Star Wars The New Jedi Order - Vector Prime - Book 1

by R. A. Salvatore

  How many times had the horrid creature feigned his execution? How many times had he been drawn in to within a hairbreadth of those chewing teeth? And each time, no matter what logic might yell at him, he could not believe other than that this would be the moment of his death.

  That reality did not get any easier with repetition.

  And worse Each feigned execution replayed in his mind a thousand times, and each of those recollections seemed nearly as vivid as the actual experience. He could not sleep, could barely force down enough food to keep himself alive.

  Across the chamber, Danni watched it all helplessly, knowing that her companion was near to breaking. She had tried everything to comfort him, had held him while he thrashed in his dreams, had offered him her words of comfort and her shoulder to cry on.

  But it didn't matter, she knew. These Yuuzhan Vong warriors, whoever they were, had clearly decided, for some reason that escaped Danni Quee, that Miko, the Jedi Knight, was not worthy, and so they were going to destroy him utterly, his heart first, then his mind, and finally his body.

  And she could only watch.

  Chapter 17 The Last Pose of Defiance The ground rumbled and rolled, and a great wave of splintering rock reared up at them, toppling a building into the street. Anakin banked the landspeeder and throttled up, weaving in and out of falling and bouncing chunks of stone, sweeping past people screaming in terror and pain. A couple of soldiers, Sernpidal City guards, stood by the northern checkpoint exit, waving for Anakin to slow.

  He didn't.

  Outside the city, the quakes were even more violent. A strong wind was blowing now, and Anakin feared that the atmosphere itself might be compressing under the disturbance of the descending moon. He knew the calculations, knew that they still had a couple of hours before the moon came crashing down, but he had to wonder if the planet would hold together that long, or if the residual disasters, the quakes, the brewing violent winds, the rushing seas, would destroy the place so that by the time the moon arrived, there would be nothing left to kill.

  He pressed the landspeeder on, redlining the drives, and almost felt as if he was in the asteroid belt again, moving on instinct, on anticipation instead of reaction. Beside him, the old mayor sat quietly, apparently comfortable, hardly jumping even on those occasions when a bouncing stone or rolling wave of dirt nearly buried them. Anakin gave him hardly a thought, other than a quick survey, visually and with the Force, an inspection that showed him the old man was truly calm, that it was not a facade, that he had come to accept his doom without despair.

  Somehow Anakin used that calm to keep his own cool head. He checked his coordinates to ensure that he was in the right area.

  But what was he looking for?

  A gigantic machine? An Interdictor cruiser, with its gravity-well projectors? There were none about. A rift in the planet's surface? Again, nothing, other than the cracks from the tremors.

  He slowed the landspeeder and closed his eyes, feeling the sensations about him, feeling the calm of the old man, the unrest of the planet as it was pulled and twisted by the swiftly passing low moon, the fear of the creatures, reasoning and animal, a palpable terror that the young Jedi could almost taste in his mouth.

  Anakin looked deeper, deeper. Anything exerting the kind of power necessary to grab on to a moon could not be invisible to the Force.

  The moon, now enormous, crested the horizon, rolling up into the sky. The wind roared; the ground swelled and rolled.

  And Anakin felt the tug, not on him, not on anything except for that moon. He opened his eyes, though he kept his mind in that other sensibility, and there before him, he clearly "saw" the tractor beam.

  He throttled up the landspeeder, swerving through a ravine between two unstable peaks, a move that almost cost him dearly as one huge boulder smashed down right behind the small craft as it passed. Speed was their ally, for the rocks on both cliff walls were crumbling fast, but as they neared the end of the narrow valley, they were hit by tremendous head winds, as if all the air was being squeezed. Anakin glanced up at the moon and saw a tail of fire trailing it, the first contact with the atmosphere.

  "We're barely moving," the mayor commented calmly.

  Anakin banked to the side, climbing along one narrow trail, trying to get behind a jag in the stone, and nearly getting smashed against the wall by one particularly furious gust. He made it, though, skimming into a narrow channel and running the length of it, and when he came out, he found the wind diminished enough so that he could again make forward progress.

