"Your Highness," the droid says. "I know that it's late-"

"It's late, Ello."

"Yes, Your Highness. I believe I noted that? Well. You have a visitor."

"At this hour?"

The droid nods. "It is a man named Conder Kyl," she explains. "He said you would want to-"

The slicer. "Let him in, Ello. I'll be out in a moment."

Leia takes a moment to center herself. She puts on a robe and washes her face, then heads out to meet her guest.

Conder Kyl is scruffy, but in a particularly groomed way-it seems a controlled chaos. His clothing is modern, very modern even by Chandrilan styles-a long dark vest with exposed arms and narrow-leg leather pants. He stands as she enters.

"General Leia," he says.

"That word makes you nervous. General."

"It's just-I'm not military."

"I know. I hired you, remember?"

An embarrassed smile as he says, "Yes, of course, Your Highness."

It's funny, meeting like this, late at night. In secret. Reminds her of the rebel days. Except now she's hiding from her own government.

"You have news?"

"I do." He sets up a small tripod in the center of the table, its metal legs clicking into place. The holoprojector immediately casts an image of the Wookiee planet, Kashyyyk. "The probe droid recorded this."

Information on Kashyyyk has been incredibly hard to come by. It is a walled, protected world. The Empire has it in a chokehold. But she hoped a small probe droid could escape their sweeps, and so she hired Conder-a friend, she understands, of Norra-to build a probe designed for stealth and capable of slicing into Imperial frequencies and, further, recording something to give her a sense of what's going on there. Most of its data has been orbital and atmospheric, though it has a long-range sensor-cam that can take satellite images from above.

She watches the three-dimensional scene unfold. It flickers blue as three Star Destroyers move together, and begin- "Oh," she says, her hand flying to her face. Orbital strikes. They're going to bomb the planet into submission. But why?

Conder must anticipate that question coming, because he turns off the image, then plays an audio file. "The probe intercepted this burst of comm traffic from the surface. Lozen Tolruck sent it-I don't know why he failed to encrypt it, but the droid was able to pick it up."

The man's voice appears from the projector, accompanied by a visualization of the spikes and dips of the sound waves- "The terrorists have won, Admiral Orlan. The inhibitors are down. The animals are..." His voice slurs when he says this next bit. "Escaping the zoo. Bomb it all. Burn it to a cinder. Uploading authorizuh...authorization code now. Begin orbital campaign."

The voice cuts out.

She takes a moment to process.

Han did it.

He must have. If anyone could cause an overreaction like bomb the whole planet into bits, it'd be him.

But now what? An orbital bombardment will be a nasty, protracted campaign. It won't stop until most of that world is dead. And that means Han and the others cannot escape. They could die there.

This is it. This has to stop now.

The course of action she decided upon after her meeting with Mon Mothma can no longer wait until after Liberation Day. Even though the celebration is tomorrow, every moment counts. She must not waste them.

"Thank you," she says. "I'll have the credits transferred to your account immediately."

"Nah," he says, waving it off. "Let's call this one a freebie."

"I owe you credits, Conder."

"Slate's clean. You can pay next time."

"Thank you."

"Mind if I ask: What are you going to do, Your Highness?"

"I am going to do what every wife must do now and again," she says. "I am going to go rescue my husband."

- Grand Admiral Sloane cannot sleep.

Tomorrow is the first day of the peace talks. Worry threatens to eat her up from the inside like beetles chewing the rotten middle of an old tree. She knows her role in the peace talks, and that role is not to reach any kind of accord with the conspirators of the New Republic, but rather to distract them from the attack that's coming-and then to help marshal that attack from the ground. Rax said to her: "You will be a hero. It will cement your role as Emperor-or whatever you wish to call yourself. The galaxy will see you on all the screens. The HoloNet will broadcast your valor."

She asked him, But won't I be in danger? It seems strange, after all, to put someone of her value right in the heart of battle. She reminded him that Palpatine was notoriously reclusive. Rarely did he appear unless he already controlled the environment he was entering.

"We will control the environment," Rax said. "You'll see. You won't be in meaningful danger. They won't kill you. Besides, the attack will give you plenty of opportunity to make your way clear."

This could be a trap. Or one of his tests.

