Star Wars - The New Jedi Order - Force Heretic I - Remnant - Book 17
Page 32
"Well done, Jacen," Luke said. "You did wellall of you."
There was a slight pause as Jacen examined the course data he had received and confirmed the battle droids' trajectory through the milling Imperial Navy.
"What happened to the war?" he asked, sounding both surprised and relieved.
"It went away," Pellaeon said sardonically.
"But not far," Luke added. "And not for long, either."
"Don't worry," Pellaeon continued. "We'll be ready for it when it comes back. The Yuuzhan Vong will rue the day they dragged me into this."
"Don't let your confidence over this one victory cloud your judgment, Admiral," Luke said. "The Yuuzhan Vong will not take this defeat lightly. This is just the beginning, I assure you."
Pellaeon didn't need to be cautioned, "I think you're right, my friend," he said, nodding in the bacta tank, "The beginning of their end."
The word quickly spread through the Fian squadrons, and despite their inexperience and a number of losses, the Y-wings were managing to score the occasional strike against the Yuuzhan Vong attackers. On one occasion, Jag barely had time to notice the skip on his tail before it was knocked out of the sky by a wave of fire from his port side.
"Nice shooting, Seven," he said in thanks, banking to warn off another skip that was trying to get on the Y-wing's own tail.
A barrage of weapons fire announced the arrival of Pride of Selonia, following on from a devastating pass over the nearest of the two empty slaveships that were making their way down to the planet to begin the harvesting of the Fian population. The bladder-shaped alien vessel had split along its back and burst like an overripe fruit, causing an ugly spillage of reddish fluid. Jag watched as thousands of tiny, flapping shapesYuuzhan Vong gnullithsescaped from the massive rent in the slaveship, wriggling and dying in the vacuum like flash-frozen birds. Jaina and her Cerise Squadron friends sent a swarm of torpedoes arcing into the breach, then hurriedly retreated as the multiple explosions tore it to pieces.
"One down," she said triumphantly. It was good to hear the assertive tone return to her voice. "How're you doing, Jag?"
Jag returned his attention to the blastboat. It had turned about as though to withdraw, but he wasn't fooled. The Yuuzhan Vong weren't emotionally capable of accepting loss so gracefully. They were up to something, he was sure.
"It's got to be a ruse," he warned his wingmates. "Get too close and it'll"
The warning came too late, though, as three Y-wings came in tight to strafe the underside of the listless vessel. All of a sudden the blastboat's dovin basals unleashed their combined energy. The flash that followed was so bright it seemed to turn the blastboat transparent before blasting it into atoms. The resulting shock wave took out the three Y-wings and seriously rattled a further five nearby.
Jag sighed once the shock wave had fully dissipated. "Sorry, Indigo," he said. "I should have warned you sooner."
"Not your fault, Twin Leader," Indigo Five reassured him after a slight pause. "We are sorely uneducated in the art of fighting Yuuzhan Vong. We have only ourselves to blame."
A reduced Indigo Squadron swung in to help Jaina finish off the remaining slaveship, while the combined Twin Suns and Reseda Squadrons quickly disposed of the remaining skips. In no time at all, the battle was over, and Jag allowed his grip on the ship's controls to finally relax.
When his heart rate had slowed and he was sure there were no more coralskippers about, Jag contacted the leader of the Galantos Y-wings.
"So tell me, Captain Syrtik," he said, "what happens when you go back? Will you be court-martialed for this?"
"That depe nds," the stoic Fia said. "Our charter is to protect Galantos from attack, but we are under the direct command of the councilor and his primates. If they charge us with defying a direct order"
"But is that what you did?" Jaina broke in. "Did they really tell you not to help us?"
Jag noted the dangerous edge to Jaina's voice and said nothing. Emotions often ran high in the wake of a battle.
"It depends on how you define order," Syrtik said.
