Star Wars - The New Jedi Order - Force Heretic I - Remnant - Book 17

by Sean Williams

  Jaina bristled at Twin Suns Squadron being described as a "handful of X-wings," but she didn't say anything. Her parents needed to fight this one out, and it was better if she stayed out of the line of fire.

  Leia straightened, folding her arms in front of her. It was a clear message she had no intentions of backing down.

  "They're fine words coming from Han Solo," she said. "And do you have any better suggestions to go with your derision, Han?"

  "Sure I have," he said, but with less self-assuredness than a moment earlier. "What's happening in Corellia is still anyone's guessand then there's the Corporate Sector. That's practically next door to Mon Cal, and"

  "So the Senate hardly needs to send us, then, do they?"

  "Maybe, Leia, but..." Han raised his hands in frustration and turned away. "Anywhere but N'zoth!"

  Facing her husband's back, Leia's stony determination faltered. Jaina was surprised to see it, but she could understand why. The intensely xenophobic Yevetha had kidnapped and tortured her father for weeks, some years back, and would have killed him had he not been rescued by Chewbacca and Chewie's son Lumpawarrump.

  "The last we heard, their shipyard was fully functional," Leia said, adopting a more diplomatic tone. "They're extremely capable engineers. They'll fight the Yuuzhan Vong, if they're not fighting them already."

  "And then they'll turn on us," Han said, facing her again. "And the Fia, if they haven't already been exterminated. Why not send someone from the Smugglers' Alliance?"

  "We need someone we can trust to do the Galactic Alliance's work, Han, not someone who will be looking for a quick profit."

  Han looked as though he wanted to protest this, but he knew he didn't have much of an argument on this score.

  Leia put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Look, Han, I've discussed the security aspects with Captain Mayn and"

  "You asked Todra before you brought it up with me?"

  "And," Leia continued without answering the question, "it's not like last time. We're not going to pick a fight with them, and if they try it with us, then we'll just leave."

  Han sighed now. "All right, Leia. I can see how it makes sense from your point of view. It's a flashpoint, and we need to be there to make sure it doesn't spread. Perfectly understandable. But what if it's Jaina they capture, this time? Or you?"

  "It won't be me, Dad," Jaina said softly, confidently. "I'm quite capable of looking after myself."

  Han stared at his wife and daughter, wanting to argue but realizing he couldn't win this one. "All right," he said after a few seconds, his eyes narrowing sternly as he pointed his finger to each of them, "but you just remember that this wasn't my idea."

  "I'm sure you'll be quick to remind us, should something go wrong." Leia smiled, kissing her husband's cheek briefly before getting back to work. There were many details to finalize before their departure.

  Barely had she taken half a dozen steps from Han when the sound of boots could be heard clomping up the landing ramp and into the Falcon.

  "Anyone home?" a male voice called.

  "In here, Kenth," Leia said, recognizing the Jedi's voice.

  Kenth Hamner stooped slightly as he came into the room. "I thought I'd find you here."Seeing his somber expression, Leia stepped over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong, Kenth? What's happened?"

  "Not Kashyyyk," Han said, going pale. The Wookiee homeworld had recently been under threat by the Yuu-zhan Vong.

  "No, not Kashyyyk, I'm pleased to say." Hamner's expression didn't look particularly pleased. "We've just heard that the Imperial Remnant is under attack. Bastion and Muunilinst have been devastated. The offensive is expected to continue toward Yaga Minor as soon as the captured territories have been secured. Subspace and HoloNet networks are down." He turned to Leia when she opened her mouth to interrupt, as if knowing what she was about to ask. "We have no news of survivors, I'm afraid."

  Leia's mouth closed in a thin line as she looked at her husband. "Jade Shadow jumped right into a war zone."

  "They had no way of knowing," Han said. "It was just dumb luck."

  "All we can do," Hamner said soberly, "is hope they weren't caught in the battle. If they managed to retreat to a safe distance, then there's no reason why their mission should be endangered."

