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  "You're the boss."

  The bearded man eyed his companion. In his experience, You're the boss

  always meant, I'll shut up for now, then put a vibroblade in your back when the

  profit is highest. He mentally crossed his companion off his "useful" list and

  moved him to "expendable."

  "I'll get things started," he said. "Thanks for the tip."

  "Anytime."

  The bearded man moved off toward his personal transport, a late-model

  landspeeder paid for by information he'd furnished to the Peace Brigade. If

  these were the Solos, he might be able to afford a personal spacecraft now--even

  factoring in the sum his companion's elimination would cost.

  On the balcony of their rented quarters, Leia sat, her ankles crossed on

  the railing before her, and entered notes.

  Things were going well... mostly. The Talon Karrde organization had already

  led her to a pair of retired - semiretired-smugglers who were trusted by Karrde

  and Whose enthusiasm for hunkering down in anticipation of the Yuuzhan Vong

  invasion matched hers. With their experience, they could find their own bases of

  operations, could even help with the acquisition of some vehicles and other

  equipment. What Han and Leia had to do now was help them set up a communications

  system, a combination holocomm and comlink that could transmit and receive the

  short, hard-to-track data packets that were the essence of resistance

  communications.

  But Leia set her notes aside for a moment, distracted by the view. Below

  the balcony, a small lake stretched into the distance; its far shore was at the

  base of a low line of hills, and Aphran, the planet's sun, was now setting

  beyond them. It was a red-gold orb, distorted by distance and atmosphere. The

  hills cast shadows over the distant part of the lake, while sunbeams illuminated

  the nearer portions, turning the water from green-blue to a brilliant gold.

  It was only a sunset. She'd seen lovely sunsets all over the galaxy. But it

  had been some time since she'd paid attention to one, appreciated one.

  This sunset meant nothing in the face of Yuuzhan Vong invasions, the death

  of Anakin, the disappearance of Jacen, her long separations from the rest of her

  family. But just for this moment, those sacrifices didn't dig pain into her, and

  she could appreciate what she was seeing, its simple beauty.

  "Bottle that and sell it, and we could make a fortune."

  Leia started. She looked up to where Han stood behind her. The energy field

  that kept the cooler air inside their quarters also muffled sound, so it hadn't

  been too difficult for him to sneak up on her. He stared into the distance,

  watching the golden rays retreating as the sun continued its descent, and for

  once there was no self-deprecating humor, no expression of suspicion or cynicism

  on his face. Just contemplation.

  Leia reached up to take his hand. He settled into the chair next to hers.

  "How were your errands?" she asked. "Pretty good. The inventory is about half

  done, and the locals haven't found any irregularities." His last words were

  private code, agreed upon before the Falcon had set out on this series of

  missions. Irregularities meant the smuggling compartments and the shielded

  escape pod; those secrets remained intact. "And I was able to make some

  purchases. Cabinets. I need to arrange for their delivery." So he'd been able to

  find the comm gear he needed, but delivery to wait until the new resistance

  leaders locally had a place for it. "You?"

  "Oh, I may have made some new friends."

  "That's good. You know what?"

  "What?"

  "I don't want to talk about work anymore today."

  "Me, either."

  Borleias

  Tam and Wolam sat in the pilot's seats of Wolam's shuttle. Once a military

  blastboat, it had been stolen from the Empire early in Wolam's career and

  gradually converted to a lightly armed mobile office. Now it sat in the kill

  zone in front of the biotics building, one of the tew vehicles internally lit at

  this nighttime hour.

  In the absence of true broadcaster facilities, Wolam did have a less

  comprehensive set of tools built into the ship's computer, and now he and Tam

  looked over their last couple of days' recordings, annotating them, choosing

  which to use and which to discard in Wolam's next historical documentary.

  "Here's one." Wolam paused the image and then tapped the figure of one

  mechanic working energetically on an X-wing engine.

  "A mechanic," Tam said.

  "A female mechanic." Wolam dialed the image so that the woman expanded to

  fill the screen. "Corellian, unmarried. Good looking. I spoke with her for a few

  minutes while you were showing Tarc the zoom functions."

  "Ah. I see. We now take a break from work so you can once again try to set

  me up with a woman."

  "That's correct."

  "And I should seek her out because she's good looking. Not that she isn't..

  . but am I that shallow?"

  "At your age, you should be."

  Tam sighed and took the recording off pause. It continued on, focusing for

  a few more moments on that X-wing and its crew, before blanking. A moment later,

  the image of the biotics building's main lobby snapped into focus.

  "More important, now's not the time," Tam said. "I. have a few things to

  get through first. Such as my reputation as a traitor."

  "A reputation that exists only in your own mind."

  "And the fact that all my savings were on Coruscant. The fact that all my

  possessions fit in a bag that I have no trouble lifting."

  "So seek out a woman who isn't as shallow as I wish you were."