"I can't believe those space slugs," Jaina went on. "Here we are trying to save their skins and they have the nerve to" The unfinished sentence resolved in a heavy sigh. "No, it can wait. But when Mom hears about this, there's going to be trouble."
"I think there's going to be trouble anyway," Jag said. "After all, they did try to keep her prisoner on Galantosand they may have even intended to trade her for amnesty when the slaveships arrived."
There was nothing but silence down the line. Then on the scopes, Jag saw Jaina's battered X-wing empty its remaining torpedoes into the side of the single ruined slave-ship, spraying its contents against the starry backdrop.
"Are you all right?" he sent to her along a private channel.
"No, I'm not all right," she snapped back. "I mean, why do we bother, Jag? What's the point of trying to defend these people when they insist on stabbing us in the back? It just doesn't make any sense!"
"I'm sure Miza would ask the same question, Jaina."
She was silent for a moment as the name of the dead Chiss pilot sunk in. "I'm acting like a child, aren't I?"
"Actually, you're acting like Jaina Soloand that's nothing to be ashamed of, I assure you."
She laughed softly. "Thanks, Jag."
"Anytime." He glanced at his scopes. The Y-wing squadrons were already heading back to Galantos, their numbers reduced by roughly a quarter. Selonia was launching probe droids to investigate the wreckage of the slave-ships while the remainder of Twin Suns Squadron was slipping one by one into its docking bays.
"We have a lot to catch up on," he said. "Maybe we should dock and debrief in person."
She laughed again, and this time it seemed to come more naturally. "Why, that must be one of the most romantic things anyone has said to me in years."
He smiled, glad to hear her sounding more like her old self. "Then it's a date?"
"Sure," she said as her X-wing swung around to match course with his. "Why not?"
On the far side of the planet, well away from the action, the Millennium Falcon was slipping into the same orbit as the small yacht that had followed them up from the surface. Tahiri watched on silently from behind Anakin's parents, uncomfortable with the obvious tension in the cockpit. Han was still rankling over being outvoted after Tahiri had suggested they should try to find the yacht so they could learn more about the mystery man who had saved them. Han had wanted to go and join the battle with the others, and while Leia had said she would have liked to have done this also, she ultimately had sided with Tahiri.
"We're a diplomatic mission," she had argued in the face of Han's tight-lipped resistance. "And if diplomacy means retreating from a fightor cowering around the
back side of a planet, as you so eloquently put itthen that's what we have to do."
"But they need our help," Han had protested. It was obvious he didn't have much of an argument. He just preferred the fighting to the diplomacy.
"Twin Suns Squadron and Captain Mayn are more than capable of dealing with a small contingent of Yuuzhan Vong," Leia said. Then, more softly and with a reassuring hand on her husband's shoulder, she added, "Besides, in a war, diplomacy can be just as important as aggression. You'd be surprised at just how many deals are done under circumstances like this."
"I thought it was this very kind of thing that made you want to get out of politics," he said, glowering at the controls as he brought the Falcon around.
Leia sighed, tired of trying to make him see reason. "Only one of the reasons, Han," she returned.
Before he could respond, she had turned her attention back to the scanners. Tahiri knew that the argument was over. Leia was a strong-willed individual, and she wasn't the kind to waste time bickering with her husband over something that, as far as she was concerned, had been resolved.
Noticing the growing tension in the cockpit, C-3PO had taken it upon himself at that moment to leave, dismissing himsel
f with the flimsy excuse that his activators needed calibrating. Tahiri suspected, though, that this was a standard excuse the golden droid used whenever things got too uncomfortable between his human owners. Tahiri wished she had a similar excuse. If she hadn't been needed, she might have slipped off as well. Her senses were swimming disturbingly after the elation on the landing field and their escape. She felt light-headed, peculiar. ..
Keep it together, she told herself, doing her best to concentrate on real things, not illusions.