  Jaina closed her eyes, her mind reaching out through the Force, seeking her twin brother. The distance between them was almost incomprehensible, but they'd felt each other before across far greater gulfs. When she called his name, she didn't receive a reply, but she did feel an echo. He was there.

  She opened her eyes and faced her mother. "Jacen's alive," she said.

  Leia nodded. "Yes. And I would've felt it if anything had happened to Luke. But what about the others? And the Empire itself? If the Yuuzhan Vong have finally made a move on it, then that entire area is now unsafe. With the fleet at Bastion out of the way, they can push on into the Unknown Regions unchecked. From now on, noplace will be safe."

  "Not even the Chiss," Jaina said. "We know the Vong have been harrying them from the outer edges of the galaxy. Now they'll be caught in a pincer grip."

  "Only if the Empire falls," Hamner said. "It's too soon to say for sure one way or the other. This might only be a preemptive strike, simply warning us" against using the Imperial Remnant in some sort of rearguard action against them."

  "Which is precisely what we were thinking of doing," Han said with a grimace.

  "Preemptive doesn't necessarily mean decisive," Hamner responded. "We know the Vong are stretched thin. To mount a major attack like this must have cost them dearly elsewhere."

  "Perhaps we should step up our strike-and-run tactics in other areas," Leia said. "It might encourage them to withdraw the offensive."

  Hamner nodded. "I know Cal and Sien are doing just that. It will also help take the hysterical edge off some of the calls to step up the attack, too."

  "As long as we don't play into their hands." Leia nodded unhappily. "I just hate not knowing what's happened to Jade Shadow. We could help them if we knew they were in trouble."

  "That in part is why I'm here," Hamner said. "Cal sent me to make sure you wouldn't go rushing after your brother on some foolish rescue attempt. We need you where you can do the most good."

  "He's right, Leia," Han said, coming up behind her and taking her shoulders in both of his large hands. "Luke and Mara can look after themselves."

  "And Jacen's no slouch, either, Mom," Jaina reassured her with a broad smile. "In fact, the three of them will probably send the Yuuzhan Vong packing in a day or two!"

  The attempt at levity seemed to work. Jaina's mother took a deep breath and let it out in a gust. "You're right, of course," she said, patting her husband's hand as he squeezed her shoulders. "There's a bigger picture we need to consider. Until we know for certain that there's something wrong, we keep going as planned. To the Koornacht Cluster."

  "What was I thinking?" Han exclaimed. "If it's not too late to change my mind, I'd like to put in a vote for Bastion. The middle of a Yuuzhan Vong war fleet has to be better than a Yevethan cell."

  "The only cell there's likely to be," Leia said, with a faint smile returning to her attractive features, "is the one we put you infor disobeying orders."

  "Whose orders exactly?" Han said with mock indignation. "I'm the captain of this ship, remember?"

  "You just keep telling yourself that, dear," Leia said.

  "What does that mean?" Han returned.

  Jaina left them to it, confident that the argument had moved from something serious to just play-fighting. She envied them the ease with which they talked to each other now. Chewbacca and Anakin's deaths seemed to have cemented their relationship stronger than ever. For all their sharp-sounding words, she knew they were really on the same side.

  Not paying attention to where she was going, she didn't see C-3PO coming around the Falcon's corridor until it was too late. With a cry, the golden droid staggered backward, tripping over a carton of
rations on the floor and dropping the stack of Yuuzhan Vong-detecting

  mouse droids he'd been balancing, scattering them over the deck. Startled by the impact, many of them bleeped in distress, scurrying off in all directions. C-3PO flailed helplessly in an attempt to right himself, but the droids kept getting under his feet and hands, keeping him off balance.

  "Oh, thank you, Mistress Jaina," he said as she grabbed him under the arms and helped him to his feet. "Beastly things! I don't understand why Captain Solo would need so many of them."

  Jaina snatched at one of the agitated droids as it went past, but it managed to evade her grasp. Catching these things was harder than getting drewood mites from a womp rat!

  "Because, Threepio," she said, grabbing for another droid and failing again as it darted between her legs, "they're programmed to look out for Yuuzhan Vong. Wherever we go, we can seed these droids to make sure there are nospies."

