Reunion: Force Heretic III

by Sean Williams

  “The boras will prevent them from landing.”

  “Jade Shadow could do it,” Mara said. “I can summon her here with the slave circuit. If you’ll release her from the landing field, we could be there in less than an hour.”

  “We can try to ask Sekot,” Rowel said, “but it will be difficult without the Magister.”

  “Try anyway,” Luke said. The Ferroan bowed and left the habitat.

  Luke’s comlink buzzed, and he answered it. The voice at the other end belonged to Captain Yage.

  “Master Skywalker, telemetry is picking up gravitation readings on the third moon of Mobus.”

  “Source?”

  “Unknown. But M-Three is little more than a rock. There can’t be anything big enough down there to generate gravity waves.”

  “It could be a damaged coralskipper,” Luke said.

  “Or one that’s working just fine,” Mara added.

  “That was my thought,” Yage said. “We’d like to send a couple of TIEs to investigate.”

  A glance at Darak confirmed to Luke that their hosts would be less than happy at the thought of Imperial fighters swarming over the small moon. “I’ll get back to you on that, Arien,” he said, and clicked off the comlink.

  Before he could speak, Darak was shaking her head. “We will not permit what you are about to ask.”

  Luke sighed, fighting to keep his tone even and reasonable when he spoke. “Please understand that we wish you no harm. We have done nothing so far to hurt you or your world. In fact, we may have found a security breach that you missed. All it would take is one ship to escape from here, and your Sanctuary will be shattered. Instead of being afraid of us, you should be letting us help you.”

  “Perhaps.” Darak still wasn’t convinced, but at least she was listening. “We shall check our own observations. If there really are gravity waves coming from that moon, we will detect them and take action for ourselves.”

  Luke nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

  “But don’t take too long,” Mara said as the Ferroan woman exited the room. “I don’t like being stuck here while who knows what might be warming up their drives over our heads.”

  “Sekot will protect you,” Rowel assured, returning to take Darak’s place.

  “And who’ll protect Sekot?” Mara’s words were steeped in annoyance and frustration, although beneath them Luke sensed a genuine sympathy for the Ferroans. “You’ve been out here too long. You’ve forgotten how big the galaxy is. Maybe Sekot has forgotten, too. I admire your faith in this planet you live on, but I’d hate you to get a rude reminder of how things really are.”

  “You know little about Sekot,” the Ferroan said. “Your information is decades old, scavenged from rumors and legends. You have no concept of what Sekot is capable of.”

  “Which is why we’re here,” Luke said. “We want to know, because Sekot is at the core of our solution. With that knowledge, perhaps we can find peace in a way that won’t involve the death of trillions.”

  “We’re going in circles,” Hegerty said. “And until Sekot decides to trust us, we’re just going to keep on going that way.”

  “Sekot has no reason to trust you,” Rowel stated flatly.

  “Then we’ll just have to give it one,” Mara said.

  Luke nodded in agreement, thinking: But what? What would Obi-Wan do in my place?

  The thought that Obi-Wan and his father had been here, long ago, still nagged at the back of his mind. If there were any way to summon the spirit of his lost teacher, he would have done so immediately.

  What happened to you when you were here, Ben? Does it have any bearing on what’s happening to us now? And what of my father? Was his fate bound in any way to what happened to him here?

  His thoughts, of course, received no answer, so he released them with a sigh. He returned to the discussion with the others, empathizing fully with Mara’s growing frustration …

  The corridors of the Esfandia Long-Range Communications Base were narrow but surprisingly tall. Obviously, Leia thought, it had been designed that way with its Gotal commander in mind, whose twin energy-sensing horns stretched a meter above Leia’s head. On the Millennium Falcon, Ashpidar would have had to crouch at all times; here the commander had to duck only occasionally on her tour of the base.

  The heights of the rest of the crew, however, were on the whole decidedly below average. Three slight Sullustans made up the core engineering and technical expertise on the base, while five stocky Ugnaughts were there for grunt work. There was a Noghri security chief called Eniknar who came up to Leia’s shoulder; his assistants were two squat Klatooinians. Two human communications specialists and a Twi’lek science officer defended the average.

