Fate of the Jedi: Backlash by Aaron Allston Read Free Book Online Page A

blood on a bush. Now she’s spotted rancor footprints. She’s tracking back to where the beast was injured. Over.”
    “Thanks. Out.”
    Within a few minutes, Sha had found the spot, ground that was charred everywhere as if by a broad-ranging but not very intense fire. Within a hundred meters of it were two wrecked speeder bikes. Tarth looked over the registration numbers engraved in their engine compartments and gave Han a nod.
    Han sighed. “Luke and Ben are going to lose their deposits.”
    Leia elbowed him in the ribs. “Not funny. Where are they?”
    “Hard to track.” That was Sha, one of the few times she’d spoken since she’d been hired. She gestured to the northwest, at a distinct angle from their previous course. “That way. There’s another set of tracks. Dathomiri woman, I think.” Her hand transcribed an arc, then ended up pointing in the same direction. “Went off at an angle, then went that way, too.”
    “Who was leading and who was following?” Leia frowned. While she didn’t like the idea of anyone tracking or trailing Luke and Ben, she knew that her brother might merely be allowing an enemy to do so.
    Sha shrugged. “Impossible to tell. Too long ago.”
    “Can you track them?”
    Sha nodded. “Yes. But slow. Walking speed.”
    “Let’s do it, then.”
    “Electronics are fried.” That was Tarth, still rummaging around in the mechanical insides of one of the speeder bikes.
    Han frowned. “How’s that again?”
    “Electronics are fried. Both speeders. I also found a comlink by the other one. Burned clear through and discarded.”
    “Char marks on the ground where they were?”
    Tarth shook his head. “The same as all around, but nothing to suggest they were grounded when it happened.”
    Sha said nothing, but the look she gave Han was a question.
    “Electrical attack of some sort,” Han told her. “But electricity is most damaging when its target is in contact with the ground. If the two speeder bikes were shot out of the sky with an electrical attack while they were moving … well, that’s a lot of power.”
    Sha nodded. “Lightning Storm. A spell cast by the Witches. Some Witches. All Nightsisters.”
    Leia took a step forward before she’d realized she had. “Nightsisters? I thought—I was hoping they were all gone.”
    Sha shook her head. “Never gone. They hide, they heal, they return. If their numbers are few, they come for your children.” For just a moment, her usually expressionless mask fell and she looked bleak. Then that look was gone, wiped away by a blankness any sabacc player would envy, and Sha turned away.
    Han gripped Leia’s shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “The Nightsisters are their Sith.” His voice was a grim whisper.

CHIEF OF STATE’S OFFICE, SENATE BUILDING,
CORUSCANT
    A DMIRAL N ATASI D AALA, ONE TIME I MPERIAL N AVY OFFICER AND NOW head of the executive branch of the Galactic Alliance government, sat back in her chair and pondered whether she wanted to call in Wynn Dorvan. Daala felt a flash of exasperation; there were times when she just wanted things to be orderly and clear-cut. And Dorvan always seemed to have something for her to think about that made things the opposite. Still, he was such an efficient assistant that she had to make allowances. It was, after all, the civilian way of doing things.
    And she wanted to remain on good terms with him. With a little guidance, he would make a superior chief of staff someday … once he accepted the notion of having greater authority and responsibility.
    Trusting the secretarial software built into her comm system to scrub weariness out of her tone, she said, “Wynn? A moment of your time please.”
    “Certainly, ma’am. I’ll be right in.”
    She took one last look around her office, at its calming purity of Imperial white furnishings to match her uniform. She brushed strands of her long red hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ears in a likely-to-fail bid for