It was a nice thought, but Luke still didn’t feel confident that they were out of trouble just yet. Even now, as they neared their objective at the top of the ceremonial mound, he didn’t allow himself to embrace the relief that he could sense emanating from Stalgis and Hegerty. Self-confidence had a way of making one lower one’s guard, and that could cost lives. He wasn’t about to assume they had escaped until they had escaped.
Finally, the slope eased and they staggered onto the mound’s wide, stone summit. The Sentinel-class landing shuttle rested on an eroded bas-relief depicting a mythical battle between two hideous-looking deities. At the top of the extended landing ramp stood a gray-uniformed Imperial pilot, waving for them to hurry.
“Gee, what’s the rush?” Stalgis said dryly, putting an arm under the shoulder of the only other surviving stormtrooper—the one who’d been force-fed the grub. “Can’t they allow us a few moments to admire the scenery?”
“Maybe that’s why,” Jacen said, pointing ahead and to his left.
Approaching with an ungainly but effective series of long-legged leaps were the three Krizlaws who had separated from the rest of the hunting party at the base of the mound. It was clear they were going to reach the shuttle first—which probably explained their triumphant howls and ululations.
Luke gathered the Force about himself and Jacen. By using it to increase their speed, the two of them could head off the three Krizlaws, giving the others opportunity to get to the shuttle. Three of these creatures would certainly be no match for the lightsabers of two trained Jedi.
Barely had he taken a step when matching howls sounded from off to the right. A quick glance told him that eight more of the Krizlaws had found them.
“Eleven again,” Hegerty said breathlessly. There was a hint of defeat in her tone.
“They can’t be the ones we buried,” Jacen said. “It’s not possible!”
“They aren’t,” Luke said. “They have different markings. These must be replacements.”
“How did they know?” Stalgis asked.
The question became moot as the eleven howling aliens converged on the escapees. Two Krizlaws separated from the rest and headed for the shuttle, giving the Imperial waiting at the top of the ramp good reason to hastily retreat inside. Seconds later, laser cannons issued from their retractable housing and began taking potshots. The Krizlaws were too fast, however, their long leaps taking the gunner by surprise.
Luke stopped running. There was no point wasting energy on a mad dash if there was no chance of making it. Sending for the shuttle speeder bike was also pointless, since that could save only two of them at the very most. A familiar meditation damped down feelings of frustration and anger; this was no time to give in to darker emotions, he told himself. There had to be another way to save the landing party from the approaching aliens.
Stalgis assumed a sharpshooter’s pose and snapped off a dozen rounds in quick succession. One of the Krizlaws stumbled and fell, missing one of its arms and geysering purplish blood. Luke watched in horror as the creature staggered back to its feet and continued on, limping. Stalgis’s jaw clenched as if biting down on frustration, but he kept on firing.
Luke and Jacen placed themselves at two points of a defensive triangle, with Stalgis and the other stormtrooper at the other corner and the exhausted Hegerty in the middle. The xenobiologist was only slightly older than Luke, but she had no battle skills. The type of expedition she was used to, Luke imagined, would have had little cause for running like this.
Krizlaws spread out in a circle around them. Luke used the Force to discourage those who came closest, but knew it was only a matter of time before he and the others were rushed. There was no way they could possibly repel all nine at once.
As he steeled himself in preparation for the inevitable attack, and possibly a fight to the death, his thoughts went out to his son safe in the heart of the Galactic Alliance, and he sent a wordless message of apology to Mara, waiting in orbit in Jade Shadow.
The Millennium Falcon’s exit from hyperspace was anything but graceful. Leia gripped the arms of her copilot’s chair, glad that Han had finally installed one that accommodated her slight build.
Behind her, she could hear C-3PO rattling.
“Oh my,” the golden droid exclaimed, shifting unsteadily on his feet to try to keep his balance. “I hope we haven’t hit anything!”