Traffic over the planet was light, so finding the yacht wasn't going to prove too difficult. Ion trails led from a hundred or so launches to upper orbit. It was relatively easy to rule out the fighters and the large freighters. Only a handful remained in tight and low, waiting for rendezvous. Tahiri knew instinctively, through the Force, that the being who had rescued them would be waiting for them, as he'd said he would be. Although she didn't know what he had to say, his mention of the Peace Brigade had convinced her that he knew what he was talking about and that they should hear him out. The silver totem she had found in the diplomatic quarters was missing from her pocket, but it was proof that the Yuuzhan Vong had obviously been involved for a while. The arrival of the slaveships wasn't just a coincidence, she was sure.
The tact that she had responded so strongly to the totem still disturbed her. Its presenceor the past presence of its owner, at leasttroubled her, nagging as it did at the back of her mind. It surprised her, too. She hadn't realized that she was so sensitive to echoes of the Yuuzhan Vong. Instead of fading away, as she had fervently hoped it would, the nagging was only getting stronger.
No, she told herself firmly, shaking her head and focusing on the task at hand. Reaching out with the Force, she sought any sign of the person she had recognized on the Al'solib'minet'ri City landing field. Then . . .
"There," she said, pointing. The small Corellian craft was hugging the upper atmosphere below. Shell-like in shape, with several small blister ports sprouting thrusters and rudimentary shield generators but no apparent armaments, its engines were silent. "That's it."
"Are you sure?" Han asked. He still sounded moody.
She nodded, feeling with the Force again. "As sure as I can be."
"Millennium Falcon," crackled a voice out of the sub-space communicator. It was the same voice Tahiri had heard back on the landing field. "Hailing Millennium Falcon."
"Yeah, we hear you," Han said. "Mind telling us who you are?"
"A friend," came the reply.
"Let us be the ones to decide that."
"Do we know you?" Leia asked.
"We have never met, but you know my kind," the being said. That he wasn't human was becoming increasingly clear to Tahiri, although she couldn't quite pin down his species. There was a faint singsong quality to the voice that she'd heard before, although she couldn't for the life of her remember where.
"What kind is that?" Han asked.
"I apologize for the reception you received on Galantos," the voice pressed on, ignoring the question. "There was nothing I could do to prevent it. I would have warned you when you arrived, had I known in advance you were coming, but by the time I found a way into the
diplomatic rooms you were already imprisoned. I had to wait for an opportunity to help you more overtly and a time when it no longer mattered if my cover was blown."
"You're a spy?" Leia asked.
"Not exactly," said the mystery voice. "But I can help you."
"We're already in your debt," Tahiri said.
"Any debt you may have had with me, Tahiri Veila, was cleared when you helped me escape," he said. "And we hold the Solos in high regard for the many times they've helped us in the past. So no, there is no debt. I am simply glad to have met youand to have made a difference."
"What can you tell us about Galantos?" Leia asked. "Jaina says that the Yevetha are destroyed. Is that correct?"
"Fian probes to N'zoth confirmed that the Yevethan shipyards have been destroyed, but they didn't stick around to look any deeper. The Fia are deeply afraid of their neighbors; what happened here twelve years ago traumatized their culture. The Yevetha may have been routed almost to the last ship by the New Republic, but they were still there, in the cluster, and the Fia always knew that one day they would emerge to try again. Last time the Fia survived, thanks to the help of the New Republic; this time, however, the New Republic might not be able to defend them."
"And the fear of the Yevetha returning would only have grown as the Yuuzhan Vong crisis deepened," Leia put in.
"Exactly. The Fia aren't by nature a warlike species, and they knew their feeble attempts to arm themselves would never be sufficient. If the New Republic lost, who would protect Galantos from the Koornacht Cluster? So when a group approached them a year ago, promising to end the Yevethan threat, you can imagine how very tempting an offer it was."
"This is where the Peace Brigade comes in, right?" Tahiri asked, fighting the disorientation in her mind to concentrate on the conversation. "Resources in exchange for safety."
