by Greg Keyes
“Get out of there, Shada!” he shouted into the comm.
No answer came.
“The Idiot’s Array is still keeping pace with that destroyer, sir,” H’sishi reported. “I don’t understand it. Her engines are gone, and their reactor is building to critical.”
Karrde blinked. “Shada!” he snarled. Then he snapped at Dankin. “Alter course two degrees to starboard and brace.”
“What’s she doing, sir?”
“She’s got a tractor lock on them. She must have diverted all of her power to that. Everything.”
An instant later the Idiot’s Array vanished in a sphere of pure white light, taking most of the Yuuzhan Vong destroyer with it.
“Shada,” Karrde murmured again, feeling very tired. He’d lost more friends than enemies through the years. He’d faced death himself enough times that he had no illusions; one day the game would go against him and he would die. But somehow, of all the people he knew, he’d imagined that Shada would outlive him.
“One destroyer down,” he gritted, “and one to go.”
“We’ve just lost the Etherway, sir,” H’sishi said.
“Destroyed?”
“No. Her power grid is down.”
“Then it’s just us.”
“Yes.”
“Against all that.”
“Unless you want to wait for everyone else, sir, I—sir, behind us!”
Karrde saw the ship appear on the screen; sheer conditioning kept his heart from jumping up into his throat.
The ship that had appeared, almost on top of them, was an Imperial Star Destroyer.
A red Imperial Star Destroyer.
“Message, sir,” Dankin said.
“Put it on.”
A bearded human face appeared. “Well, Karrde,” he growled. “I suppose I’ll be pulling you out of this mess, as well. I hope you have something appropriate to compensate me with.”
“Booster Terrik!”
“None other.”
“I’m sure I can dig something out of my warehouses.”
“Never mind that. Where’s my grandson?”
“We think he’s on the transport that big Yuuzhan Vong ship’s about to swallow.”
“That’s all I wanted to know. See you on the other side, Karrde.”
“The other side of what?”
“The nebula I’m about to make.”
The screen went dark.
“All right, everyone,” Karrde said. “We’ve got a new game here. Let’s play it well.”
Anakin kept the turbolaser pumping steadily, causing plumes of molten yorik coral to spew from the destroyer analog. It didn’t seem to notice, even at extreme close range, which was where they were—a few tens of meters from its surface.
He had to admit Vehn wasn’t doing a bad job of flying—dropping in close to avoid the big guns, playing an elaborate spiral dance around the ship’s axis, dodging out from the gravitic embrace of the dovin basal. If they cleared the big ship by much, their luck would change. One good hit by one of those big plasma cannons would be the end of them.
“Heads up, back there,” Vehn’s voice crackled. “They’re launching coralskippers.”
Anakin saw. The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t localize their fighters in bays, but kept them attached all over the outside of the ship. Anakin had nailed a few of the inactive ones already. Now they were detaching in swarms.
“You’ll have to keep them off, Solo,” Vehn said, his voice tinged with desperation. “If I try to outrun ’em, we’ll be sitting pretty for the destroyer.”
“Understood,” Anakin replied. He didn’t have time to talk after that; everything in him focused on the weaving, organic forms of the enemy. He couldn’t begin to count them.
They came, and he shot them. He fell into a one-two-three rhythm—first shot to draw out a gravitic anomaly, second shot just outside its event horizon. It would move to intercept, and he would fire even wider on the other side. Sometimes it managed to swallow all three shots, but often the coherent light blazed just far enough outside the singularity to merely bend around it. Once he got the timing right, he could land that crooked third shot where he wanted it.
But he couldn’t shoot them all. The transport bucked and complained as molten plasma did its damage. Ignoring the tremors, Anakin fought on in grim silence.
Vehn, too, kept his silence—the occasional curse aside. They were all beyond talking now.
An enemy shot got through Anakin’s barrage, glancing from the turret cockpit, leaving a molten streak on the transparisteel. Anakin traced after the offender, but it was gone. He whirled back to take one of three crisscrossing his field of vision and hit it solidly. It spun, then straightened.
Toward him. With quiet calm Anakin fired at it, watching it come closer. A singularity gulped his first shot, and the second bent wide. The third beam hit dead center. The skip flared out of existence, but the debris came on, smacking into the cockpit in a hundred meteoric shards.
Hairline fractures spidered everywhere.
One more hit, and I’m breathing vacuum, Anakin thought.
But he certainly couldn’t leave the turret. He checked to make certain the lock behind him was sealed, closed off from the rest of the ship. There was no need to take everyone with him.
He took out two more skips, but then three dropped into a wedge headed straight for him. He took a deep, calming breath and began firing, but he knew he wasn’t going to get them all.
In fact, he had fired only two shots before the damaged laser overheated and went into temporary shutdown. Anakin watched impassively as the skips approached. He reached out in the Force, hoping to find debris to throw at them.
He wondered what it was going to feel like when his blood started boiling.
He felt them in the Force at the same time the coralskippers vanished in a searing white haze, and two X-wings whipped around the expanding cloud of gas and molten coral. His comm crackled.
“Need a hand, little brother?”
“Jaina!”
