Destiny's Way

by Walter Jon Williams

  The enemy warriors hurled themselves down the tunnel and Jacen fired on them. Thud bugs and blorash jelly flew at him; he ducked some and cut at others. He was strangely calm.

  This wasn’t the first time he had made a mistake. And dying was nothing new, either.

  It was the thought of Jaina that brought despair. He had failed to help her; and through the Force and their twin bond he felt her own hopelessness.

  The Yuuzhan Vong kept coming, dozens of them lunging, charging, hurling thud bugs, spitting poison from the heads of their amphistaffs. Jacen’s blaster was running out of charges. His lightsaber was a brilliant green blur as it parried and slashed. Pace by pace, he stepped back into the narrowing shaft.

  Jacen felt rage building in him, a red fury that was his response to his own despair. The blaster hummed empty and he threw it at the warrior. And then he remembered the power he could call upon, the power fueled by the kind of despair and anger he felt now and had felt before, and he hurled it at the warrior, the brilliant emerald fire that lanced from his fingertips.

  The Force lightning threw the first rank of Yuuzhan Vong back into their comrades, and in the confusion Jacen launched another blaze of fire. He hadn’t killed them—the murderous form of lightning was a dark side weapon—but they wouldn’t be waking for a long time.

  “Young Jedi.”

  Jacen looked around, and somehow wasn’t surprised to find Vergere standing there. “Hello,” he said, and fired another sizzling blast at the Yuuzhan Vong.

  Vergere looked up at him, her tilted eyes glittering and wise. “You’re about to lose your air,” she said.

  “Vergere!” the subaltern cried, his voice ringing high above the sound of the grutchyna bringing down stone.

  Tsavong Lah swung at the subaltern. “What of her?” Impatiently. “Isn’t she coming?”

  “She comes! But she isn’t slowing down!”

  * * *

  The A-wing that Vergere stole from Ralroost’s fighter bays impacted Ebaq 9’s main shaft head traveling at thirty-five thousand kilometers per hour. The starfighter’s weapons had been scavenged for use elsewhere, but weapons were scarcely necessary. The impact vaporized the heavy girders and machinery at the shaft head, and the starfighter’s power plant and the two huge Novaldex engines turned into a fastmoving ball of plasma that swept the length of Ebaq 9’s central shaft and blew out the other side, a brilliant volcanic eruption that blinded any holocams that happened to be turned in that direction.

  As the superheated ion storm rampaged through the moonlet it flashed into any open side corridors, and to a lesser degree any corridors branching off these, but Jaina and Jacen were too deep into the galleries to be directly affected.

  What happened in their galleries was an enormous, eardrum-punishing buffet of pressure and heat, followed by a furious dust and windstorm that lasted mere seconds—after which the air was simply gone. The hurtling ball of plasma pushed a huge pressure wave ahead of it, and carried an underpressure behind, drawing air out of all the galleries. In addition, the storm of heat and pressure had set the moon on fire. Even metal will burn if it’s hot enough and there’s enough oxygen to keep the fires going. The fires set by the A-wing’s ion fury were hot enough and powerful enough to suck every bit of oxygen out of the tunnels within seconds.

  The Yuuzhan Vong had come prepared for decompression—it was an obvious defense strategy, after all. All of them carried ooglith cloakers that would enable them to survive without air.

  But they had expected more warning. Even if the New Republic engineers had blown the shaft head and exposed it to the vacuum of space, it would have taken many minutes for all the great volume of air to evacuate the tunnels, and the warriors would have had all that time from the first decompression warning to safely don their cloakers.

  Those who survived the great wave of heat and radiation experienced at first the brutal overpressure of the impact, followed by a dusty, disorienting, hurricanelike wind as the air was sucked behind the racing plasma ball and into the fires of the central core.

  The oxygen was gone within two or three seconds of the impact. The few Yuuzhan Vong who realized what had just happened were caught in a pack of their cohorts, disoriented and unable to communicate in the sudden absence of air. Many experienced syncope and passed out at once. Any who tried to hold their breath died of embolism as their lungs frothed and exploded. In order to survive, any individual warrior would have had to claw his cloaker free and don it amid a scrambling, staggering, falling crowd of his fellows, many of whom would have tried to snatch the cloaker from him in order to don it themselves.

