by James Luceno
“Did you get a course setting?” Han interrupted.
There came a long pause, and Han and Leia understood the truth of it. Anakin had just blasted out of there haphazardly, had leapt into hyperspace without any understanding of where it might take him, or if other solid bodies might be in the way.
He could be anywhere by this time; his atoms could already be scattered all over the sector.
“You two get back to Dubrillion,” Han instructed. “We’re going after Anakin.”
“We’ll go with you,” Jaina started to offer.
“Back to Dubrillion!” Han roared at her, as angry, as on the verge of losing control as Leia had ever seen him, as his kids had ever heard him.
Han shut down the channel then, bringing the Falcon under Lando’s Folly, staring out at the vastness of empty space beyond. He had no idea if the TIE fighter had survived the leap, or if Anakin had.
He didn’t voice that fear to Leia; he didn’t have to.
She knew.
The reception was triumphant indeed for Jaina and Jacen when they put their TIE fighters back down to dock on Dubrillion. Dozens swarmed about them, cheering wildly, for it was widely understood that, had the young Jedi not taken a sizable group of enemy fighters into Lando’s Folly, thus disrupting the entire attack formation, Dubrillion might have fallen, and certainly would have taken much more damage than had been sustained.
The brilliant flying of the three Solo children had been viewed on the screens throughout the city, the brightest light to shine through the dark day.
So here they were, climbing out of their cockpits on the low docking bays they had been assigned, with technicians rushing out to them and a horde of cheering people on the ground below, lifting their arms in gratitude. But neither Jacen nor Jaina felt much like celebrating at that time, for they had no idea of where their brother might be, or if he had survived. And even if he had, the battle up there had been painful, with many losses sustained, and they both had seen the damage to the city on their way back in, with several buildings burning, many ground cannons flattened, and Belt-Runner I aflame. At that particular moment, the cost of battle didn’t seem worth the victory to the twins.
“He’s all right,” Jaina said to Jacen, walking over to join her brother. “I can feel it.”
Jacen nodded his agreement, but the sentiment did little to bolster his spirits, for the young man now waged a personal battle. He had been caught completely off guard by such use of the Force as Anakin had shown to him up there in the asteroid belt, when the three had joined so symbiotically to act practically as a single fighting unit, the perfect squadron. He and Jaina had similarly joined on previous occasions, using the Force to heighten their twin bonding, but never had Jacen understood the level of joining, of perfect teamwork, that Anakin had so stubbornly pressed upon him during their many hours of philosophical argument. In light of that display, Jacen had to question his own philosophy concerning the Force as a tool for improvement of the self, this strictly inner usage designed to allow a Jedi to discern his or her place in the universe. No, Anakin had proven to him, vividly, the limitations of his philosophy, had shown him that perhaps the potential of the Force as a tool for perfect teamwork was too great for them to ignore.
If the Force could be used as such a binding tool for complementing fighters, then how could the Jedi not use its power to maintain order in the galaxy?
He looked at Jaina, and she studied his stern expression carefully. “Perhaps I was wrong to always train alone,” he admitted.
Jaina continued to stare, and then a smile and a nod came over her as she caught on to his present thinking. “Anakin has been thinking about a link like that for a long time,” she explained. “He’s often told me his plans to form a Jedi squadron, acting so much in harmony that nothing could stand against them.”
Jacen looked past her, to the viewscreen on one wall showing a continuing picture of Lando’s Folly. “It’s a good plan,” Jacen decided.
“And not one that goes against your beliefs,” Jaina remarked.
Jacen shrugged, not so sure.
“For more than a year now, I’ve watched both of you limit yourselves,” she said with a warm smile, and she punched Jacen in the shoulder.
The crowd closed in around them then, cutting short the private discussion.
“You’re doubting because you’re afraid for Anakin,” she offered as they were swept away. “Mom and Dad will find him.”
