by Greg Keyes
That left the motley fifteen or so sentients who called themselves the Free People. They were armed with bows and stone knives. Against Yuuzhan Vong amphistaves and armor, he figured they had, at best, a chance to take one enemy with them each.
That was being highly optimistic, but hey, why not? The addition on his best‑case scenario brought him to a grand total of about twenty-four deceased Vong. They faced at least twice that number. They couldn’t run, either, because the rocky slopes behind them were several hundred degrees centigrade, courtesy of the superheated rock vapor that had just been sprayed from overhead in a perimeter around the Vong camp. The huge, worm‑like tubes that had disgorged the plasma still arched above them, not yet retracting toward the enormous cylinder that had sent them out like so many feeding tentacles.
“What did you say?” Klin‑Fa Gi asked.
“I didn’t say anything,” Uldir said, avoiding looking at her. The young Jedi was dark‑haired and black eyed. Very pretty. Utterly untrustworthy.
“Though I have plenty to say to you, believe me,” he clarified.
“You were moving your lips.” Then her brows arched. “Oh. You were counting our enemies. You move your lips when you count?”
“Only when I sum the reasons I should have spaced you when I had the chance.” He glanced at her, reluctantly. “Nice outfit, by the way.”
“It’s the latest,” she said.
Last time he had seen her, the young Jedi had worn a Bonadan game‑girl’s skirt and tights. Now she was clad in a black, form‑fitting garment of Yuuzhan Vong biofacture.
The warriors were now perhaps sixty meters away, still too far for a clean shot.
He fired anyway. He missed, but he hit a rock that exploded prettily. One of the Vong clutched at his face, evidently with a shard of stone in his eye.
“Lucky,” Klin‑Fa commented.
“Yeah,” Uldir agreed, “incredibly so. Not only do I get to die, I get to die in your company.” He grinned fiercely. “At least you won’t have a chance to use whatever dark side toy you got from the emperor’s warehouse.” He took another shot. This struck a warrior, but glanced from the Vonduun crab armor he wore.
“What in the name of the Sith are you on about?”
“Sith is right, you–” He suddenly noticed the glossy, six‑limbed humanoid who led the Free People doing something peculiar about a meter away from him.
“Txer, what are you up to?” Uldir asked. Whatever it was seemed to involve a coil of rope. Was the Myneyrshi going to try lassoing a Yuuzhan Vong?
“Offworlders free to fight Cut‑Up‑People,” Txer replied. “Fight all you want with shame weapons. Free People fight another time.”
With that, he tossed the looped end of the rope up into the air. Uldir noticed that the rest of the Free People seemed to be doing the same.
Yuuzhan Vong battle cries rang out as Uldir understood what Txer and his band were doing. The air filled with whirring as some of the Yuuzhan Vong threw something at them.
Thudbugs, Uldir thought dully. They were a species of modified beetle the Yuuzhan Vong used for ranged weapons. He fired in the vague hope of hitting at least one of the many that probably had his name on it.
Then Klin‑Fa Gi was suddenly in front of him, her lightsaber a double‑infinity of light. Burning thudbugs zinged off at improbable tangents. Uldir fired around her, trying to hit the joints in the warrior’s armor, but to no obvious affect.
Meanwhile, their erstwhile allies, the Free People, were climbing up their ropes as quickly as they could. They had noticed what Uldir hadn’t; that the exteriors of vapor tubes above them were covered in knobby protrusions. Txer and his bunch had thrown the loops of their ropes around these and were pulling themselves up and away from the conflict. Thudbugs killed two, and two more fell from insufficiently secure purchase, but the rest seemed to be escaping.
Someone grabbed Uldir from behind. He turned to find the Psadan he had rescued from the inferno only moments before.
“Climb,” the Psadan grunted, thrusting the dangling end of a rope at him.
“You go,” Uldir said. “I’ll follow.”
Which he wouldn’t, of course, because there wasn’t time. The howling warriors were on them.