  The three surviving voxyns and the grutchyna had no ooglith cloakers to wear, and they panicked in the absence of air and thrashed madly. Many Yuuzhan Vong were crushed or poisoned, slashed or bitten by the dying animals, including their handlers.

  Within twenty seconds, all the Yuuzhan Vong had passed out. Within minutes, they were dead.

  As deaths in battle go, these were comparatively merciful.

  The first blast of heat and pressure knocked Jaina from the shaft, staggered with vertigo from the double slap to her ears. “Depressurization!” she called, her mind whirling.

  With one quick movement she slapped her faceplate closed. The air around her howled, a screaming hurricane that threatened to drag her into the shaft, but within three seconds this was diminished to nothing.

  By the time she had fully secured her pressure helmet the air was gone.

  About time, she thought. She could have done with engineers blowing the shaft head a lot earlier.

  Tesar stood closest to the shaft, able to use his tail to brace himself against the shaft walls and avoid being knocked about by the storm. Jaina gestured at him to take a glance down the shaft and see if the enemy were moving.

  Tesar looked, then stepped back, one hand gesturing at Jaina to stay where she was.

  Jaina understood. Whatever was happening in the lower gallery, it was something she didn’t want to watch.

  Jacen watched the Yuuzhan Vong die. He had no helmet, but thanks to Vergere’s warning he was able to preserve the air in his immediate area with the Force, forming a seal across the tunnel opening ahead of him.

  The Yuuzhan Vong fell in graceful silence, one by one, dropping slowly in the light gravity like the petals of some absurdly menacing flower.

  “I wish I could help them,” Jacen said.

  “There is nothing more useless than an impossible wish.” Vergere was severe.

  He turned to her. “You did this, didn’t you?”

  Vergere’s whiskers twitched with distaste. “It was necessary that you be liberated from your choices.”

  Jacen sighed. “My choices weren’t very good, were they?”

  “You chose with your heart. And you achieved your object, did you not? Your sister lives.” She looked at him solemnly. “And I achieved my object as well. You are free to pursue your destiny.”

  Truth struck Jacen. He looked at Vergere in shock.

  “I just realized,” he said. “You’re dead, aren’t you?”

  * * *

  The Blood Sacrifice blew at the same moment the fireball blossomed from Ebaq’s far side, and Luke was staggered by the double explosion.

  He sought the Force-meld, searching for the Jedi trapped on the moon, but it was some time before their presence returned to the meld. They had been very busy.

  What happened? he demanded.

  Depressurization. A picture of wind whirling out of the tunnel, followed by another picture of enemy dead.

  Jaina? Tesar? Sending pictures.

  Luke received pictures in return—Jaina and Tesar, hale and well, beneath the blue skies of some green planet.

  And Jacen?

  Jaina’s excited presence interrupted. Jacen? He’s here?

  Yes. Jacen’s presence in the meld was calm. With Vergere. She’s saved us.

  Vergere, thought Luke. His reaction was strong enough to send his complex feelings
into the Force-meld, and he felt the others react. Luke quickly dampened his contact with the meld. There were secrets he didn’t want all Jedi to know.

  Was Vergere with the Yuuzhan Vong? The complex idea took some time for Luke to formulate. If the answer to his question was yes, the Yuuzhan Vong knew of the Alpha Red weapon and this whole victory might be pointless.

  No. Vergere’s astringent personality flowed into the meld from wherever she had been concealing herself, and spoke with extraordinary clarity. I have been hiding among the New Republic forces. I stole a fighter and dived it into the moon to destroy the enemy.

  Luke absorbed the implications of this. You gave your life to save the others.

  Vergere’s response was the answer she had given all along. It was necessary.

  Luke hesitated. Battle was still raging, and people were still dying.

  Hold on, he tried to send. We’ll get you out as soon as we can. And to the rest of the Jedi, he sent a strong suggestion not to mention Vergere to anyone. There are reasons.

