Exile

by Aaron Allston

  That was … curious. As critical as the election of a supreme war commander should be, Jacen had anticipated more anxiety.

  And more notoriety among the attendees. So far, he hadn’t recognized a single face.

  Jacen accepted a drink from a server, a tall, fair-haired woman in a white gown that looked like it dated to the late Old Republic but was probably just an in-vogue dress on some backwater world. “So where’s the coordinator?” he asked, making the question sound innocuous.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Any idea when opening arguments are supposed to begin?”

  The server reached up to tug at her earlobe, just a nervous gesture—except Jacen could feel the lie in the casual nature of her movement. “I don’t know that, either. Perhaps they’ve broadcast the schedule to everyone’s datapad?”

  “What did you just do?” Jacen asked.

  The woman’s nervousness increased by a factor of ten or more. “I answered your ques—”

  “No.” He leaned in close, intimidating. “When you touched your ear. Tell me. Or I’ll be forced to kill you.”

  She looked right and left as if seeking an avenue of escape … or an observer. “Please,” she said, “we’re supposed to. If anyone asks questions.”

  “You sent a signal.”

  “Yes.”

  Jacen wheeled and walked quickly back toward the door by which they’d entered the big chamber. Through the Force, he reached out to Lumiya, a warning.

  “Gentlebeings!” The voice was so loud, broadcast from on high, that Jacen was compelled to look.

  Toward the center of the great chamber, a hologram was forming. Six meters high, it showed a male human in a white admiral’s uniform, the cut and styling more suited to the Palpatine-era Empire than to modern military forces. The man was trim, with high cheekbones and fair hair cut into a military style. A scar, livid even in the hologram, started on his upper left lip and crossed straight down to the lower lip. To Jacen, he looked rather a lot like General Tycho Celchu, but lacked that officer’s warmth.

  “If you’ll turn your attention to the sky,” the admiral continued, “you’ll witness the forces of the Galactic Alliance emerging from the planet’s atmosphere. This will be visible as a series of bright flashes as they begin to hit our mine grid. Closer to us, I’d like to introduce you to a distinguished visitor.”

  A spotlight from high above blared right into Jacen’s eyes. He twisted away, knowing he was framed by its glow, and turned to glare at the hologram.

  The hologram continued, “If our specialists are worth what we’re paying them, you may raise a glass to Colonel Jacen Solo, Galactic Alliance Guard. Some of you Corellians may have lost relatives and friends to this man’s many recent activities.”

  Jacen heard a murmur of anger from some in the crowd, but most reacted only with curiosity. A few moved away from him a few steps. Others sipped their drinks, unconcerned.

  “We haven’t been introduced,” Jacen said, projecting his voice.

  The giant hologram nodded. “General Turr Phennir. Supreme Commander of the Confederation military. At your service.”

  “I thought—”

  “That today would be the day that office was elected.” Phennir shook his head as if saddened by Jacen’s credulity. “A deception I thought would be useful in drawing your forces in. And your presence here is another benefit, an unexpected one. I know you’re going to attempt to fight your way out, but I must ask, please don’t kill the delegates. They’re only actors.”

  Behind Jacen came the sound of running feet—the security agents. They, he was sure, were real.

  Yes, he’d fight his way out. But he had something to do first. He gestured upward, toward Gilatter VIII, and put his whole heart into two thoughts: It’s a trap! Mines!

  “It’s a trap,” Luke shouted into his comlink. “He’s visualizing mines. I say again, mines.”

  “Acknowledged, Stealth One,” came the voice of the Voyager’s comm officer. “Be advised, with that transmission, your position is compromised.”

  “No kidding. Stealth One out.” Luke switched his comm board over to squadron frequency.

  “What now?” Mara asked.

  “We go in,” Luke said. He could hear the reluctance in his own voice. “And rescue Jacen.”

  Over the X-wing’s intercom, R2-D2, directly behind Luke, offered a melancholy trill.