  Exiting the pass, they came to a wide and empty field, a barren stretch of stone and dirt, a bowl within the low mountain range. Anakin immediately spotted the crater in the middle of that field and didn't have to fall back into the Force to know that this was the source. He approached swiftly but cautiously to within a dozen meters, then shut the landspeeder down and hopped out, running low to the ground, not knowing what to expect.

  The crater was not large, barely a couple dozen meters across, nor was it deep, perhaps ten meters, and there in the bottom sat something that resembled a huge, pulsating, dark red heart, with deep blue spikes all about it. Anakin studied it, looking for some controls, or some connection to a power source.

  "What is it?" the old man asked when he joined the boy at the rim of the crater.

  Anakin looked more deeply, using the Force, seeing the thing more distinctly and coming to the unnerving conclusion that not only was this definitely the source of their troubles but that it was a living creature. Gasping for breath, he drew his blaster.

  "That thing's bringing down Dobido?" the old man asked incredulously.

  "Get back," Anakin instructed, taking aim. The old man didn't move, but Anakin, so entranced by this completely alien and undeniably powerful life-form, didn't notice. He leveled the blaster and fired.

  The energy bolt ripped down into the crater and then ... disappeared. Just flickered out, like a candle in a strong wind. He fired again and again, but the bolts seemed to have no effect.

  "What is it?" the old man asked again, more emphatically.

  "Get in the landspeeder and go back for my father," Anakin instructed, pulling the lightsaber from his belt.

  "The ugly one or the big hairy one?" the old man asked.

  Anakin ignored him and moved one foot to the very edge of the crater.

  And then he and the old man went flying away, jolted by a sudden and violent thrust of the ground. The young Jedi scrambled about, to see dirt and stones flying from the crater, a volcanic eruption, it seemed, without the lava.

  It ended abruptly, and Anakin rushed back, only to see a deep, deep hole where the creature had been. He understood the creature had recognized the attacks and had reversed its gravity pull, probably latching on to the core of Sernpidal, and was now far, far below.

  What was he to do now?

  A familiar roar turned his eyes skyward, and he saw the Millennium Falcon swooping down from the mountains. It landed fast on the gravel plain to the side, and the landing ramp dropped almost immediately, Han running down to his son, and many other people, refugees, poking their heads out of the Falcon to see what might be going on.

  "We've got to get back!" Han cried. "Chewie's organizing the retreat from the planet, but we've barely got enough ships!"

  "The creature's down there," Anakin replied, pointing to the crater. "It's a living thing!"

  Han shook his head. "Doesn't matter anymore," he replied with a wry twist of his lips, and Anakin understood. For Sernpidal, it was too late. Even if they somehow managed to kill this creature or stop its tractor beam, Dobido's orbit was lost, and the moon would come crashing down.

  "Every second means someone else dies," Han remarked, and Anakin sprinted for the ramp. The old man, though, didn't follow; instead, he walked back up to the crater rim.

  "I must at least ensure that this devil doesn't escape to destroy another world," he explained, smiling, and he opened his cloak and produced a meter-long tub
e.

  "Thermal detonator," he said. "You should be leaving."

  "You're crazy," Han started to say, but the old man, the mayor of Sernpidal City, just went over the edge of the crater and calmly leapt into the hole.

  The Falcon had barely lifted away when the detonator blew, lining tons and tons of dirt into a gigantic mushroom cloud over the gravel plain.

  "Strange old man," the stunned Han muttered.

  Anakin stared out the window, back toward the area of the original crater. He felt no more pull from the alien creature. "He got it," he informed his father.

  Han nodded. The old man hadn't bought them a minute of time, hadn't saved Sernpidal at all, but still, they both understood, he had done something truly valuable and heroic.

  For Prefect Da'Gara, it was the moment of highest glory, honor, and spirituality, the epitome of his purpose, the reward for his efforts, the most welcomed task.

  He stood alone on a pedestal before the yammosk, the creature's massive eyes boring into him. Chanting the appropriate prayers to Yun-Yammka, he lifted his hand to gently touch the creature between those eyes, along a huge blue pulsating vein, the point of transference.