  The tour, given by the commander and her security chief, shouldn’t have taken long, but Ashpidar insisted on introducing Leia and Droma to everyone they met. Her Noghri bodyguards hovered close behind at all times. They were quiet and unobtrusive, but Leia could always sense them there.

  Droma had chosen to accompany her to the base because he’d said he needed to get out of the Falcon for a while. After what they’d just been through, he was feeling a little claustrophobic. Han had opted to stay back with his ship, because he felt that someone needed to keep an eye on her. Besides which, he said it would give him the chance to do diagnostic checks on the engine and shield generators.

  “This is our extravehicular bay.” Ashpidar opened an internal air lock to reveal five speeder bikes. Next to them stood a cupboard containing enviro-suits suitable for the dense, frigid atmosphere outside. “Although the base itself is mobile, there are times when we must travel individually to the sensor stations to perform minor repairs. The sensors are temperamental devices, requiring frequent maintenance.”

  Leia nodded. Half a plan was forming in her mind; if the other half fell into place, the speeder bikes would be essential.

  Outside the base, silence still reigned. While the pounding stopped, the Brrbrlpp were safe. She was grateful for that, at least; it gave her time to think.

  “Sensing transmissions from the Unknown Regions is just half the story, surely,” Droma said. “You’d have to broadcast them again, into the rest of the galaxy. Where do you do that?”

  “The sensors accomplish that task, also,” Ashpidar droned. Her flat, monotone voice made it hard to feign interest. “Every signal detected by more than one sensor is error-checked and boosted toward the Core by at least half of the remaining sensors. Juggling the reception-and-transmission load is one reason why the system is so delicate, and why we try to maintain a healthy margin for error. I endeavor to operate on a fifty percent surplus capacity.”

  “How many sensors have you lost due to the Yuuzhan Vong?” Leia asked.

  “Thirteen out of forty.”

  “Could you function normally with that?”

  “As long as there are no further bombardments, then yes, we could operate for a time. But we would require additional resources to bring up that safety margin.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to make sure you have them,” Leia said. And quickly, she added to herself. Who knew what messages Luke might be trying to send her from the Unknown Regions?

  When the tour was complete, Ashpidar took them to her cabin, which doubled as an office. She took a seat on one side of her expansive desk, while Leia, Droma, and the security chief sat on the other. Leia’s bodyguards stood just outside the door.

  “This is a secure environment,” Eniknar assured her in his sibilant voice. The Noghri was whip-slender and corded, his reptilian face a picture of intensity. “What you’re about to see has not been revealed to the rest of the crew.”

  Ashpidar opened a safe on the wall opposite them and revealed a leathery ball with a supple, ridged surface. A vein pulsed at its base, indicating that it was a living thing. A wiry husk surrounded the creature, culminating in a long, tapering tail.

  “A villip,” Leia said. “Is that how the Yuuzhan Vong knew you were here?”<
br />
  Ashpidar agreed. “They were summoned here. Exactly when or why we have no way of knowing. There must have been another on Generis, too.”

  “This one was found two days ago in a maintenance recess deep in the belly of the base,” Eniknar said. “Anyone could have hidden it there. The person who owns it must know by now that it’s been discovered, but they have not revealed themselves. Therefore, unfortunately, our betrayer still walks among us.”

  “We’d just begun conducting low-key security sweeps when the Yuuzhan Vong arrived,” Ashpidar said. “Obviously survival takes preference in the short term. Until we can locate the traitor, I’ve kept the villip here, where no one can access it but me.” So saying, she closed the safe and locked it. “All other forms of communications are sealed tight. Nothing and no one gets out of this base without my authorization.”

  Leia indicated her approval. “We can show you how to sweep for Yuuzhan Vong in disguise. We have mouse droids designed to do so discreetly. You don’t have to be a Jedi to do that.”

  The expressionless Gotal inclined her head. “My thanks.”