  He shifted his mind to the battle. The Yuuzhan Vong had fought with their usual tremendous courage, but such courage hadn’t served them well—it had become a trap, as Ackbar had foreseen. Their formation was broken, their ships afire, their crews dying. The New Republic forces were finishing them off.

  Luke looked at Garm Bel Iblis, saw the man’s knifelike profile gazing intently at the battle display.

  “Can we call on them to surrender?” he asked.

  Bel Iblis was surprised. “Why? They’ll fight on. They always do.”

  “Because it will make us feel better to know that we offered. That we did all we could to preserve life.”

  Bel Iblis considered this for a moment as he tugged his long white mustache, then nodded. “Very well,” he said.

  The offer to accept the enemy’s surrender was made repeatedly from that moment.

  The Yuuzhan Vong did not answer, and died.

  Jacen stood in the narrow mine gallery so that he wouldn’t lose body heat by sitting or leaning on the cold stone. He was practic-ing Tapas, the art of keeping warm in a cold environment, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate on this and on maintaining the Force shield that retained his air, and so he was beginning to shiver.

  “I got you killed,” he said.

  Vergere tilted her chin. “Dying was my decision, young Jedi. Not yours.”

  “But,” Jacen reasoned, “I created the situation that led to your making that decision.”

  “In that case, you may rejoice in the fact that your sister is alive.” Vergere shook her head. “Both of us could not live. The situation would not permit that. The choice was between the young and promising, as against the wise and superannuated. And given that choice”—she sighed—“nature always chooses the young.” She sighed again. “I chose to bow to the will of nature. My time ended forty years ago. Now at last I will join my Master, and my old comrades.”

  Tears stung Jacen’s eyes. “I wish it had worked out differently.”

  Again Vergere looked severe. “What did I say about impossible wishes?”

  Jacen hugged himself, and rubbed his upper arms for warmth. His teeth chattered.

  “Can you help me stay warm?” he asked.

  Amusement glittered in Vergere’s eyes. “My abilities in this state are necessarily limited. I suggest you call upon your other friends.”

  Mara felt the tension go out of her as Sien Sovv delivered his report from Bel Iblis’s flagship. “Master Skywalker reports that all the Jedi trapped on the moon have survived. In fact, no Jedi casualties have been reported at all.”

  Sovv looked as pleased as his heavy-jowled face permitted. His step was lighter, and his button eyes glittered. He turned to Ackbar.

  “Your plan was brilliant, sir,” he said. “It worked perfectly.”

  Ackbar made an agitated movement of his hands. “I should have foreseen the occupation of Ebaq.” His words were slurred, and his skin had turned gray. “I should have insisted on ground troops defending that moon.”

  The Supreme Commander wasn’t about to let second thoughts spoil his victory. “It all worked out for the best!” Sovv said. He gestured at the holo representation of Ebaq’s system. “Look, sir! No surviving enemy craft—the board’s nothing but blue!”

  Ackbar’s whiskered chin fell on his chest. “I should have foreseen it,” he mumbled.

  Winter looked at Mara. “We should get Ackbar home. Will you help me?”

  Mara and Winter each took one of Ackbar’s arms and helped him rise. As they made their way out of the command center, Ayddar Nylykerka ran up to Mara.

  “Now we can roll up their spy networks!” he said. “The Vong will never believe any of these networks now.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Mara said. “Maybe we should let one of them stay in place.”

  Nylykerka cocked his head. “Really?” he said. “Can you explain your reasoning?”

  “If we roll up two of the networks and leave the third alone, that will give the third more credence.”

  “Hmm. Very intriguing.”

  Mara and Nylykerka debated the matter all the way to the shuttle gate.

  Luke was eager to mount a rescue mission immediately, but the central shaft of Ebaq 9 was too hot and too radioactive for living beings to enter. Droids were sent instead, bringing food, water, heaters, bedding, and vacuumproof tents in which the survivors could live while waiting for the moon to cool down. Cybot loadlifters were used, on the theory that their unsophisticated brains would be less subject to being scrambled by radiation. MD-series medical droids were sent in as well. One of them froze partway in, slagged by radiation, but the others got through intact.

  Jacen was found keeping warm with energy sent to him by the Jedi meld. He set up the tent, ballooned it with air, set up the heater, and consumed several warm drinks. The medical droid pronounced him well.