Han flicked a couple of switches; then, when that obviously failed, he leaned back in his seat and kicked the base of the console. A few seconds later, their trajectory flattened out.
“Sorry about that, folks,” he said to no one in particular. “Normal services have been resumed.”
Leia rolled her eyes and glanced back at Tahiri. The young Jedi sat stoically in her seat, her stare fixed at a point outside the cockpit canopy. Throughout the journey, she had remained quiet and unresponsive to any attempts at conversation, her thoughts focused firmly inward. Leia hadn’t pressed her; she sensed that some complicated healing process was taking place in the girl, and she was reluctant to disturb it.
Nevertheless, there were times when she felt that a more direct approach might be appropriate—especially those times when Tahiri’s brooding silences went on for hours at a stretch, never seeming to end. Tahiri’s blackout on Galantos had been a startling setback, occurring at a time when Leia had believed that Tahiri could be on the mend. Still, there could be no faulting her reactions when she’d woken up; without her well-honed Jedi instincts, they might not have reached orbit when they did—or, indeed, made contact with the mysterious Ryn who had helped them escape.
Leia inwardly sighed. Whatever was going on inside Tahiri, it was frustratingly inconsistent.
The subspace receiver bleeped. Leia glanced at the scopes and opened the line.
Captain Mayn’s voice issued from the comm speakers. “Falcon, I await your instructions.”
“Glad you could join us, Selonia,” she said. “Have a nice trip?”
“As pleasant a stroll as one can expect through hyperspace.”
Leia smiled at the captain’s remark as she surveyed the planet before them. Bakura was a beautiful blue-green world known for its agricultural and repulsorlift exports. Its two moons had been heavily mined for materials used in the manufacture of the second Death Star. It was also right on the edge of the galaxy, diametrically opposite the corridor of worlds that had first fallen victim to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. “From Bonadan to Bakura via Bothawui” was an old saying that suggested it was easier to get from the Corporate Sector to Bakura via a wide detour to Bothan space than it was to go straight through the Core, with its dense overlap of mass shadows and treacherous hyperspace lanes. It also connected three high-tech but otherwise very different industrialized worlds. Where Bonadan was a desertified wasteland, Bakura was still verdant and pastoral, on the other end of the spectrum of environmental degradation.
Belkadan, the first world attacked by the Yuuzhan Vong and one of Bonadan’s relative neighbors, was in a spectrum of its own, its biosphere modified to suit the aliens’ introduced biological factories. Leia hoped she never saw the day when such degradation stretched from one side of the galaxy to the other, linking all the worlds she knew in a terrible web of pain and sacrifice. If the day ever arrived when Shimrra ruled over Bakura, then she would know that the end had truly come.
For now, though, it still looked peaceful enough …
Numerous satellites orbited the planet, and she imagined that it wouldn’t be long before someone detected and hailed the Falcon and Pride of Selonia. Assuming that normal procedures were still being followed, all entries into the system were closely monitored; the Bakuran government was constantly alert for another Ssi-ruuvi invasion. After the first attempt twenty-five standard years before, four destroyers and cruisers—Intruder, Watchkeeper, Sentinel, and Defender—had been specifically constructed and installed to guard the system. Two of them—Watchkeeper and the task force flagship Intruder—had been destroyed when co-
opted into service to the New Republic at Selonia and Centerpoint. That left only Defender and Sentinel to hold the fort.
“Bring back any memories, Leia?” Han asked with a crooked grin as his hand reached out to squeeze hers briefly. She returned his smile but didn’t respond directly. They had visited Bakura very early in their relationship; under other circumstances, she might have let herself enjoy the reminder of those headier days.
“Stand ready, Selonia,” she told Mayn. “See if you can raise the planetary network. Don’t identify us; use Selonia’s registration codes.” Mayn responded in the affirmative, and Leia switched to another frequency. “Twin Sun One, maintain formation unless ordered otherwise.”
