by Greg Keyes
"That was quite a risk."
"I told Luke Skywalker I would take his students off of Yavin Four. If keeping my word requires risk, that's acceptable."
Solusar nodded impatiently. "Understood. But how am I to know you're telling the truth? I know you, yes, and you've been on the right side. But a lot of people are joining the Peace Brigade, and you've changed coats before, Karrde."
"So have you. Have you ever wanted to put the old one back on?"
Solusar's eyes narrowed, then he chopped his head in a single affirmation. "I'll trust you. What now?"
"Now I suggest we get out of here, before they send reinforcements."
Unfortunately, Captain Imsatad had not underestimated Karrde as badly as he might have. When they reached the surface, the forest was teeming with Peace Brigaders.
"Perfect," Kam Solusar muttered, ducking a blaster bolt that vaped a fist-sized hole in the stone near him. * At least before, we were hidden."
Karrde straightened the front of his outfit and glanced casually at his chrono. "Solusar, I'm injured. Don't you have any faith in me?"
"Faith is blind, unquestioned belief. What do you think?"
"I think I would cover my ears if I were you." He raised his voice. "Tionne, children. Cover your ears."
"Wha—" Solusar began, but was drowned out by what might have been two hands the size of Death Stars dapping.
Karrde grinned with fierce satisfaction as turbolaser fire set the surrounding jungle ablaze. It was good to have a crew he could trust. He stepped from behind cover and, carefully aiming and picking off the few Peace Brigaders who were still paying attention, trotted toward where the Wild Karrde was landing. When the landing ramp came down, Kam Solusar and Tionne shepherded the children on board as Karrde and his crew provided cover fire. In moments, they were all inside.
Karrde was the last aboard, and even as his feet hit the deck, the modified Corellian transport pirouetted and tossed itself at the sky. Through the closing hatch, Karrde saw several enemy ships already on their trail.
He had known it would be a near thing. He almost couldn't believe they had pulled it off.
Of course, he would never say that aloud.
Humming, he went at a brisk but dignified pace to his bridge.
By the time he got there, the sky was already a deep blue bruise getting blacker by the second.
"Well, gentlebeings," Karrde said as he took his seat. "What's the situation?"
H'sishi shot him a harried look from the sensor station. "We did some damage to our watchdogs in orbit, but they're all still flying. Now we have the ships from the surface to deal with as well."
"Well. Deal with them."
"Yes, sir."
The ship shuddered, and the inertial dampeners whined.
"Opur," Karrde shouted at one of his security men. "Make certain the children are secured somewhere. I don't want one hair on their little Jedi heads harmed."
"Yes, sir," Opur said, hurrying off.
"Now." Karrde studied the layout. "They've got us penned in, don't they?"
"Unless we can make the jump to lightspeed."
"With big Yavin right there?" Karrde mused. "No, not today. I think we'll punch through the cage instead." He tapped the console. "Here."
"That's their most heavily armed ship," Shada observed.
"When a pack of vornskrs comes for you, always kick the biggest and meanest one right in the teeth. It will certainly get their attention."
"I believe we already have their attention."
"One can never have too much good wine, beautiful women, or attention," Karrde said. "Go, and keep the throttle open."
"We won't get their shields down before we reach them," Shada said.
"No, we won't. Buy we'll certainly see who blinks first." He reflected for an instant. "Give me the controls."
"I thought you said gambling was a foolish occupation," Shada remarked, as the frigate grew larger on their screens.
"Indeed I did," Karrde replied. "But I'm not gambling. On my mark, release proton torpedoes. Don't fire them—just release them."
"As you wish, sir," the gunner replied, sounding puzzled.
"They're trying for tractor lock," Shada said.
" Yes. Let them have it."
"What?"
"Drop the shields."
This time the dampeners couldn't absorb all of the shock; the deck felt as if it was buckling beneath their feet as the tractor beam caught them, killing their forward motion.
"Torpedoes. Now," Karrde said.
"Torpedoes released." Shada looked up. "The tractor beam has them."
"Good. Arm them and put our shields back up."
