Star by Star

by Troy Denning

  Despite the pains shooting up his arm, Borsk called upon his long experience as a diplomat to keep an impassive face. At last, a large blast boulder stopped outside his balcony and disembarked a company of much-tattooed warriors.

  An earless individual wearing a cape of colorful scales over armor entered the office and came to Borsk’s side. He had fringed lips and a face so mutilated it was difficult to tell the tattoos from the scars, but Borsk knew this was not Tsavong Lah. Like nearly everyone else in the New Republic, the chief had watched the warmaster’s broadcast after the fall of Duro, when he had demanded the surrender of the Jedi, and even this grisly face could not compare to Tsavong Lah’s.

  “You may stand,” the newcomer said.

  “When I see Tsavong Lah.”

  The Yuuzhan Vong held his hand out and received an am-phistaff from one of his subordinates. He brought the butt of the weapon down on Borsk’s poisoned hand. The Bothan bit his tongue to keep from screaming and grew immediately dizzy.

  “Tell the warmaster to hurry,” Borsk said, fighting to stay upright. “I will be dying soon.”

  “I am Romm Zqar, commander of the drop,” the Yuuzhan Vong said. “You must surrender to me.”

  Borsk shook his head. “Then there will be no surrender.”

  Instead of striking again, Zqar pressed the amphistaff’s fanged head to the hand holding the pressure point. “Why must you speak with the warmaster personally?”

  “Honor.” Borsk had been expecting this question and had long ago thought of a suitable answer. “If I am to surrender, I must do it to someone of equal station.”

  Zqar surprised him by speaking into the air in Yuuzhan Vong. There were a few minutes of silence. Borsk continued to grow dizzy, and the light on his heart-rate scanner began to blink more slowly. Finally, one of the commander’s shoulder villips answered. Zqar nodded and uttered a single Yuuzhan Vong word, then ordered the others to evacuate the office.

  When his subordinates filed onto the waiting blast boulder, Zqar said, “You are not Tsavong Lah’s equal, but he sends his compliments.” He flicked the amphistaff, and the head sank its poisoned fangs deep into the hand holding the pressure point. “He believes the kintan strider death gambit to be the only worthy move in your infidel dejarik game.”

  The detonation flash would have been visible from orbit even without the magnification of the Kratak’s great eye, but through the lens Tsavong Lah saw the white sphere of Borsk Fey’lya’s death bomb flash into existence across a full kilometer. It hung there for many seconds, its heat melting the faces of the surrounding towers and shattering every yorik coral vessel within two hundred meters. In addition to Zqar’s departing command vessel, the blast destroyed two drop ships and at least twenty airskiffs, and the warriors inside a good portion of the Imperial Palace, as well—in all, perhaps twenty-five thousand Yuuzhan Vong.

  “I should have had Zqar let him bleed to death,” Tsavong Lah said. “Our losses today are already too heavy.”

  “I am glad you are not among them, Warmaster.” Seef was standing next to him at the edge of the great eye, staring down on the world they were conquering. In her hands, she held the villip of the priest Harrar, whom the warmaster had dispatched to Myrkr to consecrate the capture and return of the Solo twins. “Eminence Harrar was wise to advise you not to go.”

  Tsavong Lah considered this, then addressed the villip. “Seef praises your wisdom, my friend. She does not think me ready to stand before Yun-Yammka either.”

  “It is not a matter of your readiness, Warmaster,” Harrar’s villip said. “It is a matter of what the gods desire. If it was not their wish to take you when the Sunulok was destroyed, it would have been a blasphemy to let the infidel leader slay you.”

  The warmaster looked back to the Imperial Palace and watched the fiery sphere contract into its own vacuum, drawing clouds of smoke and rubble and tumbling bodies after it. The blast had annihilated most of what Viqi Shesh’s diagrams identified as the executive and administrative wings of the Imperial Palace. Only the Grand Convocation Chamber and senatorial offices remained more or less intact, and there was no reason to believe they would contain many of the vital records the readers had hoped to capture.