  Every officer on the Galactic Voyager bridge waited for the order to come—the order to take a new heading, to circumnavigate the mine grid ahead of them.

  That’s not what they got. “Continue all ahead slow,” Niathal ordered. “All forward gun positions of all lead vessels, open up in a sweep pattern directly forward. Second-tier capital ships and starfighters still in formation, drop in behind the capital ships. The order is given for Anakin Solo and all outlying vessels to jump.”

  There was the briefest delay, and then the bridge crew turned to its new tasks.

  Galactic Voyager’s commander, a Quarren named Squinn, edged toward Niathal. His face-tentacles were motionless with forced calm, but a question burned in his eyes.

  Niathal answered it. She had to speak more loudly as Voyager’s weapons batteries began firing. “If we hadn’t gotten Solo’s warning, Captain, what would have happened?”

  “We would have advanced into the minefield.”

  “Until?”

  “Until our forward ships began hitting the mines.”

  “And then?”

  Understanding dawned in the Quarren’s expression. “We would have set a new course, a lateral course. Into more mines that have been maneuvered into place while we were waiting here.”

  Niathal nodded. “Mines we couldn’t detect because of the thicker atmosphere around and below us. Mines that would continue to close on us. This way, we’re going to be hammered, but with the fewest number of hammers they currently have to swing against us.”

  “Understood.” Captain Squinn edged away again.

  “It’s a trap,” Leia said. Though Jacen’s Force-based warning had not been intended for her, she could not have missed it—not a panicky emotion from her own son.

  She leaned forward in the copilot’s seat of the Falcon, but the only thing visible from the Gilatter system was its yellow star, straight ahead, distant and tiny. “Han, did you hear me?”

  “I did.” Han’s face was, for once, a mask of indecision.

  “We have to go in and get him,” she said. The words hurt. Her anger at Jacen’s actions had not abated. She didn’t trust him.

  But he was her son. She had to save him.

  “We’re waiting for news about Alema,” Han said. But there was pain in his voice, too. His protest sounded weak.

  “Go, Han.”

  “Yeah.” He hit the thrusters. The Falcon was already oriented straight toward Gilatter VIII. All they had to do was engage the hyperdrive.

  Lando rose from the navigator’s seat behind them. “Not that I’m part of this conversation, but I suspect I should operate one of the laser turrets. Right?” Receiving no answer, he sighed and headed back to the turret access tubes, his cloak swirling behind him.

  The Turr Phennir hologram had appeared so close to Alema that she was, initially, partly within his right leg. She edged away, disappearing into the crowd.

  Getting to this meeting had been easier for her than for any other infiltrator, she thought. After all, memories of her presence faded from the minds of those she encountered mere minutes after she departed. That, and her Jedi skills, made it child’s play for her to bypass guards, eavesdrop on conversations, and never stain the memories of those whose resources they used.

  Unless she wanted them to remember, like Captain Lavint.

  Now she hoped she would not be noticed as she made her way from the main hall. She didn’t think she would be. Jacen Solo was doing too good a job of attracting everyone’s attention.

  He stood alone, a semicircle of security guards from several different
forces blocking his path, and as she watched they opened fire. He leapt above the torrent of blaster shots, igniting his lightsaber as he rose, and came down behind his enemies. He spun, and two of them were suddenly headless. The rest fell back from him, firing as they turned.

  All Alema had to do was flee from this disaster, join the throngs of actors now moving in panicky retreat toward the shuttle access chambers—

  Then she felt her quarry. Leia was nearby, sending reassurance through the Force.

  To Jacen. It had to be to Jacen. That message certainly wasn’t meant for her.

  But now she couldn’t leave. She had to wait to see if Han was with Leia.

  Veering from her escape path, she made her way to a wall and merged with the shadows there.

  ZIOST

  Hirrtu, the Rodian, jabbered at Dyur aboard the Boneyard Rendezvous, this time clearly surprised.

  “Launch condition?” Dyur brought up the sensor display.