  “All we need to do,” Leia said, “is ride out the crisis. Once the Yuuzhan Vong have been knocked out of orbit, you’ll be able to emerge and conduct a proper inquiry.”

  “That is my hope. I do fear, however, that—” Ashpidar’s desk comlink bleeped, interrupting her. “Yes?”

  “A message from the Millennium Falcon,” reported one of the commander’s communications officers. “Coded telemetry data has arrived from orbit.”

  “Patch it through, Ridil.” A holodisplay came to life on Ashpidar’s desk. It showed the disposition of the Yuuzhan Vong and Imperial forces over opposite hemispheres, keeping each other at bay. Flashpoints came and went as either side probed the defenses of the other or attempted to drop forces down into the atmosphere. No one was getting through. As Leia watched, the image zoomed in to the surface to show entry points for a small Yuuzhan Vong force that had managed to make it down to the atmosphere while the battle had been raging.

  “We’ve got company,” Droma said.

  “So it would seem,” the security chief said.

  “If they’re combing the area,” Leia said, “then it will only be a matter of time before they find us.” A distant pressure slipped into Leia’s mind. Relief rushed through her as Jaina’s mental presence made itself felt. It wasn’t some strange psychic attack, but a long-distance version of a Jedi mind-meld. The link was tremulous, severely attenuated. It was obviously taking a great deal of effort to keep open, and it soon ebbed and faded altogether.

  “Princess?” Leia broke from her thoughts now to face Ashpidar, who was looking at her with some concern. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry,” Leia said, standing. “As long as no stray emissions alert the Yuuzhan Vong to our presence here, we should be safe for the moment. The traitor inside the base is what we need to be focusing upon. Come with me to the Falcon and I’ll equip you with mouse droids. While you’re addressing that problem, we’ll work on the other.”

  Ashpidar stood and bowed her high, horned head. “I am grateful for your assistance.”

  Eniknar escorted them back to the Falcon. No one spoke for the duration of the short trip, but once they were safely back on board the freighter and the security chief had gone, Droma immediately turned to Leia and shook his head.

  “I don’t like him,” he said.

  “Who? Eniknar?”

  “Yeah, Eniknar,” Droma said. “Did you see his expression when that telemetry came through?”

  Leia nodded. “There was something not quite right about him.” She turned to her Noghri bodyguards. “Did you recognize Eniknar’s clan-scent?”

  “We do not know him,” Meewalh said. “He has distanced himself from Honoghr,” Cakhmain agreed.

  “Or was never part of it,” Droma said. “Let’s set those droids on him and see what happens.”

  “They’ll only detect a Yuuzhan Vong hiding under a masquer,” Leia said, “and I would have noticed that already. If he is a traitor, then we’re going to have to force him to reveal himself.”

  Droma’s eyes studied her closely. “You have a plan?”

  “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “But I have someone to talk to first.”

  Captain Mayn brought Grand Admiral Pellaeon up to date via the comm unit. Jaina was still with Tahiri, Jag by her side, listening in via the comm unit in the Selonia’s medical wards. Pellaeon came through loud and clear from Right to Rule. Jaina’s mother had managed to open contact with those in orbit via a transmission from a modified research droid. The droid, little more than a repulsor unit with a subspace transmitter strapped to its back, had been quickly redesigned to receive the same radio frequencies employed by the planet’s native life forms. In order to further avoid giving away the relay base’s location, the Falcon had communicated with it only by brief laser pulses on that frequency. Even so, the transmission from the droid relay had barely lasted long enough to bring all parties up to date. Within moments, a Yuuzhan Vong volley had cut the conversation dramatically short.

  “So the Falcon and the relay base are effectively trapped,” Pellaeon said once Captain Mayn had finished.

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “And there’s been no sign of those ground troops yet?”

  “None, sir.”

  “That won’t last long. Commander Vorrik is impatient. He won’t allow them to sit on their hands down there; he’ll want results, and he’ll want them fast.”

