"Temmin-"

"No, you know what? It's fine. It's great. I'm gonna follow Dad's lead and go for a long walk. Alone. Come on, Bones."

"IF I GO, THEN YOU WON'T BE ALONE."

"I said, come on."

"ROGER-ROGER."

Norra is left by herself. Her eyes burning with tears. Her mind suddenly flies not to her husband, not to her son or Wedge, but to the team she left behind on Kashyyyk. She hopes they're okay.

Lozen Tolruck, Grand Moff of Kashyyyk, is hunting.

A visor sits strapped to his round face, and on each side small electro-stim pads are affixed to his temples. Through the visor, he sees-and controls-a small assassin probe. The probe was a droid, once, though one of his techs removed the thing's personality matrix and turned it into something that Tolruck could control from afar. It's a mean little thing, that probe. Small enough to be tucked under one's arm. Fast as an arrow. Nimble, too, with perfect movement in every direction. It possesses a chroma-coat of shimmer-paint, allowing it to appear as if it blends in with the rest of its environment-providing it with powerful camouflage.

It is a wonderful device. In theory.

Lozen Tolruck despises it.

Through the visor he sees his prey-one of the Wookiees they've been training. This one is Subject 478-98, though Tolruck likes to give them nicknames. Makes it more personal. This one he calls Blackstripe, because of the single black stripe that bisects the center of the beast's face.

Blackstripe runs and Blackstripe climbs, but it matters little. The assassin probe is fast. It has thermal imaging and motion detection. It sees all and can pursue with swift efficacy. The beast scrambles up one of the massive wroshyr trees in the Garden Preserve, and it ducks through branches and swings under spongy zha-raratha vines and scrambles around clusters of blood-red needle blossoms. Blackstripe climbs and climbs.

And soon, the beast sees its hunter.

It roars. Tolruck flinches as the beast's paw swipes across his vision. The probe flinches, too, darting backward; the clumsy swat fails to connect.

Tolruck merely thinks about what he wants to do and the assassin probe does it. It barely needs to be a conscious thought. He blinks and the probe extends a telescoping barrel and then- Kiff, kiff.

Two toxo-darts stick in the beast's chest. The poison is fast acting, and the Wookiee should fall, but he doesn't. He is robust. They trained him too well, it seems. Clumsily, the creature continues his ascent of the tree, moaning and gurgling as he leaps inelegantly from branch to branch...

Fine. Anger seizes Tolruck. He roars the way the Wookiees roar-even though the beast will never hear that sound, given that the damn thing is over sixty kilometers away-and then he launches the assassin probe right at the wretched monster. Soon as it hits, he signals the elimination code- And the probe self-destructs.

That will kill the awful thing. Blackstripe will be dead-a hole blown in the beast's back. Maybe it would even have split the monster in half.

The visor goes dark. Tolruck rips it off his face with a growl. He dashes it to the ground and steps on it as if it is an offensive pest.

There, in front of him, stands his attache: Odair Bel-Opis. A capable man, Odair. Organized. Merciless. Corellian. He is a brutal killer, yes, but also trustworthy-he has no designs on Tolruck's position. Odair is as necessary and as simple as a club held firm in one's hand.

"This thing," Tolruck growls, toeing the broken control visor, "is worthless to me. This isn't hunting, Odair. It's voyeuristic. I want to be there. I want to smell those ragged beasts. I want to hear their growls and their rasping breath. I want to chase them and be chased. That is the hunt. Not...whatever this is."

He paces around the room like the whirling winds of one of Kashyyyk's dreadful mrawzim storms-he runs his hands along the gnarled, knotted logs that make up the walls of his circular chamber. His thumb tracks across a line of sticky sap and he brings it to his lips. He sucks that thumb the way a baby would. It gives him chills and he shudders. A wave of pleasure washes over him. The sap-hragathir, the Wookiees call it-becomes narcotic over time, after the wood is culled from the tree.

He flops down in his chair: a massive skeletal thing formed of dark, dead wood. The many-pronged antlers of the arrawtha-dyr frame him as he slumps and slouches, pulling aside the fabric of his robe (made from the dyr's own pelt) to scratch the expanse of pale, exposed belly.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

"You may speak if you have words," Tolruck slurs.

"I will tell the techs that a new probe is necessary."

"No. I want to go out. I want to hunt. Proper-like."

"It is too dangerous right now."

"Bah." He sweeps his arm across the air. "This is no revolt. The Wookiees remain in our control. It's an insurgent cell-a little cancerous shadow clinging to our operation here. No more than a blood-bug. Let's squash the rathhakkhan thing and be done with it. They can't hurt me."

"They have been attacking vital targets. And you are our most vital."

With that, he won't argue. He is lord of this world. The Empire has abandoned him. He is grand moff only in name. In truth, he is warlord. He is emperor. No- He is god.

An entire world and its feral species exist under his sway.

What glorious power.