  "What's this?" The image on the screen became jerky, blurring across a sea

  of waists and belt buckles. Then it rose, and Wolam's face appeared on the

  screen, saturated with light, recorded from about waist height. The recorded

  Wolam grimaced and tried to turn his face out of the glare. "Oh, that's young

  Tarc's recording."

  "That's right, our second tour of the building."

  "I think he was experimenting with the notion of using the holocam glow rod

  as a weapon."

  Tam snorted, then became serious again. "Wolam, he doesn't belong here."

  "True."

  "And the Solos-well, I don't have any criticism of them, they have their

  duties, but they're not exactly around here much. They're just momentary

  reassurances for him."

  "Yes. They've accepted responsibility for him, despite their inability to

  be available to him at all times, because he needs someone, and no one else is

  that someone."

  "Pretty much the way you accepted responsibility for me, ten years ago."

  Wolam shook his head. "Not quite. You were sixteen, more or less an adult."

  "Just like now."

  Wolam smiled. "Tam, listen. If you have a failing, it's that you don't

  seize the initiative, don't grasp the opportunities that are before you. Such as

  going out and spending the occasional rowdy evening with people your Own age-

  there are plenty here, including that mechanic. Such as finding out for yourself

  that your worries about your reputation as a traitor are unfounded. But that

  railing is not too great a sin. Its consequences eat at
you, but don't hurt

  anyone except you. You don't hurt other people, you do a necessary job quietly

  and well, and when a hard task moves into your path-such as shaking off the

  domination of the Yuuzhan Vong-you accomplish that task."

  "Eventually."

  "I'm trying to say, as your friend rather than as your employer, that I'm

  proud of you, and I wish you were proud of yourself."

  Tam met Wolam's eyes, then looked away, concentrating on the screen again

  rather than let Wolam see tears trying to form. "Wolam, that hoy needs somebody.

  When it comes time to shove off Borleias, I want to take him along with me. With

  us, if you'll have him along."

  "See there? Another task accepted. A gigantic one compared to shaking off

  Yuuzhan Vong brainwashing - accepting responsibility for a whole, entire child.

  But have you asked him? Have you talked to the Solos?"

  "No. I will. And if any of them say no, then it's no. But I think Tarc

  deserves the offer."

  "I think you're right. And of course, I'd be happy for him to come along.

  If he can learn to stop spinning, he could be a useful backup holocam operator."

  Tam grinned.

  On the screen, Tarc's low-point-of-view recording continued, catching both

  Tam and Wolam as they marched down one of the biotics building's basement

  hallways.

  Something on a wall over a doorway flashed with reflective light, just for

  a moment, then disappeared as the holocam view progressed.

  Tam sat upright. "Hold it." He paused the recording, then reversed it until

  that door frame came into view again.

  "What is it?"

  "I'm not sure." He wasn't sure, but if it was what he thought it was, it

  was bad news.

  He scrolled the screen view back and forth across that one second of

  recording. One moment, the wall above the door frame was blank, then there was

  that reflection, then it was blank again.

  "Are you sure now?"

  "Let's go look."

  It was a low-security hallway, though there were higher-security doors on

  it; they were protected by keypads and alarms, and around the corner from the

  portion of the hallway where they stood, doors providing access to the Twin Sun

  Squadron's special turbolift were guarded by security personnel.

  But here there were two doors immediately across from one another. The one

  on the left had a keypad access and was marked ENVIRONMENT. The one on the tight

  led to a well-packed utility closet.

  Tam reached up over that doorway and ran his finger along the wall. After a

  few centimeters of paint, his fingertip encountered a smoother substance, though

  no change in the wall texture was visible to him. The smoothness ran for perhaps

  ten centimeters, then turned to paint texture again.

  "I saw that," Wolam said. "What was it?"

  "A Yuuzhan Vong toy. When they had control of me, I put one up on the wall

  outside Danni Quee's laboratory. Watch this." Tam stroked the thing along its

  left edge, a combination he'd been taught during his brief, painful, life-

  changing stay among the Yuuzhan Vong.

  Vibrant colors suddenly appeared on the patch of material. They showed the

  keypad on the door opposite showed hands moving across the keys, tapping in an

  access code.

  Tam looked at Wolam. His expression was unhappy, He pulled a comlink out

  from a pocket. "Tam Elgrin to Comm Main Control, put me through to the

  Intelligence office."

  "This is Comm Main, say again your name and authority."

  "This is Tam Elgrin. I'm one of the civilians on base."

  "Oh. Right. You're that civilian. Who did you want again?"

  "The Intelligence office."

  "The Intelligence office isn't staffed every hour of the day, and you

  aren't authorized to demand the attention of the head of the department. I'm

  amazed you're authorized to remain on Borleias."

  Tam covered over the microphone portion with his palm. He offered Wolam a

  cynical smile. "So my reputation is all in my imagination, huh?"