Even if it is, the chance to attack Chandrila-it's tantalizing. It would grant them dominance. They would show their military might to the galaxy once more. Revealing the secret fleets hiding in the various nebulae...

That thought brings chills of delight.

For now, though, she needs her sleep.

She tries listening to some potboiler phono-play about a droid detective with an artificial intelligence inside his head named ADAM, but the droid is not really a detective but rather, an assassin? She tries connecting with it, but her mind keeps wandering. Then she gets up and paces her chamber, pulling up a galactic star map to behold the present state of Imperial assets-that, however, only depresses her. They've lost so much, so fast. Kuat is gone. G5-623 is falling-though Rax purposefully let that one loose, and she's quietly pleased to see it go. Slavery has never been part of the perfect Empire that lives inside her head. It may have been necessary for a time, but now the galaxy should be made to see the Empire's glory-and you can't teach them of its splendor through slavery. Slavery is not strength; it is weakness. Citizens should serve the Empire because it is right to do so. Why would any choose otherwise?

All of this is just a distraction, too.

Sleep. I need to sleep. I need to be fresh and ready and aware.

Instead, she puts on one of Rax's favorite operas: The Cantata of Cora Vessora. This version that he gave her has no words, only music.

At first, she finds it as distracting as everything else-music to her is just noise. Meaningless piffle meant to lull idiots to sleep.

But soon she realizes that she, too, is lulled by it. The strings and the drums. The hisses and the thrum. Her eyelids flutter. Her mind goes blank.

Perhaps I am just such an idiot.

The music draws her into it. Like a gentle wave carrying her away from shore, out to sea. It haunts her with its ethereal beauty.

It does not give her cause to sleep. But it lets her rest her mind for a while. Maybe she should trust Rax more often. Tomorrow is a big day. She will know soon enough if that trust is deserved- Or if she has been a fool.

- They work together long after dark. Temmin and Brentin, and Tem pretends that it's just like it used to be. Nothing different. Everything the same. But when he asks for the arc-driver for the fourth time, and Brentin just stares off at an unfixed point, Temmin has to admit: Things are broken.

In front of them on the workbench is the valachord Tem bought-he had the bright idea to make it self-playing, so that Dad could enjoy the music without feeling pressured to play it himself. And Brentin agreed, to Temmin's surprise-but all the while, his father's been disconnected from it all. Like he's only partly here.

"Dad, is something wrong?"

"Nothing," Brentin says. The smile on his face is small and forced. "I'm just tired. It's been a long day."

"Oh. O...kay."

Brentin stands up suddenly. "I'm...going to take a walk."

Sure. Of course he is. All these walks of his.

Dad leaves.

And Temmin follows. As Brentin winds his way through Hanna City, so too does Temmin. It's almost time here in the capital-the tents are set up, as are the food stalls and the generators. The celebration of Liberation Day starts in the morning with a parade, and then Sloane arrives. Peace talks go on while Liberation Day events are ongoing-distracting people, Temmin thinks. Giving them a show while that monster Sloane tries to talk her way out of a war crimes trial. It makes him angry that they're giving her any time at all to plead her case. (Temmin has a lot of anger these days.) He follows his father out of the residential district, down through the gardens and the theaters, through the now quiet Old Hannatown Market, past the pakarna stands down by the sea. That's where Temmin loses him-he turns the corner and, poof, Brentin is gone. He wishes suddenly that he hadn't told Bones to stay back at the apartment. The droid could run a scan looking for Dad's life-signature- Wait. There. He sees a shape gone off the Barbican Road and down onto the pebbled beach toward the water. Temmin hurries after.

The wind turns and comes up over the sea-its fingers ruffle Temmin's hair. It brings with it the smell of fish-he realizes now that down there are the docks, and by the docks is the fishery. There, droids process the day's catches, hauling in skor-fin and marmal-fish, starlegs and pearlshells. Right now, the fishery is quiet and dark. The piers beyond extend out into the sea like long, dark shadows. At the end of one, he sees Brentin.

And Brentin is not alone.

But who is the other person? Just some angler, maybe. The old salts who used to make a living bringing in the day's catch-before it was all automated-still like to sit out there before the sun is up. Brentin just ran into one and there they stand, having a conversation. Right? It makes sense.