"Sir, they've commenced fire on the torpedoes."
"Have they released the tractor beam?"
"No, sir."
" Detonate the torpedoes, then."
He reengaged the drive as the screen went white.
CHAPTER NINE
Treetops snapped as Anakin wrestled with gravity. Vehn's complaints had deteriorated to a steady moan. Valin, strapped in the copilot's seat, looked very ill. Sannah was still firing the turbolaser; from her, Anakin could sense both frustration and anger. Tahiri had been her friend, too.
Was still her friend. Tahiri was alive. Anakin could feel that as certainly as he could feel his own skin.
The transport cut a smoking swath across the tree line for a kilometer before Anakin saw what passed for a clearing. He dropped in, straining the inertial dampeners well beyond their parameters, fetching up against a wall of vines and secondary growth—dense, but without much mass. If he hit a big tree . . .
He tried not to think about it. Instead he dumped a torpedo and reversed direction, traveling into the more open forest beyond on repulsors, drifting back toward the treetops, hiding in the canopy.
The torpedo went, taking a hundred square meters of the forest with it in a carbon-rich plume.
"Come on, you vultures," Anakin muttered.
"Got them," Sannah called softly.
"No," Anakin replied. "Wait."
He could make it out through the smoke, a Sentinel-class shuttle.
"They think we've crashed," Valin said.
"Yes," Anakin replied, punching the engines back on.
The modified shuttle tried to swing around as he rose out of the trees, but it was too late. He fired his last proton torpedo, and the Peace Brigade ship became a ball of fire, sinking into the already burning jungle.
"Anakin!" Sannah shrieked.
Instinctively, Anakin threw the ship skyward, but not before multiple impacts ripped through the failing transport.
"There you are," he muttered. "After you, I'm done."
Of the three ships that had chased him halfway around the moon, only this one—an E-wing—remained. Unfortunately, while Anakin's commandeered transport was limping so badly it would soon go down on its own, the speedy little fighter was undamaged.
"You only have to hit it once, Sannah," Anakin said. "Maybe twice."
" I can't get a bead," she shouted back.
The little ship made a pass, and the air suddenly smelled sharply of ozone and vaporized metal as the transport tremored.
" Let me have a shot!" Vehn demanded.
"What?"
"Look, I don't wanna die. This is my ship, those are my guns. I know 'em better than that kid back there. She's never even handled a gun before, that much is clear— yii!" Vehn blanched as Anakin put the ungainly craft in a barrel roll.
"You think I trust you ?"
"Use your poodoo-stinking Jedi powers. Can't you tell I'm serious?"
To Anakin's surprise, he really didn't sense deception from the fellow.
" You'd shoot down your own friends?"
"They're not my friends."
Again, no deception.
Anakin made his decision. "Valin, uncuff him. Take
him to the gun. Vehn, I promise you, if this is a trick, no matter what else happens, you'll be s
orry."
"Sorrier than I am now? I doubt it."
Anakin dropped low again, trying to buy a few more seconds. He had only one engine left on-line, and one more hit would finish that quickly enough.
"I'm on it," Vehn reported from the turret. "Give me a little altitude, that's all I ask."
"You've got it," Anakin said. Once more he put the ship in a climb. The E-wing saw its opportunity then, darting in and chewing what was left of the engine to shreds. It coughed off-line, and for an instant the transport seemed to hang suspended a hundred meters above the treetops. In that in-between moment, Vehn needled red lines across the sky, stitching through the E-wing. It spun wildly out of control. Then the transport was falling, and Anakin hit the repulsors, and the sound of tearing metal deafened him.
Anakin came to with the taste of blood on his tongue. He didn't know if he had been out for seconds or days, and a glance at the controls didn't help. Through the cockpit transparisteel he could see only crushed vegetation.
"Sannah! Valin!"
"They're okay," Remis Vehn said from behind Anakin. "A little battered, but no worse for the wear."
Anakin twisted in his seat and found himself confronting the muzzle of a blaster. He blinked, then looked up at the young man's cool gray eyes.