  Then they were joined as one, the yammosk's consciousness overwhelming Da'Gara's. The prefect felt the binding power of the war coordinator, the purpose of its being, and through its sensitive energies, he felt the commune that was his task force, the Praetorite Vong.

  Da'Gara fell deeper into the yammosk, gave it his feelings as it recited its own to him, and they knew they were of like mind. It was time to expand, to reach out and begin consuming vast reaches of the galaxy.

  But first, they had to lure a portion of their enemies in, destroy the New Republic's warships on a Yuuzhan Vong battleground, where the yammosk's control and coordination were complete.

  The prefect left the meeting both exhilarated and exhausted, physically drained but emotionally charged. He went right to his private quarters, to Yomin Carr's villip, but then changed his mind and opened contact to Nom Anor instead.

  The executor responded immediately.

  "We reach out this day," Da'Gara explained.

  "Go with glory and victory," came Nom Anor's proper response. "Die as a warrior."

  Da'Gara snapped to attention. "We shall not dishonor the Yuuzhan Vong," he answered, again the proper response. "Sernpidal dies this day."

  "And her people?"

  "Many attempt flight, and there, our warriors will find their next challenge," Da'Gara replied. "The war coordinator has dispatched four full battle groups to intercept and to give chase. They will allow the refugee convoy to lead them to the next planet in line, and there they will begin the open warfare."

  "Do-ro'ik vong pratte," Nom Anor pronounced.

  Da'Gara sucked in his breath at the bold proclamation. Do-ro'ik vong pratte was the war cry of the Yuuzhan Vong, the call for ferocity unbridled, the absolute releasing of the basest of warrior emotions. Under such a command, Yuuzhan Vong warriors became the hunter in the closing strides of the stalk, the purest killers.

  "Do-ro'ik vong pratte," Da'Gara agreed. "And woe to our enemies."

  By the time Han got the Falcon back to Sernpidal City, the docking area was gone, broken apart by the tremendous upheavals, with all its walls flattened. A few people ran about, screaming, a few others remained prostrated on the streets, praying to Tosi-karu.

  But most had been packed away, and dozens of ships, everything from single-seaters, inevitably with two people crammed in, to freighters, were up in the air, preparing to fly away.

  Han spotted Chewie almost immediately, the Wookiee waving one long arm and holding a pair of children under the other. "Help him," he instructed his son, and Anakin rushed away, pushing through the mob that packed the Falcon , to the lower landing ramp. Han brought the ship in low and slow, compensating for the roaring winds. "Hurry, hurry," he muttered to himself. Debris was flying everywhere, and only luck alone had kept Chewie and those kids from being washed away in it.

  He edged the Falcon down lower, to within a few meters of the ground, and moved over Chewbacca's position.

  "The kids are in," Anakin called over the intercom. "I'm getting Chewie in now."

  An explosion rocked the city, a few blocks to the side of the Falcon , and a small shuttle started to rise above the remnants of one wall, but quickly shut down and disappeared from view.

  Han banged a fist on his console. "You got him, kid?" he called to his son.

  "Chewie's going for the shuttle," Anakin called back. "I'm going, too. Meet us there." Even as Anakin finished, Han saw Chewie go running out from under the Falcon , drawing his bowcaster as he went.

  Anakin came close behind, gaining ground as Chewie slowed to blow a hole in the wall between them and the downed shuttle.

  "We've got to clear it," Anakin shouted as he came through that wall, to find the tail end of the shuttle buried under a pile of debris too thick about the lone ion drive for the ship to dare risk a takeoff.

  Chewie charged right in, bowcaster firing, cutting up the bigger chunks. He grabbed pieces with one strong arm and sent them flying aside.

  "Hurry up!" came a cry from the open port on the shuttle's side, a woman standing inside. "I've got a packed ship. We'll all die."

  Anakin studied the pile and the Wookiee's progress. He heard the Falcon 's engines humming as the ship hovered over the wall behind him, and for a moment, he thought of instructing his father to vaporize that rubble pile with the laser cannons, as Chewie was trying to do with his bowcaster.