  This last part was called out as she lunged again, this time managing to scoop one of the mouse droids off its runners. She pressed the shutdown switch on its belly, then pushed the inanimate droid into C-3PO's arms.

  "Here you go."

  "Thank you again, Mistress Jaina. But you really shouldn't trouble yourself with this. I'm sure you must have much more important tasks to do."

  "No, not really," she said, sticking out a foot to head off another one. "Besides, it was my fault that you dropped them in the first place."

  The job was made easier when Kenth Hamner pitched in to help, stopping on his way back from his meeting with her parents. His age made him less nimble than Jaina, but his longer reach easily compensated. Within minutes, they handed the last of the droids to C-3PO, whose thanks as he ambled off were muffled by the stack of droids once again in his arms.

  "Thanks," Jaina said to Hamner as Threepio disappeared around a corner.

  "My pleasure," he replied, dusting himself off. Then, just as she was about to continue on her way, he said, "You know, just between you and me, Cal's more worried about the Empire than he's letting on." He glanced at her wryly. "You'll let us know if you hear anything more definite from Jacen, won't you?"

  Jaina frowned, confused by Hamner's conspiratorial tone. "Of course."

  Hamner hesitated for a moment, then nodded his thanks and continued on his way to the ramp and out of the ship.

  Jaina was about to go and do a double check on the welds of a bank stabilizer her father had installed for the trip when she heard footsteps coming from the common area. She paused, waiting to see if it was her parents coming to find her. Two seconds later, though, there was the sound of her father crying out followed by a loud metallic crash.

  "Oh, my," she heard C-3PO say from down the corridor.

  "Threepio!" her father yelled, as a handful of mouse droids scooted across the deck from around the corner.

  Gilad Pellaeon had seen too many people die young to feel that he was, or ever would be, too old to live.

  His memories came and went in flashes, as though a searchlight had briefly found them in a thick fog. His life had become a series of fragments, and he could no longer recall how the pieces fit together. There were images of his birthplace, Corellia, and Coruscant, his home during his youth, but these were swamped beneath hundreds of other memories of other worlds he had visited throughout the years; these in turn were buried beneath thousands of memories of the empty gulfs that separated these planets. He had spent almost a century in space, rarely setting foot on solid ground unless circumstances absolutely demanded it. Deep inside, his heart recognized no world as his homenot even Coruscant, which at best he had endured while there, always glad to leave. No, the closest thing to home he'd ever had was the bridge of a starshipand he'd been on too many of those to feel affection for any particular vessel. Even Chi-maera, the Star Destroyer that had served him so faithfully for so long, was, in the end, just another ship.

  He frowned, puzzled. The Battle of Bastion, like the rest of his life, lay in pieces in his mind. The sharpest of these pieces, the most painful, was the image of the destruction of the Star Destroyer Superiorriddled with fires and craters, tumbling to its inexorable and terrible fate in the gas giant below. Chimaera had been in almost as bad shape. His last intact memory was of a coral-skipper coming in low and fast to ram the bridge. He recalled nothing after that. How had he survived? No matter how hard he tried, he could find no memory to quell the confusion that throbbed at his temples. There was just blackness and pain.

  Pellaeon's childhood memories were lost in that same blackness. He had been born before the Empire, before the anti-alien propaganda, before the fall of the Jedi even before the birth of the child who would grow to become Darth Vader. His first military role had been with the Judicial Forces, which he had joined at the age of fifteen, having lied about his age. From the vantage point of a ship's deck, he had watched the tide rise and fall on so many politicians, and he had learned to be cynical about all of themjust as he had learned over the years to trust only in himself and his own judgments. That was how he had survived so many dramatic reversals. He was rarely the one at the front of the army, waving the sword and leading the charge. Gilad Pellaeon was the one more often than not standing back, ensuring his soldiers were well fed, well trained, and, above all, content. He had respect for everyone under his commandand for his enemy, too. That, above all, he thought, was why he was still alive today when so many others around him had fallen. You never knew when your enemy would become your new boss.

