by Troy Denning
Scanning ahead with both optical and acoustic sensors, 1-1A rushed through the breach into a small power-relay control station. Three crew members lay on the floor, holding their ears, groaning from the pressure shift. YVH 1-1A ignored them and crossed the cabin, then stopped when his see-through sensors detected a squad of Yuuzhan Vong in the main corridor outside.
Ambush? 1-24A asked.
Affirmative.
YVH 1-1A projected red dots onto the wall to show the location of each individual. He was about to outline an attack strategy when 1-24A clunked through the hatch and started firing. The results left no doubt that his weapon systems were functional.
Corridor secure, 1-24A reported.
Maximum efficiency, 1-1A complimented.
Circuits chilling at his own hesitation, 1-1A assigned firing teams to sever the enemy tether, to secure the Byrt’s drive units, and to begin a Yuuzhan Vong search-and-destroy sweep. The most important task he reserved for himself. Leaving two squads to secure the breach until General Calrissian arrived with the biotics, 1-1A set his auditory sensors to their most sensitive and stepped through the hatch.
Though only 4.5 seconds had passed, the corridor walls were pocked with spent thud bugs, the floor strewn with Yuuzhan Vong bodies. Droid squads were advancing in both directions, their blaster arms filling the passage with flashes of color. As his processing unit began to interpret auditory data, 1-1A realized he had underestimated the difficulty of his own mission. Within current sensor range alone, he detected fifty-two vocalizing infants. Loudly vocalizing infants.
Starting with the nearest, 1-1A stepped over a still-smoking Yuuzhan Vong corpse and followed the wailing through a short maze of corridors to the first-class berthings. An enemy search party was pulling refugees out of their sleeping cabins, shoving them to the floor. The leader was dangling a crying infant by one leg, shaking it at a sobbing human female, and demanding, “Tell me! Is this the Jeedai baby?”
YVH 1-1A raised his blaster arm, and the whir of his servomotors caused the Yuuzhan Vong to whirl around. Some pushed their captives back into the cabins, others dragged them out to use as shields. YVH 1-1A sprang forward, firing. There was no question of faulty selection modules or dampened power outputs. He dropped five foes in five shots. When the leader attempted to dash the baby against the wall, he even felt confident enough to shoot the warrior’s hand off at the wrist.
The astonished mother caught the child in her arms, then turned to 1-1A babbling incomprehensible words of gratitude.
“Remain calm,” 1-1A replied. “Seek shelter immediately.”
Viqi Shesh looked like something resurrected by a Krath death witch. Her cheeks were hollow, her pupils dilated, her skin as gray as a Noghri’s, and her gait suggested the influence of some powerful painkiller. But she held her head high and seemed most determined to impress the Yuuzhan Vong following her down the corridor. Fearful that the glow of his photoreceptors would betray his presence, C-3PO stepped to one side of the evacuation bay hatch and continued to peer through the viewport at an oblique angle.
“And then the nasty Senator Shesh came looking for Ben Skywalker,” he said quietly. In a futile attempt to calm the distressed infant, he was using his agile TranLang III vocabulator to replicate Mara’s breathy voice. The imitation was flawless, but there was nothing he could do about the coldness of his metallic flesh—or about what the child sensed through the Force. “So brave Ben grew very quiet.”
Ben whimpered loudly.
Out in the corridor, Viqi Shesh cocked her head to one side.
“I told Mistress Leia I was the wrong droid for this,” C-3PO whined in Mara’s voice. He opened the emergency medpac he had taken from the escape pod and removed the safetranq. “Please be quiet, Master Ben. I am quite certain your mother wouldn’t want me administering sedatives.”
Viqi Shesh spoke to her escorts, and they began to open hatches and search escape bays. C-3PO had primed their own pod for launch, but he was not eager to take another escape pod ride. Besides, they would only find themselves back on Coruscant.
The searchers were three hatches away when a hulking YVH war droid appeared behind them.
“Thank the maker!” C-3PO said.