Temmin gets closer.

And yet, he stays quiet. He tells himself that's just so he doesn't startle them, but all the same, it's hard to ignore the doubt creeping into the back of his mind like a sneaking thief looking to steal trust away one bit at a time.

He ducks around the side of the fishery. In through the windows, he sees the skeletal shadows of the droids powered down for the night, standing over the conveyor lines like frozen sentinels. Now he's glad he didn't bring Bones-if Bones is bad at one thing, it's keeping quiet.

Temmin darts along the far side of the fishery, coming up at the edge of the docks. He ducks behind a small mountain of fish crates.

Now he can see more in the moonlight.

Dad is standing there with- A guardsman. Chandrilan. Doesn't Temmin recognize him?

He realizes that indeed he does. The man was the one guarding Yupe Tashu's cell. There's that same cresting wave of blond hair. And he can't see it from here, but he bets the man also has a chin scar and pale eyes.

Stupid, Temmin thinks. Dad's just talking to a guard. Maybe about tomorrow: Mom and Dad are both scheduled to be there on the dais for Liberation Day, alongside the chancellor and Leia and most of the other returned captives. Surely it relates to the events to come.

And he was worried! Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Temmin stands up and jogs down the pier, waving. "Dad. Hey!"

The two men turn toward him.

It's then he gets that bad old feeling. Something's wrong. Brentin doesn't wave. The guardsman braces with tension.

"Tem," Brentin says.

Temmin slows his jog, and then walks slowly.

"Dad, I don't...I just wanted to say hi and get away from Mom."

The guardsman scowls. "Deal with this, or I will."

Brentin nods.

Temmin is about to ask: Deal with what?

But he never gets the chance.

His father wheels on him, a blaster in his hand.

Brentin pulls the trigger.

Everything shakes and rumbles. Kashyyyk is caught in the throes of tectonic spasms-above their heads, the packed-dirt ceiling gives way one stream of soil at a time. Clumps of moss fall and the massive twisting roots around them writhe just so, like serpents stirred from a restive sleep.

Jas waits, back pressed against the tunnel wall, as Wookiees pass her in droves. They shuffle past, growling and ululating to one another. She cannot parse their tongue-Shyriiwook is a guttural, glottal language that when you listen very closely has a bewildering complexity. She may not know what they're saying, but she can hear how they sound.

They sound just as she herself feels: Worried, anxious, and sad.

They're so close.

So close. Right up against the edge of freeing a world and a species. Of doing the right thing for the right reasons.

And yet- For all their efforts, it has led to this. The Empire-if those ships above even claim to be that, anymore-is now attempting to bomb this planet to oblivion. Already she knows how this will go: Many of the newly freed Wookiees are only peripherally free. Most are still trapped in settlements. Which means killing them will be as easy as firing a blaster into a bucket of frogs.

Here, at least, they have the excavated root systems of the wroshyr tree above Camp Sardo. Together they had time-precious little but just enough-to get most of the freed Wookiees underground before one of the Destroyers appeared in the sky above to hammer them into mud, blood, splinters, and fur.

Jas thinks: I should've stuck to bounty hunting. All this trying to do the right thing isn't her speed. Nobody should've let her have this responsibility. It overwhelms her. It feels like a crushing weight on her shoulders, pushing, pressing, grinding her down into a greasy paste.

The Wookiees are dying. Jom has lost an eye-and maybe more than that when all this is over. They've failed.

Someone jostles into her-it's Solo. The half dark of the root tunnel makes it hard to see.

"Solo," she says, and she hears the frantic sound in her voice and she fears she's about to start blathering and, yes, indeed, it turns out she is: "We screwed this all up. This job was too big for us. We're just bugs under their feet now. You and me, we're scum, a couple of lowlifes who tried to turn away from what we are-just a smuggler and a bounty hunter and-"

"Hey," he says.

"And all we did was step on the dragon's tail and now it's turning around to bite-"

"Hey. Take it down a notch. We ain't out of this yet. You're tired, Emari, and you haven't had enough to eat. I get it. But I need you clear for this next part."

"Next part?"

"That's right. You and me, we are a couple of lowlifes. So we're gonna act the way the galaxy made us: like a smuggler and a bounty hunter."