Blast the conspirators. Blast them for existing, for being clumsy enough to be detected so early, for fouling up her plan.
She didn’t let her smile waver. “The fact that I am of some service brings joy to my heart,” she said. “I hope that I shall continue to be of worth to you.”
“You shall. And for your next assignment, you will travel to Coruscant, below us. Yuuzhan Vong warriors have died there, and the burns that killed them suggest strongly that Jeedai are the culprits. You will go with Denua Ku and join a search unit there—a unit of warriors, and even our remaining voxyn. They may be dying off, but they can still hunt Jeedai. You will offer your insights to the warriors, who will run the Jeedai to ground. You will have the opportunity to distinguish yourself further in my service.”
Words nearly failed her. On an expedition into the ruined world’s depths, she’d be watched at least as closely as she had been observed here. She’d be forced to travel with a fast-moving pack of idiot warriors, running her into exhaustion. Dirt and sweat would be her companions. And voxyn—the thought of being within kilometers of the ferocious creatures was terrifying.
She offered the warmaster her most alluring smile and bowed again. The gesture gave her time to find her voice. “I live to obey, Warmaster.”
Vannix, Vankalay System
“Will you be offering your political support to Senator Gadan?” The old woman was stiff-backed, as alert as a hawk-bat on the lookout for prey, and the downiness of her white hair, which should have softened her appearance, should have made her grandmotherly, instead gave her the aspect of some mad Force-wizard from a scary bedtime story. Too, the jagged scar zigzagging across her forehead, which hinted at a fractured skull or even brain damage in some long-ago battle, was hardly reassuring.
“Addath enjoys my every confidence …” Leia said, her voice smooth. Han waited, though, because he could detect the unspoken but at the end of her statement.
Admiral Apelben Werl offered up a faint, exasperated sigh, and leaned back in her chair. Her expression suggested that, though this meeting was not over, no further part of it had any purpose.
“… personally,” Leia concluded.
The admiral gave her a closer look. “And professionally? Politically?”
“Professionally, I favor the harshest possible resistance to the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Really.” The admiral suddenly did not look as forbidding. “I have no talent for deception, so I’ll ask straight out. What would it take to persuade you to lend me your support in this campaign? To help swing the population’s vote toward defense and away from appeasement?”
That was, in fact, exactly what Han and Leia had come to offer—a present of public support from the famous Solos.
Leia opened her mouth to make that statement, but Han cut her off. “That’s what I’d like to ask you. What would it take? What do you have?”
The admiral smiled. It was the expression of an experienced bantha trader. “Are you looking for weapons? Vehicles? I suspect that Borleias is already far better supplied than I am.”
“We’re looking for surprises,” Han said. “The Vong are going to hit us like an asteroid bombardment. Ultimately they’re going to take Borleias and then begin swarming out in all directions again. What can you give us to make their conquest of Borleias worse for them? What can you give us that they won’t expect?”
Leia kept her mouth shut. She gave Han a sidelong look. He expected it to be an angry one, but he was wrong; she was curious, evaluating.
“How are the Yuuzhan Vong fixed for naval warfare?” the admiral asked.
Han frowned. “Space navy?”
“Water navy.”
“Umm, I know they have some aquatic creatures—transports. And creatures that allow someone to breathe underwater. But we haven’t been faced with any significant water-based assaults.”
“Meaning they might not have any, or they might still have them in reserve.” The admiral leaned back. She rested her elbows on the arms of her padded chair, placing her fingertips together before her as if to suggest a sharply sloped roof. “I’ve spent the better part of my military career upgrading our armed forces to deal with external threats rather than internal ones. Meaning that I have access to a large number of water navy vessels, surface and submersible, most of them currently decommissioned and crewed by droids. They’re antiques … but an antique exploding shell can still kill an enemy if it’s placed correctly. I could give you several submersibles, large ones for oceans and small ones for rivers, if you can bring me a transport to carry them. And then you’d have weapons, however unlikely, that the Yuuzhan Vong have not encountered on Borleias.”
“Are they fully armed and operational?” Leia asked.
“Fully armed and operational.”
“How many?”
“I can give you two of the larger submersibles, about the size of Carrack cruisers, and four smaller units suited to river traffic.”
“Make it four and four and you have a deal,” Han said.
The admiral’s bantha-trader grin widened. “What deal? You haven’t offered anything specific.”
“We’re offering a guarantee,” Leia said. “We guarantee that you win the election. You’ll see the vote turn your way, and you’ll be able to see our hand in the turnaround.”
“Done,” the admiral said. “The day after I’m installed in the office of the Presider, you receive your eight submersibles.” She extended her hand, and Leia and Han took it in turn.
Once they were out of the admiral’s office, and off the military base she used as her headquarters, Leia asked, “All right. So you got us something for our help when we were expecting nothing. What, precisely, do we do with eight submersibles we don’t need? Which won’t do us any good against the Yuuzhan Vong?”
