Read The Joiner King for Free Online

thinking?”
    “You
know
what I’m thinking,” Han said. Though he would never have said so, Han wished he had gone after Anakin to Myrkr. He knew it would have made no difference and maybe even gotten them both killed, but he still wished he had tried. “You’re thinking the same thing.”
    “I suppose I am.” Leia sighed. “You know there’s no sense going after them.”
    “Them?” Han asked. “Jaina and Lowie and—”
    “And Jacen.” Leia’s eyes were closed, and her face was raised toward the stars. “It feels like he’s on the move, too.”
    “
Another
reason to go,” Han said. “Five years is too long.”
    “You know we’d just be going for ourselves,” Leia said. “Our kids are better at this sort of thing than we are now.”
    “Yeah,” Han said. “But what else do we have to do? Stick our necks out for RePlanetHab? Look for another abandoned planet just so they can steal it out from under the Ithorians?”
    Leia closed her eyes, perhaps reaching out to their children through the Force, or maybe only searching her own heart for guidance. Finally, she opened her eyes again and reactivated the channel.
    “Sorry, Kyp, we can’t help you,” she said. “Han and I have other plans.”

THREE
    The unknown object lay directly ahead of
Jade Shadow
, a crooked oval of darkness the size of a human thumb. Sensor readings suggested a body about as dense as ice, which would have been a rare—though not impossible—thing to find floating around loose in the interstellar void. But infrared measurements placed the core temperature at somewhere between warm and sweltering, and the spectrograph showed a halo of escaped atmosphere that suggested living inhabitants.
    Mara had already sensed as much through the Force. She could feel a strange presence within the object, diffuse and ancient and utterly huge. There were also other, more familiar life-forms—smaller, distinct, and somehow enclosed within the haze of the larger being. But there was no hint of Jaina or the other strike team members, nor of the urgent summons they had reported from these coordinates.
    Mara glanced at an activation reticle in the front of the cockpit. A small section of the
Shadow
’s plexalloy canopy opaqued into a mirror, and she turned her attention to Luke and Saba Sebatyne, who were seated high behind her in the copilot’s and navigator’s chairs.
    “Time to reconnoiter?” she asked.
    “What’s reckon … recoin … wreckoy …?” The question came from behind Luke’s chair, where a freckle-faced boy with red hair and fiery blue eyes stood peering around the edge of the flight deck hatchway. “What’s that?”
    “
Reconnoiter
, Ben. It means take a look.” A smile came toMara’s heart at the sight of her son, but she forced a stern tone. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing with Nanna?”
    “Nanna’s game module is for little kids,” he complained. “She was trying to make me play Teeks and Ewoks.”
    “And why aren’t you?” Luke asked.
    “I turned her off.”
    “How?” Mara asked. “Her power switch is hidden under her neck armor.”
    Ben looked away as casually as a young boy could. “I tricked her into bending down and showing it to me.”
    “Turning Nanna off wasn’t very nice,” Mara said. “Her circuits are pulse-shielded. How do you think she’s going to feel after an emergency shutdown?”
    “Stupid.” Ben’s answer was almost gleeful. “I’ve only done it to her three times before.”
    A loud siss of amusement escaped the pebbled lips of Saba Sebatyne, causing Ben to shrink back through the hatchway—and almost muffling Luke’s exclamation of alarm. “You have?”
    Ben nodded, but his wide eyes remained fixed on Saba’s lumpy face. Luke reached around the corner and pulled him onto the flight deck itself.
    “Promise me you won’t do that again,” Luke said. Mara could feel how worried he was by Ben’s mischievousness. They had long ago decided against having someone