Free Reunion by Sean Williams

Han asked. “I know these sort of stations. If it’s Outer Rim, it’s probably automated, maybe staffed by a token crew to keep things maintained. If the Yuuzhan Vong have attacked it, it’s already lost.”
    Leia shook her head. “Cal Omas beefed up the defenses there before we left. It might still be holding on.”
    “And what if it isn’t?” Han asked. “Does it really matter if we lose contact with part of the Outer Rim?”
    “It’s not just any part of the Outer Rim,” Leia said. “Generis and Esfandia are the only relay centers we have servicing the Unknown Regions. Every communications signal to and from the Chiss goes through there. Take them out and you effectively put the Unknown Regions out of contact.”
    There was a moment’s silence as the implications suddenly sank in.
    They’d been walking for more than two standard hours in virtual silence. Darak and Rowel, their Ferroan guides, stayed for the most part ahead of Jacen and the others, rarely bothering to check that their guests were keeping up with them.
    This wasn’t necessarily a problem. There was more than enough to see. The tampasi was vigorous and rich with life. The trunk of each boras was a miniature ecosystem, supporting dozens of species of plants and fungi, which in turn provided homes and food for brightly colored insects. These insects became prey for lizards and arachnids, which were eaten by birds or larger animals still. Everywhere Jacen looked, he had the feeling that a tiny universe had, just that second, stopped in the middle of furious motion, and would start up again the moment he glanced away.
    Danni had complained that it didn’t make sense that they should have landed
Jade Shadow
so far away from their destination, but Darak had said that their ship was not permitted in the airspace around any inhabited area; it could interfere with the carefully balanced ecosystem of the planet.
    That Jacen could understand. There was only so muchwonder he could take, though. His curiosity piqued by something his uncle had told him, he quickened his pace to bring himself alongside Darak. She didn’t turn to acknowledge him in any way, nor slow her pace.
    “My uncle tells me that you remember Vergere,” he said.
    “Your uncle is mistaken,” she said, keeping her gaze fixed on the path ahead. “I was a child when she and the other Jedi came to Zonama, and my settlement half a world away.”
    The other Jedi …
Jacen felt the tug of this revelation like a physical force.
    “Your people, then,” he persisted. “You know of her. You’ve heard stories.”
    “Stories, yes. Bedtime stories for children.”
    He didn’t let the Ferroan’s frosty tone deter him. “I’m not sure whether you know it or not, but the Jedi were almost wiped out about fifty years ago. The ones who came here when you were a child would have been trained in the old ways. If we could learn more about them—”
    “Not all were trained,” Rowel put in. “One was an apprentice. Strong in his fashion, but unrefined.”
    “What happened to them here?”
    “We are guides,” Darak said sourly, “not historians.”
    “I know, but surely—”
    He stopped when a shadow passed over them. Glancing up into the upper reaches of the boras, Jacen looked just in time to see something large and dark pass overhead. It didn’t stay in view long enough for him to make out exactly what it was.
    The others had stopped also and were gazing upward. Darak and Rowel continued on unconcerned.
    “What was that?” Jacen asked.
    “A kybo,” Rowel called back. “Their fields are nearby.”
    “Are they dangerous?” Mara asked.
    “Hardly,” the woman said. “They’re airships.”
    Moments later they emerged from the dense tampasi into a clearing that was twice the size of the one in which
Jade Shadow
had landed. Hovering just above the ground were half a dozen enormous manta-shaped dirigibles. Of roughly the same proportions as
Millennium Falcon
, but at least three