Han gave her his crookedest this-time-I’ve-got-you-my-dear smile. “Plenty.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“First, when we get the transport for the submersibles here, without informing Admiral Earnest back there, we leave one of the big submersibles and one of the small ones behind, in the nearest large body of water.”
“For what purpose?”
“You’ve been thinking of the resistance cells as being set up in the major cities, with vehicles and ordnance stored in caves, forgotten underground tanks, whatever the operatives can find. But those submersibles, however antiquated, can serve as preliminary resistance bases … and can be used to find caves that can only be reached from underwater. They’re not weapons to use on the Yuuzhan Vong, Leia, they’re mobile homes that fire explosive shells. Enough for four whole resistance cells.”
“Ooh.” She smiled and considered the idea.
“So how do we do it?”
“Do what?”
“Rig the election.”
“I have no idea. I was following your lead, remember? I’ve never rigged an election.”
Han sighed. “Well, you’d better figure it out fast. Or I’ll have to take your temporary scoundrel’s license away.”
Borleias
Jag sat propped up against the side of his clawcraft, engrossed in his datapad. The special operations docking bay was, for once, comparatively quiet, only a few clankings and swear words floating in from the far corner to indicate mechanics’ activities. He was not too engrossed, though, to see the pair of booted feet appear before him.
He looked up, and up, into the blue features of Shawnkyr Nuruodo. A Chiss officer, she’d been his wingmate on his first trip into New Republic space at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong crisis, his sole partner during his recent return, and his second-in-command when he’d founded Vanguard Squadron on Hapes. Now, while he flew with Twin Suns Squadron, she led the Vanguards.
“Colonel, may I sit?”
“Of course.”
She lowered herself and sat cross-legged opposite him.
“I heard that Vanguard Squadron had been classified as fit for elite and special operations,” Jag said. “That you
were going to be stationed groundside with the rest of us. Congratulations.”
“It’s just a matter of training, motivating, enforcing discipline.” Shawnkyr shrugged. “I came to you because it would be inappropriate for me to reject their promotion, however well intended, without first talking to you, since you founded the squadron.”
“Why would you refuse it?”
“Because I don’t intend to lead the squadron much longer. Nor should you return to it. It’s time for us to leave.”
“Explain that.”
“Our plan was specific, Colonel. We came back to evaluate the threat the Yuuzhan Vong posed to Chiss society. We’ve had time to make that evaluation. Now we should report back with our findings.”
Jag regarded her levelly. He’d anticipated this confrontation for some time. “And what would your report tell our high command?”
“That the Yuuzhan Vong are a significant threat to us, to the Empire, to any societal structure that does not resemble theirs. That the New Republic is shattering on all fronts, and that it is only a matter of time before the Yuuzhan Vong mop up here and spread out to reach us.”
“I agree with your conclusions.”
“Then let’s go.”
He shook his head. “I’ve come to additional conclusions that suggest we should stay.”
“May I hear them?”
“I believe that this engagement, here on Borleias, will be the surest test of Yuuzhan Vong determination and character. Only in seeing how this campaign plays out can we provide a definitive analysis of the enemy that our people will someday face.”
“So it is your plan to return to Chiss space immediately upon the fall of Borleias.”
“No.”
“Then I have failed to understand you.”
“I didn’t describe all my conclusions. A second one, not related to the first, is that my presence here may affect coming events, in a small but perhaps measurable way, and that to abandon this campaign now would not only do it harm, but eventually do harm to our people as well. Any damage I do to the enemy here is damage the enemy cannot do to us when they reach us.”
“So you will not leave at all.”
“I will leave … eventually.”
Shawnkyr considered his words silently. The distant swearing increased in volume, to match a sudden spate of hammering that sounded like revenge rather than repair, before fading to its normal levels. “May I speak freely? Pilot to pilot?”
“Of course.”
“I think that sentiment is clouding your judgment. I think that the notion of not being here when Jaina Solo is endangered, or killed, is what is keeping you from your duty. But your duty is to our people, and to no one else.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes. You have sworn an oath. An oath of loyalty and obedience.”
“What if the best observation of loyalty leads on a course that diverges from obedience?”
“It can’t.”
“I think you’re wrong. I am not loyal to the Chiss because my parents were accepted by them, or because I have grown up among them. I’m loyal because they embody traits I admire and respect; they make those traits part of the very fiber of our society. Traits such as strength in the face of aggression, such as acknowledgment of duty before self-interest. The Chiss, however, are not the only people with admirable traits, not the only ones who deserve to survive the Yuuzhan Vong, and not the only ones I identify with. Not anymore.”
“So you think you are supporting a greater good by staying.”
“Yes. We can assemble a report and transmit it by holocomm. We can explain that more evaluation is needed … which is the truth.”
“As you see it.”
“Yes.”
Shawnkyr’s expression changed. It did not harden against him, which was one possibility Jag had acknowledged but did not welcome. Instead, a subtle sadness suffused it. He doubted anyone not well acquainted with her would have detected it.
“I will stay,” she said, “until Borleias falls. Then I will return home.”
“Thank you.”