The Psadan pushed past Uldir and bowled into the Yuuzhan Vong like the near‑sphere he was. He had a stone ax in each hand, and as Uldir watched he struck one Vong warrior in the throat and another in the forehead. Both hit the Psadan with their amphistaves, of course, but the weapons glanced off of the native’s natural armor.
“Come on,” Klin‑Fa shouted. She had already started up the proffered rope.
“You go,” Uldir said. The Vong were splitting around the enraged Psadan like a stream around boulders. Uldir shot two at near pointblank range. Both pitched back, but they looked like they would probably get up.
“Don’t be a fool. He gave you a gift. Don’t waste it.”
Uldir’s throat clutched. She was right. Despite his armor, the Psadan had no chance, and neither did Uldir. He could die helping the Waylander, or he could live to fight another day.
And incidentally, to do something about the dark Jedi escaping from under his nose. Or above it, in this case.
He shot frantically and grabbed the rope, but he had hesitated too long. The blaster would keep them back only for instants; he would never have time to climb, even if he could use both hands, which he could not.
And then something tried to pull his arm off, and air was whistling by him, and the Yuuzhan Vong were faces below him, shouting.
Groaning, Uldir dropped his blaster and clutched the rope with both hands, fighting the force of acceleration that was trying to push him back down to the surface of Wayland.
The vapor tubes were finally retracting, retracing their long arcs through the sky and pulling Klin‑Fa, the Free People, and Uldir Lochett back toward the giant, barrel‑shaped mining worm.
Pulling them back fast.
This is going to hurt, Uldir imagined.
Above him, Klin‑Fa was still climbing, and was just reaching the tube itself. He heard her exclaim when she touched it.
Looking back down, he noticed specks following them. More thudbugs. He watched them wax larger, wishing he still had the blaster, knowing he could never use it even if he did; his left arm was in agony, and he needed his right to hang on. He began climbing as best he could, which wasn’t very well. The surface of the jungle moon receded to a patchwork of green and dun enclosed in a vast black arc as the deadly insects hurtled closer and closer, until they were near enough for him to make out the details of their chitonous forms. Then, meters away, they began to lose the race. They receded to dots and vanished just as Uldir managed to get a grasp on the vapor ejector.
With a grimace, he discovered the reason for Klin‑Fa’s cry. The tube was still hot from expelling plasmic effluvium. He flinched, and his weight shifted to his bad arm, still holding the rope.
A small hand caught his wrist and pulled at it with surprising strength.
“No, you don’t,” Klin‑Fa said.
It was scalding, but once the surprise was past, not unbearable. With the Jedi’s help, he managed to clamber onto the tube.
They were past apogee now, and as the conduit withdrew into the mining worm it came closer and closer to vertical with respect to the ground. What was worse, unless the sleeve that the thing had come out of was much larger than the pipe, he and the Jedi would be scraped off when it was fully withdrawn.
“We have to get in the hollow end,” Klin‑Fa said.
“Right,” Uldir huffed. “I get that part.”
Ignoring the vertigo from rapidly shifting equilibrium as best they could, the two managed to crawl into the end of the pipe. Uldir entered first, braced himself against the walls with his back and feet, and worked his way down about two meters. Klin‑Fa took a similar position above him.
They were just in time, for through the opening they now saw only sky.
“We
ll,” Klin‑Fa said, “At least we got out of that.”
Even as she said it, a sudden jolt of deceleration dislodged the Jedi and sent her smashing into Uldir, and they both fell down the now-vertical cylinder.
“Yes, that hurt,” Uldir said.
He and the young Jedi were a painful tangle of limbs in the u‑shaped concavity where the pipe turned briefly horizontal before continuing its downward plunge into the belly of the mining‑beast. Uldir’s dislocated shoulder hurt more than ever, but at least now it had plenty of company–his aching head, his bruised legs, and a cracked rib or two.
“Oh, don’t complain,” Klin‑Fa said. “At least we’re still alive.”
Her voice startled him, because in the near darkness he hadn’t realized her lips were right next to his ear. He felt her breath on it and was suddenly aware that one of her arms lay across his chest and her head was in the nestle of his shoulder. He could feel her heart beating.