He thought it was a 1-1 series, but that hardly mattered. The whole YVH line was top quality, and the mere fact that there was one aboard was a positive sign. C-3PO sent a burst transmission identifying himself and his charge and requesting aid. He received a terse reply informing him that rescuing him and Ben was the mission. Then the droid loosed a flurry of minicannon fire, taking out four of Shesh’s escorts in half as many seconds.
Ben erupted into a fit of wailing. Given the roar in the corridor, C-3PO thought that three centimeters of durasteel wall might prevent the baby from being heard. He was disabused of that notion when he peered through the viewport and found Viqi Shesh crouching behind a bulkhead opposite him, staring through the viewport directly at him.
“Ben! Now look what you’ve done!”
It was just the sort of tactical problem suited to a deceptive Bothan mind: one narrow doorway defended by a dozen well-armed foes in possession of an undetermined number of hostages. Ba’tra would normally have sent a team through an air duct, or tried to lure the enemy out by feigning withdrawal. This time, he turned to a YVH war droid and pointed at the door.
“One-Thirty-two, secure the bridge.”
“Yes, General.”
YVH 1-32A waded forward into a bug swarm so thick Ba’tra lost sight of him. The droid countered with a lightning storm of blasterfire. Three seconds later, he stood in the doorway, both blaster arms smoking, laminanium armor pitted to the circuit casing.
“Bridge secure, General.”
“Well done.” Ba’tra raised his comlink and spoke to a subordinate waiting in Lando’s yacht. “You may send the Lady Luck on her way, Captain—and give it some speed. I’m sure General Calrissian would appreciate the vessel still being intact when he activates his recall unit.”
The general clicked off without awaiting an acknowledgment, then followed a dozen soldiers onto the bridge. Though there were no signs that the Byrt’s crew had put up a fight, two had been tortured to death, the rest bloodied to various degrees. Ba’tra looked around until he found a Rodian with a captain’s epaulet hanging off one shoulder.
“This ship is being commandeered.” Ba’tra handed him a piece of flimsiplast with a set of coordinates. “Take us here.”
“You’re not commandeering us, General, you’re rescuing us.” The Rodian studied the flimsiplast, then looked out the viewport as the uncrewed Lady Luck streaked past with an entire squadron of coralskippers in pursuit. The funnels atop his head twisted outward in confusion, then he said, “But I don’t understand. This is barely beyond the battle. We won’t be safe there.”
Ba’tra smiled. “We will when the Venture arrives.”
Lando was halfway down the service ladder when a shock wave slammed the Byrt so hard there was no need to finish the descent. He lost his grip and simply found himself squatting on the starferry’s lowest deck, listening to the roar of a pitched battle around the corner.
“Thermal detonator ignition, General,” 1-1A reported, already standing on the deck. “Tether ship destroyed.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Lando stood, then heard a familiar drone and dropped back to his haunches as a stray razor bug streaked around the corner. The thing dived at his throat, but 1-1A zinged a low-power bolt past his ear and zapped it out of the air. Lando managed a weak smile, trying not to show his fright, but knowing the war droid had already detected his increased heartrate and the slight rise in skin temperature. He drew his blaster and peered around the corner.
Viqi Shesh and two dozen Yuuzhan Vong were withdrawing into Escape Bay 14, leaving the floor behind them strewn with tiny black seedpods. Though Lando had never seen this particular weapon, he felt sure the husks contained some unpleasant surprise.
“Analysis?” he aske
d.
“Unknown caltrop device,” 1-1A replied. “High potential for biotoxin attack.”
“Thanks for nothing.”
The Byrt lurched slightly as the sublight drives kicked in, and Lando knew they were on their way to the Venture. He removed his breath mask from his combat belt.
“You’re sure it’s the right baby this time?” Lando asked. “We’re not going after some Squib trapped in a locker?”
“The sound signature was identical,” 1-1A said defensively. “And the confidence level here is high. YVH One-Twenty-five received a burst transmission from a 3PO protocol droid claiming to have the correct child.”
“That’s them.” Lando covered his face with the breath mask. “Send in a droid, One-One-A.”