  “I am not so certain the gods will be all that pleased with my survival, Eminence Harrar.” Tsavong Lah glanced down at the scales and spines protruding from the still-rotting flesh at his shoulder, then said, “It is better to die in the service of a victorious end than suffer the disgrace of a Shamed One.”

  “Then the corruption is advancing again?” Harrar asked.

  “It has not abated,” Tsavong Lah corrected. “The gods have given me Coruscant. Now I must give them their Jeedai twins.”

  “You will, Mighty One.” It was a mark of their friendship that Harrar addressed him so, for priests rarely afforded warriors such respect. “Vergere’s ruse was successful. She reports that Jacen Solo is her prisoner even now.”

  “And Jaina Solo?”

  “When last we spoke, Nom Anor assured me she was within his reach.”

  Seef exhaled in relief, but the warmaster’s stomach grew queasy. Yal Phaath had already contacted him to complain about the destruction of the cloning grashal and the loss of the voxyn primary, so he knew just how short Nom Anor’s reach truly was. He folded his hand and radank claw together before his chest and bowed to Harrar’s villip.

  “Glory to the gods, Eminence. All Coruscant awaits your return.”

  They brought the Ksstarr around again. The targeting mask on Jaina’s face showed three yorik coral corvettes coming straight at them. Behind the trio, the worldship was silhouetted against Myrkr, a huge gray disk overlapping an even larger green disk. The basin where she had last seen Jacen was smaller than the last time they had come around, about the size of a fefze’s compound eye.

  “Zekk!” she yelled into the targeting mask. “We’re farther away!”

  “Because they keep getting closer,” Zekk growled back. “We won’t save him by getting blasted ourselves. Clear me a lane!”

  “Done!”

  Cursing Zekk for a Sith-spawned coward, Jaina raised her left thumb. The control glove on her hand activated the mask’s targeting reticle, basically a set of increasingly blurry rings. She fixed her gaze on the rightmost blur and—working through trial and error, with no idea what the strange flashes in the viewfinder might mean—ran her right hand through an awkward finger dance that brought each concentric ring into focus. When the center disk showed a clear image of her target, she made a fist with her left hand.

  From the other side of the blastule came the loud plop of the plasma gun’s automatic loader, then the deafening bang of the actuator charge ionizing the medium. Jaina’s mask went dark, and the blazing sphere streaked away.

  The viewfinder cleared two seconds later. Her plasma ball was arcing toward her target—and a long line of enemy rounds was streaking back toward her.

  “Incoming!” she yelled.

  Zekk put the frigate into a tight rising turn, and they swung away from the worldship.

  “Zekk!”

  Lowbacca cut her off with an urgent bellow.

  “A fleet?” Jaina cried.

  She craned her neck around, and a dozen oblong flecks appeared in her targeting mask, streaking in from the edge of the system. Her heart fell. It wasn’t a fleet—not exactly—but if they tried to return to the worldship, they would be trapped.

  A flurry of plasma balls blazed past under the Ksstarr’s belly, then one slipped past Tesar at the stern shielding station and impacted the hull. The frigate shuddered.

  Zekk’s voice came through the mask. “Jaina, what do you want to do?”

  Jaina could not answer. There was only one thing to do. But how could she abandon Jacen? After rebuking him for leaving Anakin, how? The Ksstarr shuddered again. A wet pop sounded somewhere aft, a door valve sealing against a vacuum breach.

  “Jaina!” Zekk yelled.

  “I—”

  Th
e words caught in her throat, like she was choking. She closed her fist and sent a plasma ball streaking into space.

  “Better for Jacen if we flee,” Tenel Ka said. “With only one twin, perhaps they will delay the sacrifice until we can organize a rescue.”

  What rescue? Jaina thought. They had lost so many Jedi already. Even Luke would risk no more to rescue Jacen. But he would not stop Jaina. Nobody would.

  “That’s what we do,” Ganner said. “Best thing for Jacen.”

  “Jaina?” Zekk asked. “Your brother.”

  Just do it, Jaina thought. Don’t make me say it.

  “All right.” Zekk turned the ship away. “I think I understand.”