He could feel his own, too, suddenly changing tempo.
Dark Jedi, he reminded himself. Very Bad. l came here to stop her. “Can you move?” He asked.
“Right,” she said, softly. “Like you want me to.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hey, the Force is a powerful ally.”
“Don’t do that! Keep out of my head.”
Her voice hardened. “Hey, Lochett? Don’t you know a joke when you hear it? You, know, levity in a dark situation and all that?”
Oh. “Sure. I was playing along. Come on, let’s jet out of here.”
She shifted off of him, and he sat up.
“We’d better fix that first,” she said, taking him by the arm.
“No, now, wait–” But then she twisted and shoved, and sheets of nebular fire coruscated across his vision.
“Ow!” he gasped. But his arm was back in its socket.
“That could have waited,” he muttered.
“No way. I’m not hauling you back up that thing. You have to climb yourself.” She paused thoughtfully. “Where’s your ship, anyway?”
“I wish I knew,” Uldir said. “It’s lucky to be anywhere after what you did to it.”
He expected a tart reply, but instead he got a pause.
“Look,” she finally said, “I’m sorry about that. It’s just–you don’t understand how important it was I come here. Every free sentient in the universe is depending on me. And–”
“And what?” Uldir snapped. “And you figured my crew and I were expendable? Fine, but if you were going to leave us to die you might have at least given us a hint as to what we were dying for. Though I think I’ve figured it out.”
“–and I didn’t want to involve you,” she continued. “After I was done here I planned to bring your A‑wing back and help you return to civilization.”
It rang with conviction, and for an instant Uldir believed it.
But then, someone strong in the Force could make you believe, couldn’t they?
“Let’s just get out of here,” he said. “If we survive–which isn’t all the likely–we can talk about it then.”
“Leaft!” Vega yelled. “What’s going on out there?”
“Hufgeb hsicl merht,” the Dug swore, then, in Basic, “How should I know?”
Vook appeared at Vega’s elbow.
“There,” he said, pointing. “We’ve woken something up.”
Power systems engaged, configuration unknown, Uvee confirmed. Weapons targeting detected.
Something roughly spherical was rising from the wreckage. It was dark, with latitudinal strips of light that pulsed on and off. Its shadow fell across Leaft.
“Leaft, get out of there!”
“Advice I don’t need!” Leaft answered. She could see his vac‑suited form, already sprinting toward the ship on all fours.
A spear of yellow light appeared, sending up a plume of vaporized asteroid half a meter from the Dug. He yowled and dodged.
“Get to the turret, Vook,” Vega snapped. “Now.”
She began flipping switches, powering up the systems.
“Uvee, what in the unhealthy name of Emperor is that thing? Is it Yuuzhan Vong?”
Negative. Systems not biotic. Possibly droid or synthetic intelligence piloting.
Outside, Leaft dodged another bolt, even closer than the last.
“Its aim’s improving,” Vega muttered. She cut the shields in as Leaft vanished around the curve of the ship, scuttling for the cargo hatch. She hoped he made it within the perimeter of the energy shields before the thing fired again.
“Let’s try a distraction,” Vega said, aiming the forward guns and ticking off around.
Her beams were dead center, but the ship–or whatever it was–revealed itself to be shielded as well. Other than the faint glow of particles spreading against an invisible barrier, her firing had no result.
Or rather, it didn’t result in damage. She certainly got its attention. Two beams arrowed out this time, one presumably directed at Leaft and the other jabbing straight toward her. The shields absorbed it, but her indicators jumped off the scale.
“Leaft?”
“I’m in, Sepen,” the Dug’s voice came over the comm. “I suggest we haul out of here.”
“For once we agree,” Vega replied. She switched on the repulsor lifts, uncoupled the fuel hose with the emergency bolts, and engaged the ion drive. The No Luck Required leaped free of the asteroid’s negligible gravity and into free space.
The strange ship came after them.
“It resembles a battle drone from the Clone Wars,” Vook said, abstractedly. “Though I can’t place the specific model, so I could be wrong.”