Jacen nodded and strained a smile for the benefit of those around him. Inside, though, he continued to debate the philosophies. He told himself repeatedly that the Millennium Falcon would soon return with Anakin in tow. Perhaps then he and his little brother could have some serious discussions, could figure out a bit more balance between their seemingly conflicting viewpoints.
Out of any real power and truly battered, Anakin entertained doubts not unlike those of his older brother. For, from the beaten young Jedi’s point of view, his philosophy concerning the Force as an outward-projecting tool also seemed deficient. If he had been stronger emotionally, as was Jacen, if he had trained himself to deeper levels of meditation instead of concentrating on the outward battle skills, the mentally joined run through the belt would not have so overloaded his sensibilities.
Now, drifting in empty space, Anakin had to wonder if his sudden breakdown had proven disastrous to everyone. He did not know how badly his error had cost him, personally—for would he simply die out here, alone?—or his siblings. Had they managed to run out of the belt without him? Had they maintained a joining between them—he knew that they had bonded similarly in the past—or had the shock of Anakin suddenly breaking free and blasting out of there cost them everything? And what of the enemy fighters? Had the path to Dubrillion been left wide open for them?
It was for Jaina and Jacen that the young Jedi now worried the most. He could accept his own death, if that was to come, but why should his brother and sister pay for his personal weakness?
He took a deep breath, nearly overwhelmed as that truth hit him soundly: If his brother and sister were all right, if their flight through Lando’s Folly had indeed saved the day at Dubrillion, then Anakin could accept his fate.
As Chewbacca had accepted his fate on Sernpidal.
Anakin leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He sent his thoughts out, seeking some connection with Jaina and Jacen, trying to defeat the thousands of kilometers between them, to feel them, to know that they were still alive and okay.
There was only the emptiness of space.
Anakin feared that he would die alone. More than that, though, he feared that his brother and sister were already dead.
“They refuel and rearm,” Da’Gara said to Prefects Ma’Shraid and Dooje Brolo, who commanded the third worldship, last of the Praetorite Vong, which had landed on the ice planet earlier that same day.
“But the planet—Dubrillion, they call it—remains,” Ma’Shraid dared to voice.
“As we knew it would,” Da’Gara assured her. “This was but a probe, the war coordinator testing the defenses of the next planet in line. We learned of their smaller starfighters from the encounter with the unworthy one and his comrades. Now we have learned of the larger defense structures, and have seen the most brilliant level of flying our enemies can present against us.”
“And were those larger defenses formidable?” Dooje Brolo asked. “And was that level of flying impressive?”
Da’Gara snorted. “The power ship, which provided the strongest shields to a certain type of starfighter, was destroyed,” he informed them. “As were more than half the surface batteries. And now, rest assured, Dubrillion’s starfighter fleet has been reduced to a handful.”
“Does the war coordinator wish for my coralskippers to join in the battle?” Prefect Dooje Brolo asked eagerly, the warrior gleam in his dark eyes.
Da’Gara shook his head. “The coralskippers return to inflict damage upon the sister planet of Destrillion,” he explained
. “They will not remain in the system for long, just long enough to bait our enemies. We do not wish them to know our true strength.” He stood up tall before his fellow prefects, staring at them hard. “The war coordinator has shown to me that more powerful ships are on the way to protect the planets. We wish to bring them here.”
The other two nodded and smiled. The planetary defenses already in place on the ice planet were formidable indeed, and growing stronger by the moment. Now, with Dooje Brolo’s added contingent of nearly a thousand coralskippers, along with larger yorik coral battle craft, they had no doubt that the force assembled, unified by the willpower of the great yammosk, would overwhelm whatever came in at them.
In the back of his mind a tiny voice of concern reminded Da’Gara that he had not heard from Yomin Carr, not even a response to the villip message he had sent his agent on Belkadan. But as quickly as he recognized that concern, he dismissed it. Events were unfolding that required his complete attention.
“It will be a glorious day,” Ma’Shraid remarked.
