Star Wars: New Jedi Order Book 8b: Emissary of the Void
Page 15
The redheaded Jedi laughed. “You think the Yuuzhan Vong did this to me?”
“You were their captive for–”
He grinned. “I was never their captive. You were.”
“What do you mean? We escaped, and then–”
“All part of the plan,” he said. “Everything that’s happened up until now, all planned.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, I didn’t understand you and Yabaley. What did you see in him? I was always stronger, smarter. He didn’t deserve you.”
“I loved him.”
“And not me. And in my whole life, that’s all I ever really wanted. And I’ll never have it, will I? So I’ll settle. I’ll settle for helping the Yuuzhan Vong burn this all down, and then maybe I’ll kill them too. Or maybe I’ll rule them.”
“Wow,” Uldir said. “You have the most amazing mental image of yourself. Too bad it has nothing to do with reality.”
“You’re an insect” Bey sighed. He flipped his hand casually, and a searing pain struck Uldir between the eyes.
“No!” he heard Klin‑Fa shout. She leapt at Bey, blade cutting down. Through a fog of pain, Uldir saw Bey parry, and then somehow Klin‑Fa’s weapon was flipping end‑over end through the air. She gasped in pain and clutched at her right hand, which seemed to be missing several fingers. Bey had his weapon cocked for the final cut. Klin‑Fa drew her shoulders back and looked him in the eye.
“I admired you once, Bey,” she said. “I thought you were the best of us.”
“I am the best of you,” he sneered. “Goodbye, Klin‑Fa.”
Uldir clutched for his blaster, but it wasn’t near his hand.
The blade whipped out, and Uldir choked back a scream of frustration, but the red blade went up in a parry, not an attack, and several blaster bolts went searing off at odd angles.
Vega.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Klin‑Fa spun to kick Bey. She connected, and he staggered, turned, and clubbed her in the temple with the butt of his saber. She dropped. Uldir grunted, stood, looking for the blaster, but it was nowhere to be seen.
But a few meters away, smoke was rising.
Klin‑Fa’s lightsaber. He ran toward it.
He picked it up and turned in time to see Vega go down in a rain of stones and branches propelled by the Force. The bushes were on fire, and he got a lungful of smoke that dizzied him, but he saw that Bey was once more lifting his weapon over the fallen Klin‑Fa.
He would never make it in time. He did the only thing he could–he threw the lightsaber.
He watched as if flipped end‑over‑end toward Bey. Bey held up his hand, and it made a sudden drastic course change, veering high and to the right. Bey started his swing.
“No!” Uldir shouted.
The lightsaber hit a tree by the pommel, bounced weirdly, and sheered through Bey from shoulder to hip. He turned to stare at Uldir in utter disbelief for an instant before his body slid apart.
Uldir stood there for twenty seconds, trying to absorb what had just happened. Then he ran to see how badly Klin‑Fa and Vega were hurt.
Overhead he heard thunder, and looked up. It was a Yuuzhan Vong war vessel, descending like a meteor.
Leaft would have howled with satisfaction if he hadn’t been howling in pain. Tsaa Qalu braced to meet his attack, almost casually, knowing what the outcome would be. But Leaft knew that too. Everyone thought Dugs were stupid, headstrong, emotional–that they couldn’t learn.
But he’d learned pretty fast. His leap carried him not toward the Yuuzhan Vong hunter, but to the pilot, and with a single brutal yank he ripped the cognition hood free of its tether and then just ran, back through the door he had come in by. Tsaa Qalu was right behind him, of course, and gaining, when the ship suddenly flipped upside down. The Yuuzhan Vong, with his grotesquely high center of gravity and silly upper limbs landed badly. Leaft, even with a limb broken, still managed to land better. Of course it hurt, and he nearly blacked out again, but he was up before Qalu, and as the ship continued bucking and jerking about, Leaft’s low‑built scramble gained him even more ground.
Enough to get into one of the coralskippers, seal it with an order through the cognition hood, and watch Tsaa Qalu pound on the hull in terrific and entertaining frustration.
Which he should not have done. If Tsaa Qalu had spent that time getting into the other coralskipper, he doubtless would have been better able to seize control of a system which–after all–was built for his chemistry and physiology, not a Dug’s.
But before Qalu could think of that, Leaft’s borrowed coralskipper shot from the docking nacelle with a jolt. This time he’d launched the ‘skip on purpose.