  It showed an incoming spacecraft, its point of origin just a few hundred meters from where the Chev, Ovvit, had died. “He found a way off,” he said. “Smart kid. By the way … battle stations.”

  Everything was so alien. Through the vehicle’s skin, Ben could see the ground and stars—he could even recognize some of the stars.

  And he could see a blocky, awkward-looking freighter change its orbit to approach the point toward which he was rising.

  His heart sank. He couldn’t possibly win an engagement in a vehicle he barely knew how to fly, one with either no weapons systems or systems older than most modern planetary governments.

  “What are my weapons?” he asked.

  They appeared in his mind’s eye. The arm at the vehicle’s bottom could curl around into a landing base, or could stay extended and direct a laser attack. The arm atop the vehicle could line up on opponents and fire metal balls at them.

  “Cannon.” He all but spat the word out. “Physical cannon.”

  To his surprise, the vehicle responded with indignation to his words. His mental view zoomed in on the top-mounted weapon. He watched as a metal ball the size of his head rolled, propelled by magnetics, from a hopper into the base of the articulated arm.

  And then it was gone, emerging from the far end of the arm as a blur, with no sound of propellants accompanying the action.

  He peered more closely and the sequence ran again, more slowly, in his mind. The ball was there … and the same magnetism that had rolled it into place accelerated it along the arm, building up speed with every centimeter it traveled until it left the end of the weapon.

  Magnetic accelerator. Ben had heard of such a thing—a Verpine weapon, he thought, though that was a much smaller device. He’d never heard of one being built on a starfighter scale.

  And maybe his enemies hadn’t, either.

  His mental query told him he had less than a minute until he was close enough for those enemies to fire reliably upon him. A minute to practice.

  “Dodge,” he said. And the vehicle began a forward-and-back, left-and-right shimmy that nearly hurled Ben from his kneeling position. Kiara slid around on the floor, rough as it was, until she grabbed one of Shaker’s legs to stabilize herself.

  It was frustrating not to have direct control of the vehicle, but also exhilarating just to issue orders and have them carried out.

  “Ready top weapon,” he said.

  As if it were part of his body, he could feel a metal ball maneuvered into place at the base of the weapon. He could also sense a growing impatience within the vehicle. It occurred to him, whether the thought originated with him or his craft, that he didn’t need to say things out loud.

  The freighter opened fire. Ben could see flashes of light around him—then pain crackled across his shoulders as one of those shots connected with the vehicle’s upper hull. The shock of it almost caused him to lose concentration, but anger was his friend, anger helped him keep his focus.

  Fire top weapon. The ball left the weapon, hurtling toward the freighter … and grazed its shields and hull, ricocheting harmlessly away.

  Too late, Ben realized that the ball was still an extension of the vehicle, an extension of himself. Even now, he could steer it a little, deflect its course. But he instinctively knew that turning it around and sending it back against the freighter would take too much of his energy.

  Ben’s vehicle flashed past the freighter, and it turned to follow. It began turning well before they were past, in fact, keeping its bow and starboard side toward the Ziost vehicle, and Ben thought he saw something twisting and changing on the freighter’s port side.

  He sensed his vehicle’s desire to fire with its bottom weapon, to splash laserfire across the enemy, but Ben was focused more on what he’d seen. Turn around, he thought. Dive toward Ziost. Come around the other side of the freighter.

  His vehicle inverted with the speed and turning radius of a modern starfighter and angled down to come up on the freighter’s port side. The enemy commander sensed his intent, tried to turn to keep his bow and starboard side facing him, but the Ziost craft’s speed and maneuverability were too great. When the angle was right, he could see that a large panel on the port side was locked open, with another TIE fighter there, ready to launch.

  Anger roared up inside Ben, anger remembered from being strafed, anger at what the other TIE had done to Kiara and her life—and a second ball left his top weapon before he realized he had launched it.