“And then we will turn our attention fully to the two planets of Dubrillion and Destrillion,” Dooje Brolo said.
“And then we will reach further to the core of the galaxy,” Da’Gara assured them. “The yammosk and I have foreseen it. As for those two planets, we will use them for our resource needs, and perhaps create our second base upon one.”
Ma’Shraid sucked in her breath, and Dooje Brolo’s eyes widened when he caught on to her suspicions.
“The war coordinator will spawn?” Ma’Shraid asked.
“Sooner than we believed possible,” Da’Gara informed her. “And the second yammosk will be trained immediately through its mental joining with the parent. We will establish our second base as soon as the immediate threat is eliminated, and that second base will allow our great war coordinator to focus on yet another spawning. Also, though I have not had contact with my agent, I believe that the metamorphosis of the planet of Belkadan is nearly complete, and we may soon plant yorik coral there, to grow rapidly.”
The other two prefects looked to each other and smiled. The Praetorite Vong would soon reach the second level of conquest—perpetuation—and once that had begun, the pitiful, disassembled peoples of this galaxy could not possibly resist.
“It will be done,” the two recited in unison.
The Millennium Falcon zoomed away from Lando’s twin planets, then out of the system altogether, past many of the straggler enemy fighters moving to join their fleeing comrades. A few even turned as if to engage the Falcon, but the ship was too fast for them, had already built up a speed that the smaller ships simply couldn’t pace.
From the Falcon’s top gunnery pod, Kyp Durron called out eagerly, “I’ve got them!” as the Falcon approached one group, and then added a disappointed “Hey!” as the ship roared right past the enemies.
“How could he take a chance like that?” Han scolded, aiming his ire at Leia and ignoring Kyp completely. “How could any of them? I thought we had raised our kids with more sense than to dive into an asteroid belt with a bunch of fighters chasing them!”
“The odds of such an adventure actually succeeding—” C-3PO began, but Han cut him off with a scowl.
Despite the grim situation, the very real possibility that their son was in serious jeopardy, Leia couldn’t help but smile, even chuckle, and shake her head incredulously. “I wonder where they get that from,” she remarked.
Han looked at her curiously.
“I know another couple of reckless pilots who took unbelievable chances,” Leia reminded. “I know of one who once flew into an asteroid belt with a host of Imperial fighters on his tail.”
Han couldn’t miss the reference: he had indeed done exactly that. “That was different,” he insisted.
Leia shook her head again at the absurdity of it all, but Han just scowled at her profoundly. Leia let it go at that, understanding the deeper emotions at work on her husband, his fears for his children and not his own safety, and an even deeper feeling of guilt concerning Anakin, considering the last few confrontations between the two, the entire dialogue between father and son since Chewbacca’s demise.
“We’re going to have to go to lightspeed soon,” Han muttered, his frustration evident in his tone. Where were they to go? What direction and how far? They had not been able to track Anakin’s sudden departure, and the possibilities as to where he might have flown off to seemed endless.
“If he used the sixth planet as a guiding beacon out of the belt, he’d have headed in the general direction of Dantooine.” He was talking to himself more than to Leia as he tried to sort out the course. As he spoke, he moved his hand along the top of his navigational panel, as if he was trying to feel out the right choice as well as reason it out.
Leia grabbed that hand suddenly, lifting it from the controls before Han could lock anything in. He looked over at her, at the vacant expression on her still-beautiful face.
“What?” he asked.
“I hear him,” she replied, and as she finished, as the truth of her own words came clear to her, her lips curled up into an inevitable smile.
“I’d be lying if I told you that we weren’t surprised,” Lando assured Luke soon after the Jade Sabre put down on Dubrillion later the same day as the battle. Mara had gone off with Jaina and Jacen, to hear the stories of the fight, but Lando had insisted that Luke come with him right away. “We found it on the outskirts of the city,” Lando explained. “The pilot was already dead, but we still found it with our sensors tuned to detect life-forms.”