“It’s time someone told it the Clone Wars are long over,” Vega said.
“Well, tell it,” Leaft snapped, shouldering into the cabin. “You have the comm.”
“Yes,” Vega said. “I was a bit too busy saving your dusty pelt to engage in conversation. Now I’m trying to fly. You hail it.”
“Me? Let Vook do it. I’ll take his place in the turret. He shoots only marginally better than a human.”
“No time for substitutions,” she said. “See that?” She waved at the long‑range scanners.”The Yuuzhan Vong have us spotted now.”
The ship rocked and the inertial compensators whined.
“Concussion missile!” Leaft grunted. “Let’s hope it doesn’t have proton torps.”
“Hail it!”
“Urr,” Leaft snarled, but he activated the comm.
“This is the No Luck Required hailing stupid annoying vessel firing upon us. Cease firing, you idiots.”
“Very diplomatic,” Vega said. “I’m sure they’ll break off any moment now.”
“I see no indication they’ve even heard us,” Leaft retorted. “I could ask it for flup in Huttese and it wouldn’t make in difference.”
The drumming of the turret gun continued as behind them the stranger gained and ahead the Yuuzhan Vong closed.
“What did you mean back there?” Klin‑Fa Gi asked. “About a dark side weapon?”
Following the Free People, they had managed to elude Yuuzhan Vong patrols and re‑enter the jungle.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Uldir replied, tensing. “What’s that on your back?” He indicated the spider‑like pack that clung to her living bodysuit at the shoulders.
She quirked a little smile. “What I came here to find. But if you think it’s something the Emperor built, you’re plotting a course without coordinates at either end or in the middle.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Wait.” she stopped, listening. “They’re bound to send a hunt after us. Where are they?”
“Hopefully way behind us. We should be able to reach the starfighters before they catch up.”
“Maybe.`
Something crackled off in the undergrowth, and she reached for her lightsaber. It wasn’t there.
Uldir glanced toward the noise too, saw it was one of the Psadan, and relaxed.
/> “What ...?” Klin‑Fa gasped, still feeling for her missing weapon. Then her eyes narrowed, focusing on Uldir.
“Right,” he said, holding her Jedi weapon where she could see it. “I took it off you when we were all tangled up back there.”
She tossed her dark hair. “Impossible. I would have known.”
“Pride isn’t the way of the Jedi, is it?” Uldir asked. “I may not have much Force ability, but it’s enough to hide my intentions if there’s enough distraction–and my opponent has so much contempt for me she doesn’t give me a second thought.”
“So now what?”
“Now you tell me what’s going on, or you can try to get this back. Klin‑Fa Gi, you’ve endangered me and my crew for the last time. You say you’re on a mission for Master Skywalker, but word is you’re dead, and he doesn’t know anything about a mission. You say you aren’t a dark Jedi, but how am I to believe you at this point, after so many lies?”
She was silent for a long while as they moved quickly through the jungle. They exited the burn zone surrounding the Yuuzhan Vong compound, and strange warblings filled the air as they upset some local fliers.
“I have to tell you this anyway,” she said at last, “because I still need your help.”
“Then be sure you don’t leave anything out”
“I won’t. Not this time.” She slowed to a fast walk and spoke without looking at him, her eyes darting through the undergrowth.
“I hate not being able to feel the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force,” she said. “It makes me feel stupid.”
“Yet you managed to enter their camp and leave alive.”
“Oh, first you think I’m a dark Jedi, now you think I’m a Vong?”
“It’s just suspicious, that’s all. And there is the way you’re dressed.”
“Yeah, well, I know a lot about the Yuuzhan Vong, okay? And about that camp. Almost a standard year ago I was captured by them.”
“Captured?”
“Yes. Me and another Jedi, Bey Gandan. We were following Wurth Skidder’s lead, posing as captives in hopes of fighting them from within. We ended up getting placed as slaves on a Shaper ship. We didn’t even know about Shapers–we had seen only warriors up until then. The Shapers are the ones who make all the Yuuzhan Vong biotech–”