Lando had barely finished before 1-25A rushed forward, deftly dancing through husks. He made it two steps, then the pods began to roll toward him. Another two steps, and his foot came down on one. Nothing happened.
Then he moved his foot, and a heart-shaped kernel shot into the air behind him. The droid went motionless, then drained into the nugget.
“Singularity mines.” Lando pulled his breath mask down. “Nasty.”
“Analysis predicts obstacle impassable,” 1-1A reported. “All techniques for bypassing or clearing minefields will fail.”
Lando shook his head in disappointment. “Remind me to speak with the brain department about your ingenuity routines.” He took out his comlink and opened a channel to the bridge. “Calrissian here. Request two-second suspension of artificial gravity and inertial compensation.”
“Copy.”
Lando grabbed a bulkhead and had the droids magnoclamp themselves to the floor. A moment later, his stomach fluttered, and the singularity mines floated into the air. They drifted toward the stern and filled the corridor with eerie grating sounds as they brushed the walls and ripped two-meter holes in the durasteel. When gravity was restored, the remaining husks dropped to the floor and destroyed a five-meter section of service corridor.
Lando released the bulkhead and sprinted toward Escape Bay 14. He had intended to lead the charge himself, but the droids were already there, pouring blasterfire through the hatchway.
“Careful!” Lando ordered. “Watch the baby—and Threepio!”
He peered around the corner. The last Yuuzhan Vong were squeezing into the crowded escape pod, flinging thud bugs at the bay hatch. Viqi Shesh was nowhere to be seen, and the muffled wailing of a terrified infant could just be heard from inside the pod.
“Go!” Lando screamed. “Don’t let it launch!”
YVH 1-1A was already charging. The bug swarm trailed off, then C-3PO’s golden form tumbled out.
“Don’t shoot!” C-3PO screamed. He picked himself up and raised his hands. “I’m one of you!”
The war droids continued to pour fire past C-3PO as they rushed across the launch bay. The pod hatch started to close. YVH 1-1A sprang forward, reached for the gap, arrived a millisecond too late to prevent it from sealing.
C-3PO palmed the automatic launch button.
“See-Threepio!”
Lando rushed for the control panel and hit the cancel pad. There was a soft clunk … then the rockets pounded the blast shielding with efflux.
“What a relief!” C-3PO started across the bay. “I thought they would take me along.”
Lando followed close behind. “See-Threepio, who was that crying in the escape pod?”
“Oh, that was me, General Calrissian,” C-3PO answered in an infant’s voice. He stopped next to an emergency breath-mask locker and withdrew a medpac pouch containing a soundly sleeping infant. “Ben won’t be crying for several more hours, I am quite certain.”
FIFTY-FOUR
With both valves of the distant air lock drawn open, a bright crescent of blue sun could be seen blazing out from behind Myrkr’s rising disk, illuminating the million pillars of the serpent hall in gloomy streaks of sapphire. The shaper and his escorts were little more than stick silhouettes filing toward the exit in a single line. The voxyn queen was not visible at all, though Jacen knew she was there, in the gap two figures from the front.
“This is not right,” Tesar rasped quietly. “That air lock can’t be open.”
“It is better to seek an explanation than to deny what we all see clearly,” Tenel Ka replied. “There is an atmosphere outside that lock.”
“Yes, but what else?” Vergere asked. “That is the question, is it not?”
“How about you answer it for us?” Ganner replied.
When Vergere spread her arms and gave a feathery shrug, Jacen looked back to the line of Yuuzhan Vong. He filled his mind with thoughts of fear and suspicion and reached out to the queen for the eighth time since leaving the hive colony.
The voxyn reacted even more quickly than she had the last time, whirling on the warriors behind her. She must already have struck the first Yuuzhan Vong with her poison tail barb, for she ignored him and belched acid at the second in line, then leapt past both to slash at the next one. All three warriors went down, and she was attacking a fourth before the shaper and two of his remaining assistants got hold of her leashes and restrained her.