"You want to put that down, don't you?" Anakin asked, pushing with the Force.
"Well. . . ," Vehn considered.
"You'll put it down," Anakin commanded.
"Sure," Vehn replied. "I'll put it down."
"Great." Anakin unfastened himself from the flight harness. He took the blaster and stuck it in his belt.
"Vaping moffs!" Vehn swore. " You Jedi are sorcerers."
"Keep it sealed," Anakin warned him, turning to Sannah.
Sannah was unconscious but breathing evenly. Valin was awake, but the hull near him had crimped in such a way that Sannah's harness was stuck. Anakin sliced through it with his lightsaber. The Melodie girl moaned softly.
"Vehn, carry Sannah out," Anakin told the Peace Bri-gader. "The ship may have a few surprises for us yet."
"My ship," Vehn said. "I can't believe what you did to my ship."
"Your buddies did it," Anakin said. "The same buddies who just murdered a Jedi Master and took my best friend captive. Don't expect me to cry any tears for you."
"First of all," Vehn said, "they aren't my buddies. I was strictly in this business for the money, and I thought we were taking on adult Jedi, not little kids. Second of all, I don't expect you to get all weepy, but without my ship, how do you plan to get off this snarly jungle?"
Anakin didn't answer Vehn, but examined Valin instead. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Can you walk?"
"I'm fine," Valin answered.
"Good. I want you to go outside and find cover in the trees. Be careful—the jungle isn't exactly safe, though the crash probably scared most everything off."
He then examined Sannah. She was bruised, but he didn't sense anything seriously wrong with her.
"Take Sannah out," he repeated to Vehn. "I'm right behind you."
On his way out, he picked up the stun cuffs.
"This isn't right," Remis Vehn complained. "You just finished talking about how dangerous the jungle is and you not only won't give me a weapon, you've restrained me. What if something comes along wanting lunch?"
"It would have to be a carrion eater to stomach the likes of you," Anakin replied.
"Very funny. I helped you."
"You really think you're going to get thanks from me?" Anakin snorted. "You were saving your own skin, nothing more. Now, quiet."
"Is she going to be all right?" Valin asked, staring down at Sannah.
"I think so." Anakin touched the Melodie girl's forehead and very lightly brushed her with the Force, strengthening her where she was weak, gently tugging her toward consciousness.
With a faint sigh she opened her eyes, blinked at Anakin, then started violently.
"Tahiri!" she gasped.
"Shh," Anakin said. "We crashed. You're banged up, some. How do you feel?"
"Like I've been poisoned by a purella and hung up in its web. Is Valin okay?"
"I'm right here," Valin answered.
"We're all okay," Anakin assured her.
Tears started in the girl's yellow eyes. "No, we're not. Master Ikrit, and Tahiri..."
"Master Ikrit sacrificed himself for us," Anakin said, around the gall in his throat. "He wouldn't want us to grieve. He's one with the Force now. Tahiri—"
"She's dead, too, isn't she?" Valin asked.
"No." Anakin shook his head. "I can hear her in the Force." Calling me, he added. He could feel her fear, mixed liberally with anger. He didn't get the sense that she was in immediate danger.
Anakin turned toward Vehn, who sat a few meters away, his arms cuffed around a young Massassi tree. "What will they do with her, Vehn? Where were you supposed to take the children you kidnapped?"
"I told you, I didn't know our targets were children," Vehn said sullenly. "And I don't know where we were supposed to take them."
"But you were supposed to turn them over to the Yuuzhan Vong."
Vehn studied the leaves above his head. "Yes," he said at last.
"Where? Where is the rendezvous?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
"Look—"
"I can make you tell me," Anakin warned. "You won't like it." It occurred to him that his brother, Jacen, wouldn't approve of that sort of threat, nor would Uncle Luke. At the moment, Anakin didn't care.
Vehn fidgeted, but said nothing. Anakin suddenly surged to his feet and stalked toward the Peace Brigader.
"Hold it! Just wait a second, Jedi. Don't slag my brain! I don't know much, but I can tell you something I overheard. Something I wasn't supposed to hear at all."