  The loadlifters found Jaina as well, but were unable to ascend the vertical shaft to her hiding place. She, Tesar, and Lowbacca dropped easily through the shaft, and for the first time, in the loadlifters’ powerful lights, Jaina saw the piles of Yuuzhan Vong corpses that choked the tunnel. She turned away and hoped she wouldn’t be sick in her vac suit.

  The MD droid’s voice came through the headset of Jaina’s vac suit. “I would like to examine you. And your companions.”

  “We’re all right,” Jaina answered. If I don’t throw up. “I have a wounded pilot whom you should see first. Walk back the way you came, and take the first left facing out. Keep hailing on these frequencies and they should answer.”

  “Very well.”

  “Take one of the loadlifters with you. They’ll need supplies as well. And there’s a body that will have to be taken out.” Maybe thousands of bodies.

  The MD droid turned to go.

  Then Jaina was surprised to see the droid’s head fly off and strike the mineshaft wall.

  Tsavong Lah passed out seconds after the tunnel was depressurized, and had survived only because his aides fought off the other Yuuzhan Vong who would have trampled him just long enough for one of them to deploy the gnullith that fed him air, and the ooglith cloaker that masked him against vacuum and cold.

  When the warmaster woke, with the gnullith’s tube down his throat, he was buried under an insulating pile of Yuuzhan Vong dead, mostly his own subalterns. At first despair consumed him, the knowledge that he had failed utterly, that his fleet had been broken and forced to flee, and even his personal revenge against the Jedi twins had come to nothing. He considered tearing the gnullith from his face and dying along with the brave warriors he had led to destruction.

  But then he recalled that Jaina and her comrades were near. If they had moved while he was unconscious, then his revenge would still be thwarted, but there had been no reason for them to move—Jaina was still probably at the head of the vertical shaft just overhead. Animated by sudden hope, he clutched his baton of rank and worked his way to the top
of the pile of corpses, where he gathered a stock of weapons. His baton and the amphistaffs were all dead, but had frozen into useful positions. Thud and razor bugs were no more than rocks. But the blorash jelly was in suspended animation and would live long enough when triggered to do what he intended. When Tsavong Lah had prepared his arsenal, he returned to the corpses, draping enough arms and legs over himself to remain inconspicuous.

  It was a pity that it wouldn’t be Jacen Solo he confronted at the end. But he comforted himself with the thought that to kill Jaina would be to hurt Jacen—to give him a lifelong sorrow that might be more damaging than if Jacen himself were killed.

  Cold triumph sang through his nerves as he began to detect the powerful lights of the loadlifters approaching down the tunnel. He narrowed his eyes, keeping his focus on the vertical shaft just a few meters over his head.

  Soon he would strike, and take his vengeance.

  Jaina twisted as she drew her lightsaber, intending to spin away from any attacker, but her feet had somehow gotten stuck to the mineshaft floor, and instead of spinning she sprawled to one side—luckily, because at that moment Tsavong Lah hurled his baton of rank like a spear.

  The baton missed Jaina entirely and impaled Lowbacca, piercing him clean through the shoulder. The Wookiee roared and wobbled—like Jaina, blorash jelly had pinned him to the floor—and he fell into Tesar, who was in the act of drawing his blaster.

  Little jets of air began to spurt from Lowbacca’s wounds, crystallizing immediately in the vacuum and drifting to the floor as glittering snow.

  Half deafened by the Wookiee roar she heard over her headset, Jaina hauled herself upright, aided by muscle and low gravity, her lightsaber glowing a soft violet off the cavern walls. Tsavong Lah seized an amphistaff from the weapons he’d strewn nearby and slashed the weapon at Jaina’s head.

  Jaina was frozen to the floor by blorash jelly, and Tsavong Lah was behind her. Her helmet cut off her peripheral vision, and the only way she knew she was being attacked was that she saw Tsavong Lah’s madly dancing shadow cast by the powerful lights of the loadlifters. She dropped the point of her lightsaber behind her back to guard against Tsavong Lah’s swing, and the impact almost wrenched her arm out of its socket.