“This is some mess you’ve gotten us into, Anakin,” a masculine voice replied.
“Jacen! Where … how …”
“Explanations later,” Jaina said. “Who’s flying that crate?”
“That’s me,” Vehn cut in.
“Get out of there, fast,” Jaina said. “We’ll keep these pups off you. Corran Horn’s out here, too. I almost pity the Vong.”
“But if I clear …”
“Believe me,” Jaina said, “you’ll want to be clear.”
Anakin breathed a sigh of relief as the turbolaser came back on-line. “I’ve got the back door,” he told his siblings. “You just clear a path. Vehn, better do what they want.”
“Whatever you say,” Vehn said sarcastically. And then he just gasped. Anakin didn’t see why until they were on the other side of the Errant Venture. By that time, the Yuuzhan Vong ship was blazing like a newborn star.
Anakin stared through the transparisteel and grinned wide enough to swallow a crescent moon.
Karrde wasn’t grinning, a standard day later, when the Yuuzhan Vong ships finally packed it in and jumped to hyperspace. He was watching the drifting ruins of ships, Yuuzhan Vong and otherwise, and grimly tallying his losses.
Yes, he was getting too old for this nonsense.
“Captain. Message for you, sir,” H’sishi said.
He considered ignoring it, but at this point—so soon after the battle—it could be something critical.
“Put it on, H’sishi,” he said.
A few seconds later a lean, middle-aged face appeared.
“Corran Horn,” Karrde said. “It’s good to see you. I assume you were on your father-in-law’s Star Destroyer?”
“When Jacen and Jaina found us, yes. I was one of the X-wings out there. I …” His face contorted very briefly, then returned to a neutral expression. “Karrde, I want to thank you for saving my son and the other children. I know what it cost you.”
No, yo
u don’t, Karrde thought. “You’re welcome,” he told Horn. “When I make promises, I do my best to keep them.”
“We’re alike in that,” Horn replied. “And I also pay my debts. I owe you a big one.”
Karrde received the sentiment with a nod of his head. “I’m glad your son is well. Is there anything else I can do for you? I’m sorry to be short, but I’m not much in the mood for conversation right now.”
“I’ll let you go in a second. This doesn’t even come close to squaring us up, but I do have something for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone, I should say.” Horn moved aside and was replaced by Shada D’ukal’s wry features.
“Shada!”
“Come on, Karrde,” Shada said. “You didn’t think I was stupid enough to stay on a flaming ship, did you? Once I got the lock, we went for the escape pods. Horn ran across us in his X-wing, doing a slow spiral toward the gas giant.” She squinted at the screen. “Hey, boss, what’s wrong with your eye?”
“The air unit has been blowing dust in from somewhere,” Karrde said, blinking away the suspicious moisture. “Get your tail back over here, so we can discuss how long it will take you to pay me back for the Idiot’s Array.”
Shada rolled her eyes. “See you soon, boss.”
Then, despite his losses, Talon Karrde did allow himself a small, quiet smile. Why not? They’d won.
EPILOGUE
“We never thought we’d find Booster,” Jaina confessed, around a mouthful of food. “I was ready to hijack the Jade Shadow and fly straight to Yavin. When Booster doesn’t want to be found, he can really disappear.”
“What was he doing?” Anakin asked.
“Running weapons to the Hutt underground, actually,” Jaina replied. “I just asked myself where Booster would go if he wanted to help the war effort and still turn a profit without feeling bad about it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It didn’t hurt that Corran was with him,” Jacen said. “We got hints of him in the Force.”
“Still.”
“Jacen’s being modest,” Jaina said. “He spent a lot of time in deep meditation, trying to find Corran. It was no accident.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” Anakin allowed.
“Thank you, Anakin,” Jacen said, as if surprised. His brow wrinkled in such a way that made him look briefly very much like their father. “Are you okay, Anakin?”
Anakin nodded. “Yes, actually. I mean, my leg still hurts, even with the bacta patch, but otherwise, I think I’m fine. In fact, better than fine.”
“What do you mean?” Jacen asked, perhaps a little suspiciously.
Anakin chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Up until now,” he said, “I had no way to think of the Yuuzhan Vong except as enemies.”
“They are enemies,” Jaina said.
“Yes,” Anakin replied. “So was the Empire. But Palpatine aside, it must have been possible for Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke to at least conceive of the people they were fighting as possible friends. In fact, that’s how Uncle Luke destroyed the Emperor, right? He was able to imagine Darth Vader as his father, as a friend. The Yuuzhan Vong—well, to be frank, I didn’t even want to conceive of them that way.”
“They don’t make it easy,” Jaina said. “Look what happened to Elegos when he tried to understand them.”
“So you think you succeeded where Elegos failed?” Jacen asked.
“Do I understand them? No, not completely. But I have a deeper understanding than I did. I can think of them as people now, and that makes a difference.”
Jacen nodded. “You’re right, of course. Does that mean you’ve decided not to fight them anymore? Are you going to work for peace?”
Anakin blinked. “Are you kidding? We have to fight them, Jacen. I have to fight them. I just know more about how to do it now.”
Jacen’s frown was fully developed now. “Are you sure that’s the right lesson to take away from all this?” he asked.