Anakin took another step, then squatted until his ice-blue eyes were millimeters from Vehn's dark gray. "Well?" he prompted.
"I'm not supposed to know this, but—the Yuuzhan Vong were planning to come to this miserable hole already. The Peace Brigade decided to head 'em off, capture you guys before they arrived."
"What, to save them the trouble?"
"Exactly. A present, of sorts. These Peace Brigade guys, they're serious. They really think everyone in the galaxy is doomed unless we give the Vong what they want, and then some."
"Why do you say 'these Peace Brigade guys' as if you aren't one of them?"
"They hired me to pilot. That's all."
Anakin frowned, but let that pass. "What will the Peace Brigade do now that they've botched the job?"
"How do you know they've botched it? They figured out you hid the other kids someplace. They have some pretty good trackers and search equipment with them."
"They won't find anyone," Anakin said. "What will they do? The Yuuzhan Vong might assume the Brigade really came here to hide the kids. At the very least they'll be upset that you were so inept you let thirty or more Jedi slip through your fingers and caught only one."
Vehn looked thoughtful. "They might cut and run. They might try to bluff it out with their one captive. I don't know them well enough to say."
"Anakin," Sannah said softly. "You and Tahiri saved my people. I can't let anything happen to her. I can't."
"Why didn't you think of that earlier?" Anakin snapped. "You three should have gone with Kam and Tionne. You thought this was all some sort of game. It isn't."
"Anakin!" Sannah's eyes widened further, then dropped. "You're right," she whispered. "It is our fault. My fault. I could have told Kam, and none of this would have happened. Master Ikrit would still be alive." Tears streamed down her face, and for a second Anakin was happy she was crying, satisfied she finally saw how stupid she had been. He wanted to agree with her.
Grinding his teeth, he quickly stood and walked into the woods.
He didn't go far, but leaned against the bole of a giant tree, breathing heavily, composing himself. Then, when he thought
he could do it, he want back into the clearing, where Sannah sat, still crying. Valin was wiping his own silent tears.
"That was wrong of me," he said quietly. "None of you is to blame. You were only trying to help. The Peace Brigade is to blame. The Yuuzhan Vong are to blame. You guys aren't. Feeling guilty isn't going to help us right now. There are plenty more ships on this planet. For all we know they have a perfect lock on us already, so we need to get ready. If they don't, we need to figure out how to get this ship running again."
Remis Vehn vented a bitter laugh.
"We have parts from three ships here," Anakin said evenly. "We ought to be able to cobble something together. Besides that, help is on the way, so maybe all we really have to do is hold out for a little while. Valin, I'm putting you in charge of taking inventory of what food and medicine we have. Vehn, you'll tell him where to find it on your ship—all of it. Sannah, I'm giving you the blaster. I want you to watch the camp, while I go do recon at the other wreck sites. If you hear anything—I mean anything—coming from the sky, you both hide and stay hidden. Understand?"
"Yes," Sannah replied. Valin nodded dutifully.
"Good. And ignore everything Vehn says. Don't touch his restraints, don't go near him. I'll be back soon."
CHAPTER TEN
Karrde didn't black out, but time stretched weirdly as his harness tried to cut him in half and his ship spun madly, power blinking on and off, finally settling on off before minimal emergency systems kicked in. The inertial compensator started up, and gravity reasserted itself, but the screen was a confusing jumble.
"Report!" he snapped. "What's going on?"
H'sishi looked up reluctantly. "Minimal damage to the frigate," she said. "We took a pretty hard bounce, and we're limping a bit."
"Limp away from them, at least," Karrde said. "Head for the outer system."
"The hyperdrive core took some of the worst damage," Dankin pointed out. "I don't think we can jump."
"Well, we certainly can't here, not in the hole Yavin's dug for itself."
"The big ships we can still outrun, at least for a while. The frigate will catch us eventually, but we've got a lead it will take them at least an hour to cut down. We've got a couple of E-wings that will be harassing us shortly."
"Good luck to them," Karrde grunted.
"We do have some weak points in the hull, now," Shada pointed out.