Jacen withdrew his presence. The queen slowly calmed to the point where the shaper felt confident in approaching her, stroking her muzzle and no doubt speaking to her in soothing tones. It would not be long before that act of bravery turned into a deadly mistake, but Jacen did not want the beast to kill the handler yet. As wary as the warriors were already, the death of the shaper would cause them to send for reinforcements.
The shaper finally backed away and signaled his assistants to release the tethers. They had learned the hard way that the queen would not move with someone holding the other end of a leash—the result of another uneasy feeling planted by Jacen. When the voxyn showed its willingness to resume travel by not killing anyone, the Yuuzhan Vong turned and—leaving their dead and wounded where they lay—vanished through the open air lock.
“Only four left,” Vergere said, rising from the group’s hiding place. “Well done, Jacen Solo.”
Jacen did not thank the strange little creature. He disliked killing, and he disliked even more tricking an animal into doing it for him. But he had his promise to Anakin to keep and his sister to track down—he still could not feel Jaina through the Force—and encouraging the voxyn to follow its nature was his only hope of doing either. He nodded to Tesar, who rose and set off. The Barabel kept them concealed in a fungus-lined rift, for the area was strewn with Yuuzhan Vong workers scavenging the exhausted serpent yards for a usable amphistaff or tsaisi baton.
As they traveled, Ganner remained a step behind Vergere, his repeating blaster pointed at her feathery back. Though she had been of considerable use in tracking the Yuuzhan Vong, the Jedi still did not trust her. Not only had she declined to identify her species—claiming they would not recognize it anyway—she had also refused to explain her presence during Elan’s attempt on the Jedi, or her reason for providing the tears that had saved Mara’s life. While unsure that she was an enemy, Jacen hardly considered her a friend, either. Needless to say, he now had Anakin’s lightsaber clipped to a spare hook on his equipment harness, and Ganner had pointedly confirmed that he would blast her into a feathercloud at the first sign of treachery. Vergere had indulged them with a shudder, undoubtedly insincere.
The fissure and fungus both dwindled away as the group neared the air lock. To avoid drawing attention, the Jedi activated their holoshrouds and, keeping Vergere screened from view, marched through the air lock disguised as Yuuzhan Vong.
They found themselves standing on the inside rim of what looked like an enormous impact crater, save that the slope was surprisingly featureless and the crest unnaturally even. There was no covering overhead, but the atmosphere was as thick and warm as inside the worldship. In the bottom of the basin lay what resembled a giant honeycomb, save that each cell was a meter across and held a single dovin basal.
Jacen could not sense t
he emotions of the dovin basals—creatures with no connection to the Force remained as unreadable to him as the Yuuzhan Vong themselves—but he could see by their labored pulsing and flaking hides that the things were in distress. There were even large tracts where the cells contained nothing but shriveled husks. Whether this stemmed from old age, exhaustion, or disease he did not know, but it did suggest another reason the Yuuzhan Vong were deserting the dilapidated worldship.
The shaper and his escorts were already on the floor of the basin, moving along the edge of the basal-comb toward Nom Anor’s frigate, which lay about a fifth of the way around the circle. The executor himself and perhaps fifty Yuuzhan Vong were half a kilometer out on the structure itself, crawling along the narrow walls between the cells and being careful to avoid the dovin basals themselves. From the group’s different dress—many of them wore armor only over their torsos—it was apparent the executor had stripped the ship’s crew to supplement his company.
Nom Anor and his followers were making their way toward the center of the basal-comb, where a huge sweep of cells contained either shriveled husks or nothing at all. In the heart of this dead area rested Jaina’s stolen shuttle, cracked and overturned, but still in one piece. The sporadic stream of blaster bolts and magma missiles arcing out of the wreckage suggested that at least a few Jedi had survived the crash.
Vergere hunched beside Jacen, her gaze running from the queen over to Nom Anor’s frigate, where four warriors stood watch at the base of the boarding ramp. “Interesting … Will you destroy the voxyn, Jacen Solo, or save your sister?”
Jacen ignored the question and continued to study the situation. The longblaster roared and split open a warrior in front of Nom Anor. The executor shuddered, but lowered his head and continued forward.