That was a smart move, even if Tahiri wasn't as quick to offer up commentary on everything the way she'd been inclined to when she was younger, for reasons that had a lot to do with the answer to Tara's question.

She reached up to brush her hair away from her forehead, leaving a few stray cookie crumbs on the three vertical scars that ran from her eyebrows to her hairline. "The Yuuzhan Vong," she said after a moment. "A race from outside our galaxy. When I was fourteen they . . . captured me. Tried to make me one of them. For a long time we thought it didn't work but it turns out they didn't really fail."

Tahiri smiled wryly and jabbed a cookie fragment into her ice cream. "I was really hoping not to have to introduce any more of my friends to Riina."