"That's right. The Peace Brigade took minerals they needed for exchange with other parties, and N'zoth was destroyedtaken by surprise, thanks to the tactical information the Fia gave the Brigaders, who in turn passed it on to the Vong commanders. That way, the Fia hoped to ensure th eir own safety by dealing with the Peace Brigade. After all, they feared the Yevetha much more than they feared the Yuuzhan Vong, who have yet to make significant impact on this side of the galaxy. That seemed to be it. Galantos was safe at last."
"All without our knowledge," Leia said.
"Courtesy of the communications blackout."
"Was that also part of the deal with the Peace Brigade? Galantos cutting itself off from the New Republic?"
"Yes."
"But why?" Tahiri asked.
"For fear of reprisals," the stranger replied.
"From the Peace Brigade?"
"From the New Republic. You don't take kindly to those who consort with the enemy."
"With good reason," Han said. "I can't believe we spent so much energy trying to save a bunch of mass murderers from a fate they probably deserve. If we hadn't come along when we did, the Fia would be crated up in one of those slaveships right now and headed for one of the occupied worlds. We should have left them to it."
"You don't mean that, Han," Leia said.
"Don't tell me you're going to forgive them for what they did." Han looked as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "The Yevetha don't know how to lose. They're as bad as the Vong in that respector were, anyway. They would've fought to the last, and the Fia knew it. That makes them as guilty of genocide as the Yuuzhan Vong."
"The Fia were manipulated into it," Leia said. "The Yevetha would have quite happily destroyed the Fia and all of us, too, for that matterbut I never once heard you advocate their slaughter. The Fia are as much victims in this as anyone else."
"They sure would've been," Han said bitterly, "if we hadn't come by when we did."
"People do stupid things, Han." Leia's lips were thin and white, as though she was keeping her own anger in check. "I'm not saying that I approve of the Fia and their actions, or that I'm not angry at how they treated us. It's just that I can understand them, their fear of losing everything. The Yuuzhan Vong wanted slaves and information on potential threats. The Fia gave them both by pointing out the Yevetha. They also set themselves up as a slave target by getting
complacent and cutting themselves off from their allies. But that doesn't make them our enemy. No one deserves to be enslaved, no matter what they've done. We're here to reopen communications and save lives, not here to cast judgment over who deserves to live or die."
Han reluctantly acknowledged the point with a grunt.
"Then we showed up," Tahiri said, made uncomfortable by the argument. She felt oddly threatened when Anakin's parents nagged at each other. "Tipped off by you, I presume. A message found its way into the Falcon's computers, telling us where to go."
"It also gave you the opportunity to get closer to us," Leia said.
"That's right," he said. "At first I was able only to leave a note in your escort's flight computer, but I had limited time and I could not explain myself properly. Then when the Yuuzhan Vong arrived, security was tightened even more. The Fia thought the slaveship was just a freighter come to take more resources."
"Except they were the resources," Han said with a shake of his head.
"Yes."
"I have to admit," Leia said, "it's a clever plan. The Yuuzhan Vong are stretched too thin to take this region by force. Instead, they rely upon factions within to do half their work for them. It's efficient and deadlyand I don't dare assume that this is the only place they've tried this tactic."
"That would be an incorrect assumption, Princess." The voice over the comm was grimly serious. "There are numerous communications blackouts in place in this quarter of the galaxy. Your intelligence networks are aware of many of thesehence your mission. What is difficult to tell is which ones are innocent, and which ones are the work of the Peace Brigade and the Yuuzhan Vong. In some places, the answer is known after the fact, when it's too late. Rutan and its moon Senali, for instance, were politically divided by the Peace Brigade well over a year ago. A few months afterward, the Senali were wiped out by a Yuuzhan Vong force that subsequently turned its guns on the Rutanians and enslaved half the population."
"Rutan was on our list," Leia said to Han.