  The freighter was rolling now, trying to bring its bottom hull into line to take or deflect the shot. But Ben applied himself through the Force and saw the ball change its arc, rising to avoid the freighter’s bottom—all but ignoring the shields, hurtling straight into the open hold, angling toward the stern.

  The ball emerged through the starboard side, carrying with it a debris cloud that had once been atmosphere and thruster components.

  The freighter’s course and speed were unchecked. In punching through it, the ball had imparted little of its own kinetic energy to the target and seemed at first to have done no damage of consequence. But then the freighter rolled and began an immediate descent toward the atmosphere.

  Now Ben let his craft open fire with the laser. Red beams jittered their way across the freighter’s top hull, putting just enough energy through the shields to scorch the paint and sever a comm antenna.

  Ben shook his head, ordering his craft to cease fire, and oriented himself toward space. He relaxed, sitting instead of kneeling.

  “What happened?” Kiara asked.

  “We won.” Now all he had to do was find his way home—use a spacecraft that had no navigational computer, might not have a hyperdrive, to reach the nearest civilized star system, probably Almania again. Coruscant was too much to hope for …

  In his mind’s eye, Coruscant grew large, and he could simultaneously see it as a distant gleam in the sea of stars.

  Can you take us there?

  He knew the vehicle could.

  Before we grow old and die?

  The vehicle didn’t have a precise understanding of human time, but Ben could feel that the trip would take hours or days, not lifetimes.

  So he sent the command.

  GILATTER SYSTEM

  RESORT SATELLITE

  In the shadow where she was hiding, Alema saw two figures force their way in through the streams of actors trying to escape.

  They were Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker, dressed in black jumpsuits with X-wing pilots’ accoutrements, and Alema nearly passed out from happiness. Luke was here and would see Mara die, Leia was still coming … the universe was about to experience some much-needed Balance.

  She stopped bouncing up and down long enough to find her comlink. She spoke into it: “Activate and execute approach two.”

  On the Duracrud, now floating with all the other arrival craft steered to the holding area by resort security personnel, the nav computer would be loading and implementing a set of simple maneuvers. The Duracrud would move to a position directly abov
e the resort’s dome, a few kilometers away, and then begin accelerating.

  “What are you doing, dancer?” The voice was cold, amused, familiar, and it froze Alema’s guts.

  She tore her attention away from the fight, where Jacen was coping with an ever-growing number of security agents, and looked to the right. The dark-skinned woman who had addressed her did not look familiar … except for her build and her green eyes. “Lumiya,” she said.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Alema gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “We are here to kill Mara Jade Skywalker, who is here, and Han Solo, who is coming. And you?”

  “I was about to dive in and help Jacen.”

  “Do not do that.” Alema shook her head vehemently. “If you rescue him, Luke and Mara will leave, and Leia and Han will not come. They must be here.”

  Lumiya considered. “Then let’s jump in together. Our being here will keep the Skywalkers and Solos from leaving. Don’t you think?”

  “We do.”

  Lumiya reached down and tore a long gap in her gown, freeing her legs to maneuver. She unwrapped the decorative scarf she wore as a belt, revealing the lightwhip beneath it, and rewrapped the scarf around her lower face and scalp, giving her the aspect of Lumiya so familiar to Alema and others. Then she drew her lightwhip. “Ready?”

  Alema brought her lightsaber up. “We are.”

  She was happier than she had been in a long, long time.

  Luke and Mara made their approach a merciful one. They landed in the midst of the thickest group of security officers. Luke’s lightsaber flashed in a circle, severing five or six blaster barrels, and Mara gestured with the Force to sweep aside half a dozen agents.

  Luke deflected a blaster shot from an opportunistic CorSec woman. “Let’s go, Jacen. Your ride’s waiting.”

  Jacen struck, cutting a Bothan shooter in two. “I don’t need your help.” Then he looked past Luke and his expression hardened still more. “Oh, no.”

  Luke glanced back that way. Han and Leia were entering the main hall at a dead run. “And your other ride is here.”