“Understood.” Jaina’s voice came briskly from the cockpit of her X-wing. The remaining fighters of Twin Suns surrounded the two command vessels in a flattened dodecahedron, missing one point.
“Do you sense anything, Jaina?” Leia asked her daughter.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What about you, Tahiri?”
“Huh?” The young Jedi snapped out of some deep thought. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I asked if you were picking up anything unusual through the Force,” Leia said.
“Oh, no—nothing yet, anyway.” Tahiri closed her eyes as she sent her mind reaching out through space, seeking any echoes of the people on and around Bakura.
“Tahiri is looking now,” Leia told Jaina.
There was a slight but meaningful pause from Jaina’s end. Leia had noticed a definite reserve growing between Jaina and Tahiri, but she’d had no opportunity to discuss it with her yet. The present arrangement—with Jaina on duty more often than not, and rarely aboard the Falcon— meant that there was simply no time to be alone together. If something had happened to get in the way of the friendship between the two young women, Leia had no idea what it was.
“Okay,” Jaina finally said. “We’ll keep our sensors peeled.”
Han brought the Millennium Falcon around along a broad arc designed to end quite clearly in orbital insertion. Leia wanted no ambiguity that they were on a peaceful mission, despite their military escort. After the Ryn’s vague hints, she wasn’t taking any chances.
She opened a line to Selonia again: “Any word yet, Captain?”
“Nothing,” Mayn replied. “We’re picking up some light chatter, but not much else. There are a large number of vessels in parking orbit or in station docks. Most of them just look like freighters.”
“No launches?”
“None detected.”
Leia considered this for a moment. “Keep hailing them,” she said shortly. “They must be ignoring us or simply not noticing us. Either way, they won’t be able to keep it up much longer. Let’s just stick to our course and see what happens. And be ready for anything.”
“Understood.”
Leia turned to Han. He sat in silence beside her, his brow pinched with worry. “You okay?”
He looked at her and cocked one eyebrow. “Do I really need to say it?” he asked.
She shook her head and sighed. He didn’t need to tell her that he had a bad feeling about this; she could feel something was wrong, too. But without evidence she had no reason to act any way other than normal.
Finally the subspace channel crackled and a response came in. “Selonia, this is General Panib of the Bakuran Defense Fleet. Please state your intentions.”
Leia remembered a Captain Grell Panib from an earlier visit to Bakura; she imagined it was probably the same person. A short, stiff-backed redhead, he’d had all the social graces of a hungry Wookiee.
Mayn ignored the request. “We’re allies, Captain, looking for a docking vector—”
“I’m sorry, Selonia, but we’re going to need more detail before we can give you one.”
“Of all the …” Han muttered.
“It’s a perfectly reasonable request,” the general went on, his voice taut with a tension Leia couldn’t immediately fathom. “There has been no notification of you coming—”
“General Panib, this is Leia Organa Solo,” she interrupted before Han could explode. “We have come to your planet on a diplomatic mission. We would have notified you in advance but communications have been unreliable around here of late.”
There was some hesitation from the general. “I appreciate what you are saying. There have indeed been problems with the communications networks. Nevertheless, I must insist that you now state your intentions for coming here.”
“Hey, how about you drop the attitude,” Han responded hotly. “We’re the guys who saved your skins from the Ssi-ruuk a while back, remember?”
“I remember; I recognized that beat-up old freighter the moment I saw her.”
Leia hid a worried smile as she watched her husband bite down on an indignant retort.
“But things aren’t so simple anymore,” Panib went on. “We have something of a situation here at the moment.”
“What kind of situation?” Leia asked.
“You’re not welcome here!” A new voice crackled over the restricted comlink frequency. “Go steal someone else’s ships!”
“What?” Han exclaimed. It was clear this time that he didn’t intend to hold back. His face reddened as he leaned forward to speak into the comm unit. “Listen, you—”
“Wait, Han,” Leia cut him off. He looked at her with an incensed frown, but did as she asked. “General Panib, is this person speaking with your authority?”