  “Their first task,” Tahiri said in low, confident tones, “will be to search the bombardment sites for signs of wreckage. When they’ve been cleared, the spaces between will be examined. They’ll begin at the center of the bombed region and work outward. Although they have effectively missed, they will assume that their information was correct and that the relay base is most likely near the middle.”

  “And where is it, exactly?” Pellaeon asked.

  “Near the edge,” Captain Mayn said. “The bombed region centers on the approximate location of the Falcon’s last transmission. They won’t know that it’s moved.”

  “So we have them at a slight disadvantage,” Pellaeon said.

  “All we need is a window of opportunity in which to act,” Jaina said. “Our first priority is to get someone down there to help them. At the moment, Vorrik is hanging in there because he feels confident of finding the base. If he has priorities elsewhere, then his time isn’t unlimited. Make it harder for him to find the base and he might just decide that it’s not worth it.”

  “It would give me immense pleasure to force that battle-clouded fool to retreat from a fight.” There seemed to be a hint of a smile in the admiral’s voice.

  “What about the traitor on the ground?” Jag asked. “How are we going to coordinate any sort of action knowing it could be undermined at any time?”

  “That’s a risk Mom is prepared to take,” Jaina said. “She thinks they’ve already identified the traitor.”

  “The mouse droids?” Jag asked.

  Jaina shook her head. “They didn’t pick anything up. But she’s keeping an eye on him, in case he tries anything.”

  “We can do little about the traitor down there,” Pellaeon said. “Our issue is to focus on how to get a team onto the surface. Vorrik has Esfandia effectively closed off. Neither of us can get down there.”

  “I think I might be able to help,” Tahiri said. “All I need is access to a Yuuzhan Vong hulk. I’m sure there must be at least one floating around out there left over from the battle.”

  “Actually, we have the orbits of six charted,” Pellaeon said. “But I doubt you’ll get away with taking one of them down to the surface. After Colonel Fel’s performance, they won’t fall for that trick in a hurry again.”

  “That’s not what I intend. There might be a living villip choir on one of them. Give me that, and I’ll give you the window you require.”

  The blond girl’s expressi
on was fiercely determined, almost stern; she was a far cry from the confused, broken girl who had come to Mon Calamari for help prior to setting out on the mission.

  “And how will you do that, exactly?” Pellaeon asked.

  “I will tell Vorrik that I intend to lead the Falcon and the relay base into a trap,” she said. “I’ll tell him that I plan to betray Princess Leia and Captain Solo in the bargain.”

  Pellaeon seemed uncertain. “He’ll suspect a double cross.”

  “Perhaps,” Tahiri said easily. “But he won’t be able to afford not to take advantage of the offer. A quick and easy victory will enable him to move elsewhere without disgrace.”

  The Grand Admiral still didn’t seem convinced, and Jaina could understand why. What if Tahiri really did betray Han and Leia, not Vorrik at all? What if she was planning a triple cross with Pellaeon himself on the receiving end?

  “I trust her,” Jaina said. At some point she knew that they were going to have to let Tahiri prove herself worthy, and now seemed as good a time as any—especially since the combined knowledge of Tahiri and Riina might be the only thing capable of getting them out of the mess they had found themselves in. Besides which, her gut instincts told her that Tahiri was whole and strong. “I trust her with my life.”

  Her bold declaration had the required effect.

  “Very well,” Pellaeon said after a moment’s thought, seemingly satisfied.

  Beside her, Jaina also noticed the tense set to Jag’s shoulder ease noticeably. She even felt a slight lessening of intensity from Tahiri.

  “I’ll leave you to organize the details with the Falcon and the relay base, once they open communications again,” Pellaeon went on. “I ask only that you advise me of the outcome. I’ll maintain the situation up here as long as I can. If you need assistance, you have but to ask.”

  The admiral’s small speech was stiff, almost formal. Jaina suspected she knew why, and it surprised her.

  “Of course we’ll need your assistance, Admiral,” she said. “We’re not going to get through this blockade on our own. You loaned Captain Mayn a TIE squadron during the initial advance. I’d like to requisition another one to Twin Suns Squadron for the time being. Would this be acceptable?”