He hated this place for so long. But now it's a part of him. Its dirt is under his nails. He stinks like it. And that stink? He likes it. He hasn't bathed in weeks. He's even taken to eating some of those wrosha-grubs whole and uncooked-fat, plump worms whose skin pops when you bite them, their guts evacuating their rubbery bodies and slicking his tongue. He wishes he had some now, even though he just ate not long ago.

He burps into his fist. His head lolls back. "I refuse to be cowed, Odair. I will hunt these mongrels myself. We've already caught one of them. Maybe we can use him as bait. Get me my rifle-"

"There's something else, Governor."

"Out with it, then."

"We have a visitor."

"Who?"

"An Imperial. One of Admiral Sloane's people."

That makes him sit up. Perhaps they have finally remembered him. Perhaps they hope to include him and his throneworld in their Empire.

But then, that gives him pause. Does he want to join them? Does he care for their token advances, their crumbs flicked into his waiting mouth-they will expect him to be gracious, but they have abandoned him here.

He can do better on his own.

Best to let this Imperial stew. Besides, Commandant Sardo has been pleading for a meeting now for some time. He'll take the call, and that'll give Sloane's lackey plenty of time to sit and simmer in regret. Then he'll meet with her man, finally, and when he does, he can send Sloane back a present-her man's head in a footlocker.

- The Wookiees built many of their cities in and around the massive, skytower-like wroshyr trees-trees whose trunks are of an unimaginable circumference, big enough that to walk around the base of one could take you half a day. The trees turn and twist around one another, as if frozen in a mad dance-this, a competition for the boughs of each wroshyr to crest the upper atmosphere ahead of the one next to it.

Each tree, forever seeking the sun.

The sun, now, is veiled behind bands of dark cloud and ash. Spears of light stab through that darkness, but even then, the light is pale and thin. It feels insubstantial. It fails to bring warmth or even much illumination.

What it does illuminate is that the Wookiee city of Awrathakka is in ruins. The city once climbed the tree, as many of the cities do-following the bends and turns of the trunk. The life of the Wookiees was bound to the life of the tree. They tended to it. And in turn, it gave them shelter and food and all of their existence. Their symbiosis was honored as a bond both sacred and biological. But now, most of the city has been gouged from the bark. Pieces hang. The wood is burned in places, and so are the structures that were once affixed to-or grown into-the tree. The bond is broken.

It was once a city of gardens.

Now it is only a city of ghosts.

The Wookiees who dwelled there, though, are still near.

Far below, down through the layers of mist, is Imperial Work Settlement #121, aka Camp Sardo, after the man who runs the settlement, Commandant Theodane Sardo. It is one of many such settlements on the surface of Kashyyyk-all are built on the ground, for the Empire cares little to try to navigate the confusing topography of the wroshyrs.

Camp Sardo is also the largest of these settlements.

It is home to over fifty thousand Wookiees.

They work in varying capacities. They dig up the roots of the tree-the roots are softer than the tree itself, and it is easier to make use of the wood there. They also mine the fungal nodes that cling to those roots: Mineral deposits form, attracting fungus to feed on those deposits. And once a node is mature, the fungus can be scraped away; within is wroshite-a hard, flinty crystal the color of gun-steel. Good for focusing Imperial beam weapons. And worth a helmet-load of credits on the black market.

The Wookiees also grow food.

They fight for entertainment.

They are forced to breed.

They are subject to various chemical and medical tests.

And they do not revolt. They do not resist. Because if they do, the chips in their heads will end them. Or better yet, end their families-that is a trick it took the Empire too long to learn. A Wookiee will only fight so hard for herself. But they are slaves to their own bloodlines, and family is everything. Got a ruthless, undomesticated, willful Wookiee on your hands? Threaten those of her pack and she becomes as pliable as warm dough.

Still. Sometimes the Wookiees starve or are worked too hard, and when that happens, they are thrown into one of the carcass trenches and burned. Sardo brings in one new Wookiee for every other that falls.

- "Productivity is everything," Sardo says over hologram. Tolruck grunts. The man is a sycophant. Which is fine; Tolruck needs men like Sardo, men willing to bow and scrape and lick boot. Just the same, it's disgusting to witness. Though Sardo is a great distance away in his camp (that man would never be invited within the walls of Lozen Tolruck's island fortress), his obsequiousness bleeds through. "The Empire may have left us behind, but you remain, and in your name we seek to improve our margins. I've been trying to think of new ways to use the Wookiees..."

Sardo goes on and on, explaining how the Empire has stopped bringing Wookiees offworld-it used to be that they would ship them away from the planet by the thousands for work (after all, it was Wookiees who helped build much of the Imperial war machine). "But since that has ended, the breeding programs have become problematic. We have a surplus of slave labor-but what to do with it?" That is the conundrum Sardo puzzles over just now. "Could the Wookiees be farmed for their meat? Presently it's stringy and tough, but maybe if they could be fattened up, or modified in some way-crossbred with another species, perhaps, like the Talz." (Tolruck does not hate this idea. The Talz are delicious.) Just then, the holo of Sardo flinches.