  "Give me that."

  Tam handed the comlink over.

  "Hello, this is Wolam Tser. I, too, want to speak to the director of

  Intelligence, or the director of Security, and I mean immediately."

  Tam moved to the keypad and tapped at several of its keys. There was an

  audible click from the lock and the door slid up and open. Beyond were floor-to-

  ceiling hanks of mechanical and electronic equipment and a narrow, worker-sized

  gap between them.

  No, you're just Tam Elgrin again, changing his voice, and if you continue

  to broadcast on this frequency, I'm eoing to have you dragged through the kill

  zone behind a landspeeder."

  "State your name and rank."

  "I'm Warrant Officer Urman Nakk, Security."

  "Warrant Officer Urman Nakk, Security, are you widely considered to be an

  idiot?"

  "What?"

  "Because in less than a day, I can guarantee that you will be. By your

  fellow security officers. By your superiors. By your family and your pets. By

  the officers who court-martial you. And the taint will stay with you throughout

  your life, because I am a brilliant historian and commentator and you are, at

  best, a mediocre desk pilot. This will happen despite your best efforts...

  unless you hand me over to one of the officers I asked for, right now!"

  Tam gave Wolam a thumbs-up of approval. He took a step into the niche. Then

  he backed out again and bent over, studying the floor of the electronics-access

  closet. "I, ah, I, hold on."

  Tam reached down to the seam where the metal floor of the closet met the

  duracrete floor of the hallway. He lifted, and the floor came up, revealing a

  hole in the duracrete beneath. The hole was smooth-edged but irregular, lacking

  the mathematically precise curve of something cut by machinery.

  A noise floated up out of the hole. It seemed to come from a great

  distance, but it was recognizable: a wail of despair, of pain. Tam sat down at

  its edge, dangling his legs into the hole. "I'm going down."

  "No, you're not,"

  "I'm seizing the initiative, Wolam."

  "No, you're waiting for an officer to come on rhe comlink."

  Tam pushed the portion of metal flooring over until it leaned against a

  panel of machinery and would not fall across the hole. Then he slid down into

  the hole.

  "Tam, blast it, don't do what I say, do what I mean."

  Nine

  The tunnel did not descend in a straight line. Tam didn't expect it to. It

  was something of the Yuuzhan Vong, and they never did anything in straight

  lines.

  But that, and the fact that it had been bored through duracrete, meant that

  Tam could clamber down rather than drop to a messy, bone-breaking stop at the

  bottom.

  Another scream floated up at him, louder. A few meters down, the duraerete

  gave way to bedrock, then became duraerete again; it looked as though there were

  sub-basements below, levels that perhaps were not accessed by the public

  turbolifts and emergency stairwells, and the Yuuzhan Vong intruder had found

  them. Tam could see, even dig his fingers into smaller side holes in this

  tunnel; he supposed that whatever stone-eating
organisms had made the tunnels

  had first dug around in all directions and then conveyed images or other

  knowledge to the Yuuzhan Vong spy who commanded them, allowing him or her to

  choose which path the main tunnel would follow.

  He found a larger niche, two meters deep and one high. Its bottom was lined

  with some sort of mossy substance; he'd seen it before, one type of sleep

  surface.

  There were also gelatinlike bags he knew to contain bio-engineered

  creatures that performed various functions when released from the jelly. He'd

  possessed some of them when he served the Yuuzhan Vong.

  There was another scream, and the sound of voices speaking. He slowed his

  descent, tried to make it quieter.

  A few more meters, and the hole opened up into a chamber. Lights flickered

  red and blue down there, suggesting a computer terminal screen rather than

  overhead illumination.

  And finally Tam could understand one of the voices. It was a male, and he

  spoke Basic with the halting accent and peculiar rhythm he'd come to associate

  with a member of the Yuuzhan Vong trying not to reveal his true origins.

  "Where is the true crystal?" he asked.

  There was no immediate response. Then there was another shriek. The next

  speaker also sounded male, though his words were distorted by pain: "It's gone.

  It's been taken to the pipefighter already."

  "The pipefighter abominations are still in the flat building. They have not

  fired upon us. They leave the lambent in that building when guards are more

  numerous here?"

  "Yes, yes-" There was another scream. This one went on and on, ending only

  as the second speaker ran out of wind.

  Tam grimaced. He had to see what was going on in that chamber before he

  could act. But although he could wait here at the tunnel end, his legs braced at

  the side, for some time, he couldn't turn upside down to peek outside it. He

  wasn't that nimble.

  Ah, but he had another set of eyes. Hurriedly, he took his light-duty

  holocam from around his neck. He detached its neck cord, attached it so that the

  unit could dangle, its lenses pointed to the side and its quick-review

  viewscreen oriented up toward him. He adjusted the lenses to wide-angle viewing,

  then lowered the unit to the very bottom of the tunnel and slightly beyond.