  And that, ultimately, was the trouble with the Yuu-zhan Vong. They didn't fit into this picture at all. He'd seen what they could do firsthand at Ithor, the forest world that had been utterly destroyed by the invader. He had argued with the Moffs that they should lend all support possible to the defense of the galaxy. They, however, had resisted the idea of fighting alongside the New Republic and had proposed instead to huddle in their own corner of the galaxy and watch as those worlds around them crumbled and fell to the alien intruders, all the while remaining blithely confident that they were somehow immune.

  But that confidence, that arrogance, had b een effectively shaken with Bastion. Ah, yes. Bastion .. .

  Other details emerged from the fog as the searchlight of his memory flashed across them the first alarms as the coralskippers and strange, alien capital vessels had appeared in the system, tearing through planetary defenses as though they were made of paper. The surprise couldn't have been more total. The disorganized way the Imperial

  Navy had responded to the grutchins had appalled him. After Ithor, he had done his best to ready the Empire for a Yuuzhan Vong attack, but only his Star Destroyer, Chi-maera, had responded efficiently and effectively at short notice. His crew had done everything he could have asked of them.

  Pain stabbed through him, as though someone had rammed a force pike into his side. The memories fled as his insides exploded with fire. His back arched, his mouth opened wide to scream out his protest at the terrible agony flaring through him. He bucked and writhed to try to reposition himself in such a manner that the pain might stop, but nothing seemed to help. Nothing, that is, except for the voice calling out to him. It wasn't necessarily what the voice said, either, just the distraction it offered.

  But then the pain closed in again, accompanied now by images of the Yuuzhan Vong's weapons flashing murderously around his ship, and the brilliant, almost blinding explosion of TIE fighters against the night sky.

  Eventually these horrific images dissolved back into the blackness, leaving just the scattered pinpoint lights of the galaxy shining against the infinite darkness of space. The sight was one he had seen many times before, and one he'd thought he could never get tired of. He had always believed the idea of a galactic empire to be slightly ludicrous, since so much of it was empty space. The planets, moons, and asteroids comprising such an empire were just handfuls of sand thrown into a vast ocean of nothingness. No emperor could rule such an ocean, no matter how many of those grains of sand he might call his own. Suc
h vastness defied capture by any means.

  And yet this time, he sensed a difference. The gulfs didn't seem so empty anymore. There was something something he couldn't find words to describe. A web,

  perhaps, stretching from system to system. A halo. A current running deeper than what lay visible on the surface. A truth, maybe?

  Whatever it was, it made it seem as if the galaxy itself was alive.

  Then even that began to fade as darkness crept in at the edges of his vision, taking the pain away along with everything else that had ever been him. Part of him fought it, as was his nature, but another part was happy to let it go. He had fought so hard and for so long against death that he had, perhaps, not spent enough time really living. He had no family apart from the navy; he had no home beyond the bridge of Chimaera. What was the point of living when he had nothing to live for?

  The darkness opened up beneath him and he fell into it like a stone sinking into the depths of an impossibly deep sea. He could feel fluid all around him, and in his lungs; and yet, strangely, he wasn't drowning.

  Bacta, he managed to think. They've got me in a bacta tank.

  Then that voice again, calling to him.

  Gilad Pellaeon, it said. Admiral, can you hear me?

  He struggled to reply, fighting the darkness that pulled him down like thick tangles of seaweed. All he could manage was a single, choked syllable

  "I-"

  Is that you, Admiral? Can you talk to me?

  "I-I'mhere."

  With every word, the darkness receded just a little bit more. And as it ebbed, the pain returned.

  "It... hurts."

  I know, said the voice.

  "Where?" He wanted to ask where he was, but it didn't seem as appropriate as, "are you?"

  I have installed a neural shunt into your inner ear, the voice explained. My voice is coming to you directly through your auditory nerve. Please forgive the intrusion, but we had to take drastic steps to keep you alive.

  "Whoare you?"

  My name is Tekli, Admiral. I am a healer.