The Dug wasted little time taking control of the Throat Slasher while steering his craft away from the larger ship. A mental image of the fast approaching landscape from the Throat Slasher’s point of view coalesced in his mind’s eye, and the Dug allowed himself a victorious smirk. He watched from his vantage point a few hundred meters away as Qalu’s ship left a nice red smear on the side of a mountain.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Master Skywalker,” Uldir said. “Congratulations on the birth of your son.”
“Thank you, Uldir,” Master Skywalker replied. “How are things there?”
“The Vratix can move really fast when they need to. They torched the field and aerosoled the surrounding area with fliers. They’re still doing it, even though worst‑case scenario had the virus spreading only half a kilometer during that time. They got a sample of the plague so they can test for it, and it looks like the danger was contained.”
“Good. That was good work, Uldir. I’m proud of you and your team. You really went above and beyond the call of duty. And the Force was with you.”
“Master, about the Force. I know my training was sort of a bust–”
“The Force is with you, Uldir,” Skywalker said. “You just have a peculiar relationship with it. I missed that, back when you were at the academy, though I think Master lkrit understood. Recent . . . debates within the Jedi, and the things you’vetold me lately have forced me to reevaluate.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t command the Force, no. You don’t use it as a tool. You aren’t built that way, somehow. But you are a part of the living Force in a way which few Jedi ever manage to be.”
“I don’t think there’s anything so special about me,” Uldir said.
“You thought so when I first met you,” Skywalker said. “You thought the universe of yourself, and mostly about yourself. But you changed.” He smiled. “And that’s when your luck started, isn’t it? When you let go. When you .released your desires and found your true path.”
“I guess. Master lkrit did say something like that, right before I left the academy.”
“He was wise,” Skywalker said. “Take that crew of yours and have rest, will you? There are still a few free worlds where you can relax.”
“I’ll do that,” Uldir replied.
“May the Force be with you, Uldir.”
“And with you, Master.”
He keyed off the hyperwave transmitter and went back to the common room, where the others waited.
He grinned when he saw Leaft with a big air splint on his arm.
The Dug’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t going to kiss me again, are you?”
“I ought to. Not only are you still alive, but you saved us all.”
“I’ll vomit this time,” Leaft warned. “Do I need to tell you what I just ate?”
“No.” He turned to Vega. “Set us a course for someplace relaxing. Master Skywalker’s orders.”
“Right, boss‑boy.”
Vook cleared his throat. “The abandoned Hxil launch platform in the Sluis Van system would be nice. It has the most beautiful pre- Republic accelerator towers–”
“An airless piece of space junk?” Leaft snarled. “What kind of a vacation is that? I say we hit the casinos in Cloud C
ity. That’s a good time.”
“Boss‑boy?” Vega asked.
“You settle it, Vega,” he said. “You’re temporarily in charge.”
“Boss–”
“Sorry Vega. I need a rest, too.”
He found Klin‑Fa sitting in the gun turret, staring out into space. Her bandaged hand rested on her knee.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
“It was, it wasn’t,” she said. “I know I have to let it go. But they were my friends. Both of them. And now–”
“I know.” He put his hand on her arm. To his surprise, she took it.
“What I was trying to tell you before,” she said. “Before I knew Bey had turned dark.”
“I know you had feelings for him,” Uldir said.
“Yes. Friendly ones. But I knew my feelings for Yabaley had hurt him. I didn’t know how badly, but I knew it. I didn’t want to hurt him again so soon.”
“What do you mean?”
She stood and stared into his eyes. “Are you really that big a fool, Uldir Lochet?”
“Well ...”
“Hush.” She covered his mouth with her hand, and then with her lips. They stayed that way for a long time.
A Bonadan® Book
Published by Srengseng Publishing Group
Copyright © 1999 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Srengseng Publishing Group, a division of Bonadan, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Bonadan of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Srengseng is a registered trademark and the Srengseng colophon is a trademark of Bonadan, Inc.
www.starwars.com
A copy of the Library of Congress Catalog Card Number is available upon request from the publisher.
e-ISBN x-xxx-xxxxx-X
Illustration by Mike Huddlestone
v1.0
Illustration by Mike Huddlestone
The No Luck Required, starship illustration by Jeff Carlisle