  He shook the improbable plan away and utilized a different power source, an inner source, instead, reaching out mentally to the rubble, using the Force to lift it away, huge piece by huge piece. Another quake rocked the city, the falling moon making its appearance on the eastern horizon, seeming much larger than even on its last pass, and this time with a huge fire trail spewing out about it. Immediately the wind increased to deafening proportions.

  But Anakin held his calm and worked the pile methodically.

  The Wookiee roared his approval and helped as much as he could with his conventional methods, and soon enough, Chewie fell back, hailing the woman inside with great and urgent howls.

  "Take her out!" Anakin cried to the woman, translating the Wookiee's words. "Take her out fast!" He and Chewie fell back as the shuttle blasted away.

  It rose only a dozen meters before being blown aside by a huge gust of wind that pummeled the area and sent Anakin and Chewie scrambling.

  The more powerful Millennium Falcon held its ground, though, and the lower landing ramp was down, with Han perched on it, extending his hand to his son and his partner. "Come on!" he cried. "It's ending fast!"

  Chewie fought powerfully against the wind, making some progress, and then Anakin was beside him, practically floating off the ground, pulling him along with the strength of the Force.

  A tiny, pitiful cry rang in their ears. Both glanced all around, discerning the source, spotting large eyes peering out at them from under a half-buried bulkhead.

  Abruptly, Anakin let go of Chewie and changed course, and the Wookiee, with only a quick glance to Han, followed.

  "Go back to the ship," Anakin instructed, yelling at the top of his lungs. Even so, his voice was barely audible in the howling wind.

  Chewie growled and shook his hairy head.

  "I'll use the Force to get us both back, then," Anakin said. Another pitiful cry came out at them. "And whoever's under there!"

  They went to work wildly on the bulkhead, tossing aside debris with muscle, physical and mental, and then Chewie reached in and pulled out a small boy, barely a toddler. Together, the three turned for the Falcon , struggling on as the storm increased, as the ground heaved and broke apart, as the thunderous wind roared on, the Falcon 's powerful engines straining to hold the ship's position.

  They were near, so close that Han could almost grab Anakin's extended hand, when a barrage of debris swept past. Chewie held his ground and turned h
is powerful body to protect the toddler, but a piece of stone clipped Anakin's head, costing him his concentration and launching him far in a rolling, bouncing tumble.

  Han's eyes widened with horror; Chewie thrust the toddler into Han's arms before he could begin to move, and then the Wookiee turned about and half ran, half rode the wind to catch up to the fallen Anakin.

  Han handed off the toddler and rushed back for the cockpit, knowing the two could never get back to the Falcon against this mounting storm. He brought the Falcon in fast but steady, moving to the spot even as Chewie lifted Anakin in his arms.

  Han locked her in place and rushed back to the landing ramp, pushing aside those who had moved into position to help. But the Falcon couldn't hold position now, and she drifted up and to the side - or maybe it was the ground dipping down and to the side - her engines roaring in protest.

  "Chewie!" he cried, hanging right off the ramp now. Several others crowded about Han, holding him in place by the legs. He reached desperately for the Wookiee, but the Falcon was up too high.

  Chewbacca gave his friend a resigned, contented look, then threw Anakin up into Han's waiting arms.

  The ground rolled and bucked, and suddenly, Chewie was far, far away.

  Han cradled Anakin to the floor just inside, and the boy was conscious again, struggling to his feet as his father rushed back to the cockpit.

  Han worked furiously over the controls, bringing the Falcon around, swerving about buildings. The communicators crackled with the frantic cries from other ships, some blasting away, others unsure of where to go.

  Han ignored it all, focused entirely on finding his lost Wookiee friend.

  Anakin came up beside him, falling into Chewie's chair.

  "Where is he?" Han cried.

  Anakin took a deep, steadying breath. He knew Chewie so well - surely he could find his friend with the Force.

  And he did.

  "To the left," he cried. Han brought her about. "Around that corner!" Anakin cried.

  "Take it!" Han told him, and he ran back to the landing ramp. "Get me to him!"