“Certainly not!” the general responded, spluttering. “And whoever it is shall be court-martialed as soon as—”
“You can’t court-martial everyone, General,” the intruder mocked. He had distorted his voice to mask his identity. “You can’t silence the truth indefinitely!”
“When I find out who is responsible for this,” the general blustered, “I swear that I shall have you—”
“The truth?” Leia broke in. “And just what is the truth?”
“There is nothing to discuss here!” The general’s voice was rising as he lost control of the situation. “We don’t need you meddling in our affairs!”
“We aren’t here to meddle,” Leia defended quickly. “Although I will admit that we are concerned about your affairs. I believe you’re in great danger, General. People masquerading as allies may have recently contacted you. I can assure you that they are not what they seem.”
“Whereas you are, I suppose.” This came from the person who had broken into the conversation, his voice dripping with derision. “At least they don’t pay lip service to the idea of an alliance while eroding our defenses and leaving us open to attack!”
Leia bridled at this. “We have never abandoned our allies!”
“Like you never abandoned Dantooine and Ithor?” the stranger shot back. “Or Duro or Tynna or—”
Cold fury welled up in her. “Every planet lost cuts us deeply! Every life lost cuts us deeper!”
“I must apologize, Princess,” Panib said anxiously. The general’s tone had changed dramatically from a few minutes earlier, and he sounded genuinely apologetic. “We are doing our best to find the source of the transmission.”
“I’m sorry, too, Princess,” came the distorted voice of the intruder. “But I’m afraid that the time has come to find ourselves some new allies.”
“Uh-oh,” Han said from Leia’s side, his eyes scanning the display in front of him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Sentinel’s launching bays just opened,” he said, shaking his head ominously.
He pointed at the screen. Issuing from the launching bays of the cruiser Sentinel was a swarm of Ssi-ruuvi battle droids, coming directly for them.
“Whatever it was we came to stop, I think we might be too late.”
“Uncle Luke! Look!”
Jacen guided his uncle into the double mind of one of the nearby Krizlaws. He had used the Force to cloud the brighter, more intense mind, but still the creature kept on coming. Somehow, the more do
ltish mind was enough to coordinate the body while the higher mind was elsewhere.
“And exactly how is this supposed to help us, Jacen?” Luke asked.
“Look closer,” Jacen pressed. “We’re not dealing with single creatures here; they’re symbionts!”
“Two creatures combined?” Luke said dubiously. “I don’t see how that—”
But then, suddenly, he did see. The higher, brighter mind of the creature belonged to the rider and was the directing intelligence; it gave the orders that the body then carried out, no matter how wounded. The lower mind belonged to the body, which could keep going even with the higher mind disabled. Jacen’s theory certainly fit the evidence—and he was intuitively better at understanding animals than Luke was.
But if he was right, then the lower mind should be more easily startled by pain. And if that was the case, why hadn’t the one in which Jacen had disabled the higher mind simply run away from Stalgis’s blasterfire?
He soon found out. The riding intelligences were ferocious killers: crudely intelligent but not open to reason. Trained to hunt, not to discuss differences, the pack would keep coming as long as some of the riders remained to keep the lower minds in check.
Following Jacen’s lead, Luke sent his mind into another of the Krizlaws and clouded its controlling intelligence. It, too, continued to obey its higher mind’s final instructions, snapping hungrily at the four people along with the rest of the pack. Luke and his nephew continued around the circle of beasts, one by one confusing their higher minds. It was only after they had disabled the sixth creature that there was a noticeable change in behavior. The pack became less orderly, less focused, while their baying became more unsettled and aggressive. Luke could feel a note of alarm entering the remaining higher minds as the thoughts of those around them descended back to their natural, animalistic states.
Refugee: Force Heretic II Page 2