for interrogation.”
There was a sharp hiss. “My lord, this is a violation—”
“You will be silent, maitrakh,” the Grand Admiral cut her off. “Or you will share in his imprisonment.”
“I will not be silent,” the maitrakh snarled. “A Noghri accused of treason to the overclan must be given over to the clan dynasts for the ancient rules of discovery and judgment. It is the law.”
“I am not bound by Noghri law,” the Grand Admiral said coldly. “Khabarakh has been a traitor to the Empire. By Imperial rules will he be judged and condemned.”
“The clan dynasts will demand—”
“The clan dynasts are in no position to demand anything,” the Grand Admiral barked, touching the comlink cylinder pocketed beside his tunic insignia. “Do you require a reminder of what it means to defy the Empire?”
Leia heard the faint sound of the maitrakh’s sigh. “No, my lord,” she said, her voice conceding defeat.
The Grand Admiral studied her. “You shall have one anyway.”
He touched his comlink again—
And abruptly the interior of the dukha flashed with a blinding burst of green light.
Leia jerked her head back into Chewbacca’s legs, squeezing her eyelids shut against the sudden searing pain ripping through her eyes and face. For a single, horrifying second she thought that the dukha had taken a direct hit, a turbolaser blast powerful enough to bring the whole structure down in flaming ruin around them. But the afterimage burned into her retina showed the Grand Admiral still standing proud and unmoved; and belatedly she understood.
She was trying desperately to reverse her sensory enhancement when the thunderclap slammed like the slap of an angry Wookiee into the side of her head.
She would later have a vague recollection of several more turbolaser blasts, seen and heard only dimly through the thick gray haze that clouded over her mind, as the orbiting Star Destroyer fired again and again into the hills surrounding the village. By the time her throbbing head finally dragged her back to full consciousness the Grand Admiral’s reminder was over, the final thunderclap roiling away into the distance.
Cautiously, she opened her eyes, squinting a little against the pain. The Grand Admiral was still standing where he’d been, in the center of the dukha … and as the last thunderclap faded into silence he spoke. “I am the law on Honoghr now, maitrakh,” he said, his voice quiet and deadly. “If I choose to follow the ancient laws, I will follow them. If I choose to ignore them, they will be ignored. Is that clear?”
The voice, when it came, was almost too alien to recognize. If the purpose of the Grand Admiral’s demonstration had been to frighten the maitrakh half out of her mind, it had clearly succeeded. “Yes, my lord.”
“Good.” The Grand Admiral let the brittle silence hang in the air for another moment. “For loyal servants of the Empire, however, I am prepared to make compromises. Khabarakh will be interrogated aboard the Chimaera; but before that, I will allow the first stage of the ancient laws of discovery.” His head turned slightly. “Rukh, you will remove Khabarakh clan Kihm’bar to the center of Nystao and present him to the clan dynasts. Perhaps three days of public shaming will serve to remind the Noghri people that we are still at war.”
“Yes, my lord.”
There was the sound of footsteps, and the opening and closing of the double doors. Hunched against the ceiling above her, his sense in unreadable turmoil, Chewbacca rumbled softly to himself. Leia clenched her teeth, hard enough to send flashes of pain through her still throbbing head. Public shaming … and something called the laws of discovery.
The Rebel Alliance had unwittingly destroyed Honoghr. Now, it seemed, she was going to do the same to Khabarakh.
The Grand Admiral was still standing in the middle of the dukha. “You are very quiet, maitrakh,” he said.
“My lord ordered me to be silent,” she countered.
“Of course.” He studied her. “Loyalty to one’s clan and family is all well and good, maitrakh. But to extend that loyalty to a traitor would be foolish. As well as potentially disastrous to your family and clan.”
“I have not heard evidence that my thirdson is a traitor.”
The Grand Admiral’s lip twitched. “You will,” he promised softly.
He walked toward the double doors, passing out of Leia’s sight, and there was the sound of the doors opening. The footsteps paused, clearly waiting; and a moment later the quieter paces of the maitrakh joined him. Both left, the doors closed again, and Leia and Chewbacca were alone.
Alone. In enemy territory. Without a ship. And with their only ally about to undergo an Imperial interrogation. “I think, Chewie,” she said softly, “we’re in trouble.”
CHAPTER
14
One of the first minor truths about interstellar flight that any observant traveler learned was that a planet seen from space almost never looked anything at all like the official maps of it. Scatterings of cloud cover, shadows from mountain ranges, contour-altering effects of large vegetation tracts, and lighting tricks in general, all combined to disguise and distort the nice clean computer-scrubbed lines drawn by the cartographers. It was an effect that had probably caused a lot of bad moments for neophyte navigators, as well as supplying the ammunition for innumerable practical jokes played on those same neophytes by their more experienced shipmates.
It was therefore something of a surprise to find that, on this particular day and coming in from this particular angle, the major continent of the planet Jomark did indeed look almost exactly like a precisely detailed map. Of course, in all fairness, it was a pretty small continent to begin with.
Somewhere on that picture-perfect continent was a Jedi Master.
Luke tapped his fingers gently on the edge of his control board, gazing out at the greenish-brown chunk of land now framed in his X-wing’s canopy. He could sense the other Jedi’s presence—had been able to sense it, in fact, since first dropping out of hyperspace—but so far he’d been unable to make a more direct contact. Master C’baoth? he called silently, trying one more time. This is Luke Skywalker. Can you hear me?