“But if I die here, I want you to promise to return in my place. If I stay here, I am delaying the execution of my duty. If I die, you must carry out my duty.”
Jag thought about it. And to his way of thinking, she had presented him with an impenetrable argument. His only choices really were to agree, or to bid her farewell now. And the defenders of Borleias would be that much worse off without her leadership and piloting skills.
“I agree,” he said.
* * *
Tarc shook Wolam Tser’s hand and said, “I thought you’d be tall.”
Wolam—graying and distinguished, elder statesman of Coruscant holojournalism—exchanged an amused look with Tam before returning his attention to the child. “I am indeed taller than you.”
“Yes, but I thought you’d be two meters at least.”
“An illusion, child. When you are in front of the holocam, you dominate the image. Everything else is secondary to you. So it becomes easy for watchers to believe you are of extravagant proportions.”
“Oh.” Tarc nodded sagely, as though Wolam’s words made perfect sense to him.
They stood in the lobby of the biotics building, meters from the door out onto the kill zone. The lobby was now set up with desks and stations for junior officers and enlisted personnel. Some directed traffic through the building, others ensured physical and remote security, and still others were located here rather than in locations more appropriate to their specific tasks because there was no room in those locations for them.
But there was still a little open space away from the main flow of traffic, and that’s where they stood, three generations of homeless civilian males surrounded by military operations.
“So, what’s it to be today?” Tam fished around in his expansive bag. He extracted a holocam, a model small enough to be easily concealed in his large hands, with a strap to fit around the back of one hand. This unit he handed to Tarc. He showed the boy how to tighten the strap, where to peer into the holocam in order to see what the holocam’s lens saw.
“How the defenders live,” Wolam said. “Bedchambers, meals, medicine, refreshers, exhaustion, stolen moments. Spot interviews as I decide. No setups, no analysis.”
“Why record anything?” Tarc asked. “With Coruscant conquered, aren’t you out of a job?”
“Never,” Wolam said. “I am a historian. Unless nothing sapient survives in all the universe, I have a job, a calling. Someday people will be curious about what happened here, and what we do, recording and analyzing, may be the only surviving answers to their questions.”
“In other words,” Tam said, “once you know what you are, nobody can ever take your ‘job’ from you. They can change your circumstances. They can make it hard or impossible for you to get paid.” He shot Wolam a sly look, and Wolam gratified him by giving him an indignant little scowl. “But your ‘job’ is part of you.”
Tarc fell silent, considering that.
Tam pulled out his main-duty holocam, a recently manufactured Crystal Memories Model 17, lighter and possessing more standard memory than previous models. He passed its strap over his head. The strap grazed against the fresh scar behind his right ear, the surgical scar over his new implant, the implant that was now his only defense against the deadly headaches brought on by his conditioning. Changed circumstances, indeed.
“What should I record?” Tarc asked. “Everything?”
“At first, if you want to,” Tam said. “What I do is to record everything Wolam points at, until he gives me the kill sign—”
Obligingly, Wolam made a gesture like an abbreviated ax chop. His pale hands against his black garments made the gesture especially easy to see.
“—and also anything I find interesting or unusual. You do the same, and when we review your recordings together I’ll point out what looks interesting from a historical-record perspective.”
“Don’t spend too muc
h of your time on the girls,” Wolam cautioned.
Tarc’s face twisted into an expression of disdain. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
Coruscant
“I hate this,” Luke said.
“Waiting?” Mara, eyes closed, adjusted her pose, trying to make herself comfortable—as comfortable as one could be propped up against a deformed metal wall in a hallway dripping with rainwater that had filtered through thirty or forty stories of ruined skyscraper above, on a planet ruled and increasingly ruined by alien enemies.
“Of course, waiting.” Luke had returned half an hour before from the latest scattering run. Not everyone was back; a few meters down the hallway, Danni was cataloging plant samples, and Baljos and Elassar were playing sabacc underneath a flickering glowlight. The others were still unaccounted for.
“Which points to a great failing with the Jedi. The lightsabers.”
Luke gave his wife a suspicious look. “A failing?”
She nodded. “You can’t sharpen them. Back when I was, well, in my previous career, I could get through any boring stretch by sharpening my knives. It takes just enough of your attention to keep boredom at bay, and keeps your tools at their best. With vibroblades, even if they lose power, you still have a nice sharp edge for whatever needs cutting.”
Elassar looked back over his shoulder at her. “Sometimes I think you can be spooky just singing nursery songs.”
“That’s easy.” Mara’s face took on an expression of motherly concern. “Hush, child,” she sang, “the night is mild, and slumber smiles upon you …” But she sang the familiar tune in a minor key, making the words unsettling rather than soothing, evoking the mental image of an anthropomorphic Slumber that was a night-monster stealing silently up to a crib.
But she fell silent, and Luke could feel from her what he felt in himself—a wish, one that could not be fulfilled now, that they could be where Ben was, introducing him to all the little surprises and delights that came with just being alive. Instead they were here in this endless expanse of death.
Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II Page 8