“No offense, Jacen, but I think I’ll leave off worrying about what lesson I might have learned if I had been someone else. Because frankly, if I had been someone else, I don’t think I would have survived to learn any lesson.”
“Tell Booster we’re going to have to evacuate the ship,” Jaina said. “The way Anakin’s head is expanding, it’ll split through the hull in no time.”
“Believe it or not,” Anakin replied, “I don’t say what I just said with pride. I’m just stating a fact.”
“Pride is pretty sneaky,” Jacen warned. “It disguises itself pretty well. I hope you’ll have a long talk with Uncle Luke at some point. Unless you don’t think even he has anything to teach you.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Jacen,” Anakin said.
“And don’t you forget who pulled your butt out of the fire there at the end,” Jaina replied.
Anakin let a grin creep across his face. “But that’s what I meant, don’t you see? When I said that no one but me could have survived what I did. Because no one else in the galaxy has you two for his brother and sister.”
He picked up his tray, trying not to laugh at their gaping mouths.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I have someone I need to go see.”
Anakin found Tahiri’s stateroom door open a crack. Through it he saw her lying on her bed, bare feet propped up on the wall. Her gaze was fastened on the transparisteel window and the distant spray of the core beyond.
Anakin rapped the door frame. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi. Come in if you want.”
“Okay.” He took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“You didn’t show up for dinner,” he said. “I thought I would bring you some.” He placed a food container on the bed. “Corran made it. Seems he’s been doing a lot of cooking these days.”
“Thanks,” Tahiri said. She turned her head and for the first time met his gaze.
“What happened to it?” she asked. “The shaper base?”
“You sure you want to hear about it? Every time someone brings up the subject—”
“I wasn’t ready to talk about it then. Now I am.”
“Okay. Well, Booster pretty much slagged it. Karrde and his people evacuated the slaves. We’re going to drop them off someplace soon. Of course, the Yuuzhan Vong can come back, I guess, since we left the system pretty much without defenses, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”
“No,” Tahiri said. “There isn’t. I guess that’s the end of the academy.
“Of course it isn’t. The academy was never a place. It’s a thing, an idea. We’re just taking it on jets. Booster’s going to let the academy kids stay on the Errant Venture. He’ll make random jumps around the galaxy until it’s safe to settle the kids down someplace.”
“Safe?” Tahiri hissed. “How can it ever be safe? How can anything ever be—” Her words seemed to clot up in her throat, and she turned back to the view of space.
“Tahiri, I know how you feel,” Anakin said.
She closed her eyes, and two small tears squeezed from the corners. “If anyone does, I guess you do,” she said after a moment.
“What they did to you was horrible, I know, and—”
“What they did to me? Anakin, I cut Mezhan Kwaad’s head off.”
“You had to.”
“I wanted to. I liked it. I loved it.”
“She tortured you. She tried to destroy everything you are. You can’t be blamed for a moment of anger.”
“I think she did destroy everything I am,” Tahiri said. “When I killed her, it was the end of me.”
“No,” Anakin said, “that’s not true. And I should know, shouldn’t I? The best of you is still there, Tahiri.” He reached his hand out. It hung there in space for a long time before she reached back, taking it without looking.
“It was all my fault,” she said. “Master Ikrit died because of me. Karrde’s people died because of me.”
“Now this I’m prett
y good at,” Anakin said. “Blaming myself for things. I can really teach you to do that right. In fact, if we think really hard about it, I bet we can find some way to blame you for the Yuuzhan Vong finding this galaxy in the first place.” He cocked his head. “No—I think I want the blame for that. We can blame Palpatine on you, though. How’s that?”
Tahiri frowned at him. “When did you start talking so much?” she asked.
“I don’t know. When did you start coughing up one word at a time as if three or four were going to break your mouth?”
The corners of her lips twitched up, not quite forming a smile. “Just shut up, will you? I liked you better the other way.”
“Me, too.”
They watched the stars in silence for a while.
“Where will you go now?” Tahiri asked, when the silence was too thin. “Back out to fight the Yuuzhan Vong?”
“Eventually.”
“I want to go with you.”
“That’s why I said eventually. I’m staying on here for a while. Until you’ve healed. Until I’ve healed. Then if you still want to go, we go. Together.”
She didn’t say anything, but for the first time since they’d left Yavin, he felt something like hope in her.
“Adept Nen Yim. Step forth.”
Nen Yim genuflected and then stood before the warmaster, Tsavong Lah.
“First I want your account of the fall of the shaper compound. After that I have other questions.”
“Yes, Warmaster. At your command.”
“My command is given. Speak.”
“Of the space battle I know nothing, Warmaster. Many of our ships died on the ground or struggling through the atmosphere. Then the damuteks were attacked from above, and damaged beyond healing.”
“So much is obvious. Go on.”
“Then the bombardment ceased, and the infidels commenced landing. We did not understand why, at first. A more thorough bombardment would have killed us all with no risk to the infidels. As it was, some of them were slain by our surviving warriors.”
“You do not know these infidels as well as you might, Shaper. Their attachment to their own kind leads them into pointless maneuvers.”