Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham Page A

elbow back and fist cocked by his ear, two fingers stiffened into a living weapon. He lashed out and drove his fingers into the big man’s throat. The red-bearded man’s head snapped back. He staggered several paces and then fell, clutching at his strangely blocked throat and gasping for air. Khalee advanced, and his eyes promised death.
    A subtle nod from Harrar brought the female warrior darting forward. Khalee Lah thrust out one hand as if to brush her aside. She seized the big warrior’s wrist and twisted, breaking both his concentration and his balance. Deftly she dropped to the floor and rolled, pulling the warrior down with her. She was back on her feet more quickly than Harrar would have believed possible.
    Immediately she sank to her knees. Tipping back her head, she offered Khalee Lah her throat. The warrior fisted his hand as he rose, and the spikes on his knuckles formed a short, serrated knife.
    “No,” Harrar said firmly, stepping between the combatants. “This warrior will not be punished for following orders.”
    “I command the warriors!” Khalee Lah protested.
    “And you, in turn, report to me,” the priest pointed out. “Is it not my right to command you both?”
    “You ordered her to attack me?”
    “To stop you. The human was at Fondor. He may possess useful information.”
    Khalee Lah inclined his head, but his eyes still burned.
    “Neeka Sot is not a true warrior, but a member of an assassin sect shaped from birth for quick attack andclose fighting. She did not best you in battle. Had I not stopped you, you would have killed her easily. She is also my personal bodyguard,” Harrar continued. “Surely you don’t think that the military are the only ones who employ checks and safeguards?”
    He left the dumbfounded warrior to work his way through this revelation and turned to the human called Vonce. The man’s face had turned a sickly white, and he stared at his choking comrade with horrified fascination. The twitch in his eye had accelerated until that portion of his face resembled a small animal thrashing about in death throes.
    “We will have the red-bearded man revived,” Harrar assured him. “Tell me what you know of Jaina Solo.”
    A bit of color returned to Vonce’s face, and the frantic twitching slowed to a rhythmic, involuntary wink. “We’d just finished a raid and were heading to Coruscant to unload our cargo. The lot of us got caught up in the retreat. We heard a broadcast sent by Leia Organa Solo, insisting that her daughter Jaina was piloting a Yuuzhan Vong frigate.”
    “That is consistent with what we know,” Harrar agreed. “This Solo female is also
Jeedai
?”
    The man scratched his big nose thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I’ve heard it told. Luke Skywalker is her twin brother, so I guess maybe that’s true.”
    “Another twin,” Khalee Lah said with a snarl as he came closer to listen. “So this new Solo female can speak with Jaina Solo through
Jeedai
sorcery?”
    “I couldn’t tell you about that, but I saw something else that might explain how the Solo kid got her message through. The frigate flew right into the flight path of the
Falcon
like it was daring Han Solo to fire at it.”
    “Is every third human in this galaxy named Solo?” Khalee Lah demanded.
    Vonce responded with a fleeting grin. “Seems that way sometimes. Anyway, old Han fired and the frigate rolled away like it was expecting the shot, leaving the coralskipper right behind it in the fire path. Thing of beauty,” he marveled, shaking his head. “Shame about the skip, o’ course,” he added hastily.
    “And you believe this Han Solo recognized the maneuver?”
    “Looks to me like they’d rehearsed it a time or two,” Vonce agreed. “And right after that, the Solo woman got on the comm and warned everyone off the frigate. Right after
that
, we got a message through the villip choir describing the frigate and demanding that all those in the immediate area help the Yuuzhan Vong