  “This one thinkz you do,” Tesar said. “We all do.”

  Not possible. Mask filling with tears, Jaina craned her head around, and the worldship came into view, no larger than a fist. She closed her eyes, concentrated on that place in her chest that had always belonged to Jacen. She felt him there, just a flicker for just an instant, and then she lost him, then she could feel nothing except her own anger and hatred and despair.

  “We’ll be back, Jacen,” she said, finding the strength to speak. “You hold on. We’ll come for you.”

  Generally speaking, it was not good to skim a planetary surface with a ship’s artificial gravity fully activated. The conflicting perceptions of up and down played havoc with most species’ sense of balance, and Leia could feel the effects in her own queasy stomach and spinning head. She could also hear over the intercom, and smell in the circulation system, the effect it was having on the passengers.

  There was nothing to be done about it. With the holds packed full of unrestrained passengers and the Falcon dodging and swinging through Coruscant’s hoverlanes and a skip squadron nosing their tail, they needed some way to hold everyone on the floor. If that meant Leia had to sanisteam the entire ship later, she would consider it a privilege to be alive to do it.

  Han rolled the Falcon upside down and bobbed over a bridge, then found two skips coming head-on and had to dive for the dark underlevels. Both laser turrets chuffed as Meewalh and a gunner from the palace poured fire over the stern. One of them hit, and a deafening rumble shook the towers. Their success had no effect on the number of magma balls streaking down all around.

  Leia pulled herself back to the center of the oversized copilot’s chair, checked the map on her vid display, and cursed. “Missed our turn.”

  “I knew that.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  Han leveled the Falcon out and headed back. The upper quad cannons chuffed constantly as Meewalh ripped into the bellies of half a dozen surprised skips, then Han stood the Falcon on its side and banked into the narrow side lane, and Leia had to grab the arm of her chair to hold herself up where she could see the map display.

  “Left in three, two—”

  “Got it.”

  Han flipped the Falcon over on its other side, then they were shooting through the dank catacombs beneath the Great Western Sea. Meewalh and the palace gunner took out another pair of skips. Han splashed the Falcon through a swirling waterfall, made three quick turns, and the skips were gone.

  “Not bad for an old man.” Leia centered herself in her chair. “Maybe Corran can teach you to fly an X-wing when we get out of this.”

  “If Eclipse has any left,” Han said.

  They picked their way through the dark maze of mildewed buildings and mossy pillars that supported the lake bed, then poked the Falcon’s nose out from under the ferrocrete beach and hovered on their repulsor engines. Directly ahead lay the smoking ruins of a planetary turbolaser battery. The weapons themselves were melted to slag. The massive support structure looked more like a meteor crater than a building.

  “This the one?” Han’s voice was full of disbelief.

  Leia checked the display. “This is it.”

  Han cursed.

  Leia could tell what he was thinking, that he was afraid they were too late, but knowing she had other resources, he waited and said nothing. He was the same Han, certainly, but somehow attuned to her in a way the old Han could never have been. She was beginning to like this—really like it.

  Leia closed her eyes and reached for her brother, trying to let her sense of his presence lead her to him, as it had that time on Bespin when Darth Vader took his hand. After a moment, she raised her arm and, without looking, pointed in the direction she felt him.

  “There,” she said.

  “You mean right over there?” Han asked. “Where that drop ship is coming down?”

  Leia opened her eyes and saw the small mountain of a Yuuzhan Vong drop ship descending toward the towertop she was pointing at. “Yes,” she said. “That would be about right.”

  Pirouetting on her good foot, Mara raised her bacta cast and hook-kicked a Yuuzhan Vong in the temple. He dropped, and she continued her spin and slashed her lightsaber across the one behind him, then ducked an amphistaff striking from the right and saw Luke leave himself open to run her attacker through. She brought her blaster under her arm and fired twice, once to either side of Luke’s head, and burned holes between the eyes of two Yuuzhan Vong rushing to attack him.

