Free The Joiner King by Troy Denning

of the Force behind his command.
    Lyari started to stop and look back, but the Defel pulled her forward.
    “Come, ladies.” His eyes flared red. “The immersion tank is growing cool.”
    The same murky presence Luke had felt before rose against him. It was not a Force attack, merely an enormous exertion of will. Had he wanted to, Luke could have found another way to maintain his hold, but that would have meant drawing even more of the mysterious entity’s attention to himself than he already had.
    Besides, Saba was on her way over, a furry little Ewok at her side. It was the Ewok she had sat in front of earlier, with a single white stripe running diagonally across a stocky body thatwas otherwise as black as space. They stopped in front of Luke and stood there sissing and chortling together.
    “Go ahead,” Luke said. “Get it out of your system now. Who’s your friend?”
    “Tar … Tarfang,” Saba laughed. “He sayz he can help us find our friendz … if you are finished chasing Ishi Tib.”

SIX
    Save for the lining of golden wax, the rows of shine-balls stuck to the ceiling, the random tunnel openings, and the lack of even a vague sense of up or down, the interior of the spherical hangar resembled all the spaceports Han Solo had visited on a thousand unknown, out-of-the-way planets scattered across the galaxy. There was the usual collection of battered transports, the usual cargo of stolen goods on open display, the usual dregs-of-their-species smugglers bustling in and out of their vessels, working harder to make dishonest livings than they would have at honest jobs.
    Han felt a swell of nostalgia rise inside, and he found himself missing the days when he could debark in such places and know that nobody was going to mess with him and the Wookiee. Of course, now he had a Jedi Knight wife, a pair of Noghri, and a refitted battle droid to back him up, but it just wasn’t the same. Chewbacca had been his co-conspirator as well his best friend, a pain-in-the-neck conscience at times but also a comrade-in-arms who understood the betrayals and disappointments that had turned Han into the wary, bitter smuggler he’d been when Leia came along and rescued him from that aimless life.
    “At least we’ve solved one mystery,” Leia said. She pointed at a duraplast pallet filled with crates labeled RECONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY — SANITATION. “That may explain why it’s been so hard to track down the RA supplies shrinkage.”
    “I don’t know,” Han said. He eyed the giant bugs that seemed to be crawling across every surface. “This pile of rocks isn’t big enough to take everything that’s disappearing.”
    The more Han watched the activity around the transports, the more he felt his skin crawl. The bugs were marching in and out of the vessels completely unescorted, off-loading cargo, foodstuffs, even vital ship’s tools, and stacking them at the base of the boarding ramps. Instead of stopping the insects, the crews were doing the same thing in reverse, on-loading huge stoneware crocks, balls of multicolored wax, and many of the same tools and foodstuffs the bugs were unloading. And nobody seemed upset about working at cross purposes. In fact, save for the care they took to avoid crashing into each other, they barely seemed to notice one another at all.
    Han spied the sleek gray wedge of a
Horizon
-class space yacht resting about halfway up the “wall” of the docking vault, its landing struts sunk well past their feet in the waxy substance that coated the chamber. The boarding ramp was lowered and a big Tendrando Arms Defender Droid was standing beside it, her massive torso and systems-packed limbs at odds with her cherubic face and smiling mouth.
    “There’s the
Shadow
,” Han said. He brought the
Falcon
’s nose around and started toward an open berthing space on the wall next to Mara’s ship. “Let’s go say hello.”
    Leia shook her head. “It doesn’t feel like there’s anyone