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answered,” said Reen. “Ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve even named the ship.”
    “Oh? What’s that?”
    “New Ambition,”
said Reen with a smile.
    “Just ignore the fact,” added Eddey, “that the old
Ambition
is now so much scrap. Otherwise it is not an auspicious name at all.”
    “The one you hunt is named Mander Zuma,” said Koax to the ghostly image. “He is a
Jeedai
of middling years and equally middling ability. Unlike most of his breed, he is surprisingly light in legends of daring that seem to accrete to these monks. He is, in short, a nondescript. Hardly a challenge for one such as yourself.”
    Across from the Klatooinian hovered the image of Hedu, matriarch of the Bomu clan. She was a thin, wasp-like female, made even more ethereal by the holographic projection. Behind her lurked the flickering of others shifting just at the edges of the image field—relatives acting as bodyguards, in the Rodian fashion.
    The Rodian matriarch let out a long, wheezing sigh. She contained more air than her phantom image suggested. Even so, she managed to exhale a question. “You are sure he is the one? The one who killed my clanchildren on Makem Te?”
    “I have confirmed it,” said Koax, politely. “He made little point in concealing his identity, as the
Jeedai
priests are wont to do. He apparently was the teacher of the other
Jeedai
—the one you poisoned.”
    “On your orders,” said Hedu.
    “On the orders of the Spice Lord,” said Koax, pulling her authorization around her like a cloak.
    The Rodian matriarch made a gurgling, chugging noise that Koax assumed was laughter. “Perhaps the
Jeedai
hunts for his own vengeance.”
    Koax considered the Rodian’s worldview, one of continual revenge against slights real and imagined, and thought that in this case it had merit. “Perhaps,” she said. “One of his companions, definitely so.”
    “You have learned of his companions?” said the Rodian, her trumpet-belled antennae practically quivering.
    “A Pantoran spacer, Reen Irana,” said Koax. “Sister to the
Jeedai
you … 
we
had killed.”
    The matriarch let out a long angry hiss, and Koax wondered if the Rodian leader had been dipping into her own private spice supplies. “Yes, that makes sense. The
Jeedai
seeks vengeance, and brings along others of a similar mind.”
    From everything that Koax had learned, that seemed unlikely, but she said nothing to dissuade the Rodian. “And a Bothan. They were the ones who killed your clanchildren and burned your stocks.”
    “Bothan,” said the Rodian, and let out a string of curses. “You can always find one of them wherever there is trouble. Where are they now?”
    “They are guests of a Hutt clan lord, aboard his yacht, in orbit over Makem Te,” said Koax.
    The matriarch stroked a few long hairs on her chin. “A carefully timed shuttle, loaded with explosives, could bring down any yacht.”
    “No,” said Koax. “That will not do.”
    The matriarch seethed through the holographic connection, “The
Jeedai
has killed my clanchildren! Nothing else should stand in the way of vengeance.”
    “They are on a Hutt ship,” said Koax calmly. “Doyou think that the protection that my lord offers is sufficient to protect you from a Hutt patriarch? It is bad enough that we have to worry about the Jedi Order. I do not want a Hutt mercantile clan prying into our business.”
    The ancient Rodian rocked back, hissing in displeasure, and almost disappeared from the holographic view entirely. Koax wondered if the refusal to condone the bombing had given the old raptor an aneurism. The Rodian recovered herself, though. Measuring her words as carefully as if they were grains of Tempest itself, she said, “What would you have us do?”
    “I want your vow that you will not act against the Hutts,” said Koax.
    “As long as we have a chance against the
Jeedai
and his allies,” responded the matriarch.
    “Fair enough,” said the Klatooinian. Her long fingers