  Luke smiled and swept the feet from beneath a fresh warrior as he skipped in to attack. For each warrior they killed, a dozen more rushed forward to die. They launched themselves into side-by-side backflips and came down in the middle of the turbolaser crew’s firing line and began to bat swarm and lay bolt. The Yuuzhan Vong charge faltered, then dribbled to an end as the crew members opened up with their blaster rifles.

  A junior officer—one of two remaining to the battery—stepped to their side. “We’re out of here—going under.”

  “No!” Mara told him. “The Falcon can’t find us inside a building.”

  “Won’t much matter.” The officer pointed into the sky, where a thousand-meter drop ship was moving into position over the building. “Like the lady said, ‘Fight until you can fight no longer.’ Your friends aren’t coming. We’ll do more damage below.”

  The drop ship started to rain firejellies, melting hand-sized holes into the durasteel roof. One landed too close and drew an alarmed whistle from R2-D2, and Mara and Luke began to use the Force to redirect those coming in their direction.

  “What do you think?” Mara asked Luke. She knew he still felt Leia searching for them. “Maybe we’re just drawing them into a world of hurt.”

  The drop ship’s belly hatches opened and began to dangle lines, reptoid slave-soldiers already sliding down. A dozen ropes landed on their building alone.

  Luke raised his blaster and opened fire. “We have to stay. Han and Leia won’t leave until they know one way or another.”

  Mara nodded. “Fine. Ben is safe. I’ll trust the Force for the rest.”

  “Hey, where’s everybody going?” Han demanded of nobody in particular—least of all Leia. “Wouldn’t you think they could stay in one place for five minutes?”

  The tower was one of those mirrsteel jobs with a stepped roof, and of course the lightsabers and blaster flashes had been on the wrong side when Leia finally spotted Luke and Mara and the battery crew. It had taken five minutes of wild flying to circle the area and approach from Luke’s side of the roof, and now the New Republic crew members were running for the stairwell.

  “Tighten your crash webbing,” Han said. “And arm the concussion missiles.”

  “The concussion missiles?” Leia gasped. “Han—”

  Han took his eye off the rooftops and glanced over. “Yeah?”

  Leia swallowed, then reached for the arming switches. “How many?”

  Han smiled crookedly. “How many do you think?”

  “All of them.” Leia started flipping toggles.

  Han brought them in fast and low, streaking under the drop ship barely three meters above roof level. Too slow to react, the big vessel released a volley of firejellies that did more harm to the reptoids on its drop lines than to the well-shielded Falcon. Han slammed t
he decelerators and—hoping he wouldn’t ion-scorch Luke or Mara—brought the ship up on its tail.

  “Launch!”

  Leia hit the launcher. The first pair of missiles flashed away and slammed into the drop ship’s belly before the shielding crews could react. The shock wave banged the Falcon down on its tail, and she launched the second and third volleys. By the time she hit the fourth wave, the massive vessel was belching fire from its drop hatches and raining shards of yorik coral from its hull.

  The New Republic troops reversed course, racing for the Falcon. Han could not see Luke and Mara, but felt sure they were already running up behind.

  “Get the boarding ramp.” Han set the Falcon down on its struts. “And make it—”

  Leia was already rushing down the outrigger access tunnel. Meewalh and the palace gunner opened up on the reptoids with the quad cannons. Han lowered the retractable repeating blaster for good measure. He kept expecting the drop ship to lay down a suppression barrage, but soon realized the real danger was being crushed beneath the flaming boulders that kept crashing down around the Falcon. Maybe there was such a thing as overkill.

  Han withdrew the retractable blaster. As soon as the status light indicated the ramp was rising, he lifted off and streaked out from under the drop ship, diving into the hoverlanes and shooting under the Great Western Sea, navigating more by sensor and display map than by what he could see. They were about halfway across when Luke entered the cockpit with Mara, Leia, and R2-D2.

  “Thanks for the lift.” Luke clasped Han’s shoulder and slipped into the copilot’s seat. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”

  “The hoverlanes were murder.” Han glanced at the map on Leia’s display and started to ask Luke to find a good place to break for orbit—then thought better of it and hitched his thumb toward the back of the cockpit. “Sorry, kid, that seat belongs to Leia.”