Tolruck asks: "What is it?"

"I...we've lost a turret is all. In the trees." Tolruck snorts. What's in the trees above Sardo? He glances at the map on the wall. An old Wookiee city, isn't it? Awrathakka. Hm. "Probably nothing."

Probably nothing, indeed.

Tolruck says, "Check on it anyway. Do not be lazy, Commandant. Control your environment. Do not disappoint me."

Sardo nods furiously. "I will. Of course. Thank you, sir."

Tolruck nods back and ends the holo. He sighs. He looks to Odair: "I suppose it is time we see what Sloane's fool wishes of me."

In the ghost city of Awrathakka, a single ship eases in for a landing in the safety of a dead turret's shadow.

It is an SS-54 gunship-or, rather, "light freighter."

Its designation: the Halo.

- Lozen takes his time walking through the fortress. Fur-matted Wookiees and corroded droids work as he passes-many cutting thick planks of wroshyr wood to fortify the stronghold. That wood is damn near supernatural in terms of the protections it affords. It refuses to burn. It can take hits from a turbolaser and suffer only a little charring and splintering. Of course, that means cutting the stuff takes proton-teeth saw-blades. And even those break in contest with the wood-many a Wookiee has had his head split in half like a tongo nut by one snapping in mid-spin.

The Wookiees do not look at him as he passes. They have been trained not to turn their animal gaze toward him. And the inhibitor chips bolted to the backs of their skulls ensure that any violation results in varying levels of misery (escalating of course until paralysis and then death).

His feet splash in puddles as he walks from level to level, down one set of steps to another. Around a wooden walkway, across a planking of sheet metal, through a longhouse of painted forest troopers readying their blaster rifles for target practice.

Out here, the air smells of ash and char and burning hair. Clouds turn and twirl overhead-gray and dead as a diseased lung.

There, ahead, waiting at the bottom of the rusted metal steps: The visitor. Classic stiff-backed Imperial posture. Chin up, nose down, hands behind the back. The uniform shows a naval banding. Just a lieutenant. A man of little significance.

That man offers a wan smile that lifts a mustache far too sculpted for this brutish world. Lozen's own beard is unkempt, unruly-a wild thatch-scrub growing from his cheeks and jowls. Even Odair's face is a patchy rug of dark stubble. Mad men for a mad place.

The Imperial salutes, then offers a hand.

"Lieutenant Jorrin Turnbull," the man says.

Lozen does not take the man's hand or offer much acknowledgment at all. He does little more than twist his face into a dissatisfied scowl. "Sloane sent you, I'm told."

"That is correct, sir."

"Why?"

"She understands you're having some, ah, problems."

"And the Empire wants to help."

"We are all the Empire, sir."

"Are we?" Lozen growls, then steps up to the man. Odair closes in, too-he is strung tight like a bow cable, ready for anything. The warlord gets into the lieutenant's face and bares his teeth. The man is small and Lozen is large-he's let himself gain size over the last many years, filling himself with bulk. Fat and muscle wreathing his bones. His beard is long, yes, but his hair is pulled back in a knotty snarl. He is everything this tall, thin man is not. "You have abandoned us. Gone is our resupply. Our slave stock is building up and nobody is taking them off our hands-we'll have to cut breeding lines before too long. We've seen no changing of the guard, no passing the baton for our ships or our craft or our officers. It is as if we are forgotten. But we remember. And we survive."

The man looks nervous now. As he should. He may die before this day is done. "Grand Admiral Sloane surely begs your forgiveness in this regard-as you may know, the Empire has fractured since the Emperor's death-"

"The Emperor is alive," Lozen seethes. It is a lie. He knows it to be one. And yet it's one he props up. The story he tells his men and women here is simple, because simple is effective: The Empire has been robbed from its Emperor, and one day he will reclaim it. Until then, they are on their own. It gives his soldiers a future. It gives them an end. It whispers of victory.

"Yes. Of course." The Imperial visibly swallows. He knows now that the rope coils around his neck and tightens ineluctably. "Just the same, Sloane is extending a hand. You are menaced by terrorists?"

Lozen's eyes narrow into fat-pinched slits. "Yes."

"We know who they are. Ah, we think. They came to this world with a stolen code from an Imperial prison-maker."

"Golas Aram."

"That is correct."

"Never trust a Siniteen. A brain that large contains a multitude of treacheries."

"That holds true here. The terrorists arrived with those codes and under the false blessing of Admiral Sloane."

Lozen leans in. "Who are they?"

"Imperial hunters sent by the New Republic. Led by a known scum-raker: the criminal Han Solo. Now a general in their ranks."

Lozen nods. That makes sense. "Interesting. The one we have hasn't talked. Would not let a single word slip past his vile rebel lips no matter how much we hurt him."

"Do you still have him? Is he alive, the prisoner?"