Luke, walking fast to keep pace with the obviously excited Lando, looked at him curiously.
“The ship,” Lando explained. “It’s a living organism, not a machine. And it’s beautiful—to look at and in pragmatic design.”
Luke’s skeptical expression remained, but he didn’t question Lando further until a few moments later, when they turned a bend in the hallway and came before a huge window, beyond which lay the interior dock that now held the captured alien fighter.
“That’s a living organism?” he asked, somewhat surprised to see how much the captured ship resembled the craft that he and Mara had just battled about the fourth planet of the Helska system. He couldn’t deny Lando’s claim of the beauty of the thing, though, now that he had the chance to see one up close and not buzzing about him in battle. This one was roughly triangular in shape, resembling a miniature version of an Imperial Star Destroyer. In his fight with such fighters, Luke had thought their sides smooth, save the many volcanic cannons, but now he understood that the whole of the ship was even more integrated than that, like one piece of what looked like living coral.
Lando nodded. “And as beautiful a starfighter design as my scientists have seen,” he explained. “Fast, and can snap-turn with an A-wing, and with more firepower than almost anything that size we can put up.”
Luke looked at the multicolored craft carefully. There were many tubelike projections growing on it, protruding from various places and bending in various angles. They looked like no gun turrets he had ever seen, but he remembered well the volcanic missiles launched from the craft.
“The pilot wore a mask,” Lando went on. “No, more than that. It was a connection to her … companion.”
“Her companion?”
“More that than a ship,” Lando tried to explain, grasping for the proper words. Indeed, neither he nor his many skilled scientists had ever seen anything quite like this, at least not on a starfighter. “The pilot was connected to her ship,” he said. “It’s like she was riding it more than flying it, like the Sand People on Tatooine and their bantha mounts.”
Luke glanced at him somewhat accusingly—this was too important a matter for Lando and his friends to be making guesses about.
“We can’t know for sure yet,” Lando admitted. “We’re testing the thing, but no one’s about to put that mask on … yet.”
“Sure I am,” Luke answered, staring hard at the strange starfighte
r, and he started for the door.
Lando looked at him quizzically, eyes widening as he caught on to Luke’s intent. He finally caught up to the Jedi, just as Luke was beginning to climb the side of the small craft—and with Lando’s scientists looking on with complete amazement. Lando grabbed Luke by the arm, turning him about. “We don’t know enough about it,” he claimed. “Like this thing at the nose,” he added, pointing to the front of the starfighter, where some of the multicolored coral-like substance had been chipped away, revealing a thumb-sized, dark red, membranous ball.
Luke climbed down and moved for a closer inspection.
“It’s alive,” Lando explained. “Or at least it was, we think.”
That brought a curious look from Luke.
“And it’s not a part of the bigger ship, any more than the pilot was,” Lando went on. “You should see her—the pilot, I mean—full of muscles and full of tattoos, and with her face all scarred and her nose broken, probably a dozen times.”
The description only further confirmed Luke’s suspicions that all that was happening—on Belkadan, in the Helska system, and this attack here at Dubrillion—was closely related. He remembered vividly the appearance of Yomin Carr; it could not be coincidence that both he and the pilot of this ship bore such a resemblance of—could it be?—uniform.
“Have you seen the body Mara and I brought back?”
“Not yet,” Lando admitted, and then he caught on. “Same thing?”
Luke nodded, then stared hard at the membranous ball mounted in the starfighter’s nose; it was clearly dead, showing no more life energy than would a rock. He nodded to Lando, then moved right back to the side and started up the starfighter, despite Lando’s protests. With no hesitation at all, he climbed into the cockpit, a snug fit. He saw the mask to which Lando had referred sitting before him, and tentatively reached for it. It was alive, he knew before he touched it, and was indeed a part of the larger organism and not some separate creature. This was a living ship, a mount, as Lando had described it.