Probably this hostage crisis could’ve been resolved by the two worlds working together—something neither planet was willing to do. Eiram and E’ronoh occupied a system that served as a waypoint through hyperspace; they held a gateway, one that had long remained closed to the rest of the galaxy. This could’ve led to immense power for both worlds, had they been willing to share it. Instead, they competed for control of the region, belligerently dealing with those who dared to violate their space, each limiting traffic almost to nothing. Eiram and E’ronoh weren’t actively fighting a war against each other, but intelligence suggested a bitter standoff between the two, one that had lasted for more than a century. Its origins were obscure and, by then, beside the point. Eiram hated E’ronoh. E’ronoh hated Eiram. The end.

Until royalty from each planet had been kidnapped and ransomed.

“It is both a great honor and a great opportunity that these people have called to the Jedi for help,” Master Laret had said when she briefed Orla on the way to the spaceport. “We can do more than save these two rulers. We can prevent a war. We may even be able to open another part of the galaxy.”

Orla had never had an assignment so significant before. Very few Jedi ever had. She didn’t intend to let her master down.

Not again.

Of late, Orla had been asking too many questions. Challenging the decisions of the Jedi Council—only to Master Laret, of course, but still. At first Master Laret had heard her out and even gently debated her, but her patience was being tested.

“To be a Jedi is to serve,” Master Laret had said. “How do you intend to serve if you keep questioning every command?”

The rare rebuke from her master still stung. So this time, Orla would prove how willing she was to serve the Order. She wasn’t going to question a single thing.

Nobody knew whether the moon had once orbited Eiram or E’ronoh, only that it had, at some point countless millennia past, drifted from its orbit and come to rest in dead space between the two worlds. The moon was so devoid of any value that Eiram and E’ronoh didn’t even bother fighting over it. It just hung there, obscure and ignored.

Which was why almost nobody knew about the caves and tunnels deep within the lunar salt flats, and why the caves were a perfect hideout for those who did not wish to be found.

It was the only element of the kidnapping plan that could be called “perfect.” The rest of it left much to be desired.

“Fools!” Isamer growled. The bulky Lasat threw the nearest thing he could reach at his lieutenants; it turned out to be a heavy chair, so they were lucky to dodge it. “How could you kidnap the wrong queen?”