“Time to die, Solo!” came the cry from behind Jacen.
Jacen snorted, amused despite the urgency of his mission. “I see.”
“Except you really lose. In a minute, all the forces I've brought to bear will be here. They'll continue to follow you, to wear you down, until one of them drops you. And your plan to destroy this station will fail. In that sense, it already has failed.”
A distant wail filled the air, a keening noise seemingly emanating from all directions at once, echoing and overlapping as though a city-sized droid were suddenly grieving for a slain offspring.
Thrackan paled.
Jacen grinned. “That's the evacuation alarm. It means we have ten minutes to get off this station before it destroys itself. Which means that my apprentice, who is fortunate enough not to share any blood with you, has succeeded in setting up the station's destruction.” He leaned closer, the proximity of his lightsaber blade causing Thrackan to lean away. “I can still share in his success a little bit. I could kill you, remove your stain from the galaxy.”
Thrackan shook his head. “Jedi don't kill prisoners who have surrendered.”
“You haven't surrendered.”
“I surrender.” Thrackan raised his hands. “There.”
A younger Jacen might have been offended by the older man's casual, even contemptuous manipulations. This Jacen merely met manipulation with manipulation. “Perhaps Jedi don't . . . but I might. You've done nothing but do damage to Corellia, to the New Republic, and to my family since I was a child. Wouldn't the universe be a better place without you in it?”
“Very funny,” Thrackan said. Jacen could feel just the tiniest trace of increased distress in the man's emotions.
Distress and—no, he was feeling something else, from somewhere else. Pain. Death. From the future.
From a future, one of any number of possible futures. Jacen peered into it, letting the events of that potential time line wash over him, but kept one eye on his cousin, alert through just his sight for any treachery.
Events flashed past him too fast to absorb all their meaning. Starfighters launched lasers and missiles, raining death on the innocent. Why not the guilty? He could see no guilty. Pilot versus pilot, soldier versus soldier, no one was guilty. Neither side was more evil, more dark.
War spread out from Corellia like ripples from a rock hitting the surface of a pond, and the rock was an image of Jacen and Thrackan. Jacen saw clouds of expanding gas where the brave had flown, corpse-littered fields where the brave had fought, near-unrecognizable ruins that had once been huge space vessels but were now crushed like beverage containers on the rocky surfaces of moons.
And pain—pain racking the Force like nothing had since the Yuuzhan Vong war. Pain twisting his kin. Shrieks of loss filled his ears.
He focused on the rock in the pond, the image of himself and Thrackan, and saw all these events unfolding from the point, the here and now, when he failed to kill Thrackan.
Shaken, he yanked himself back from the vision and stood there, breathing heavily.
“What is it, boy?” Thrackan asked, his tone almost kindly. “You've gone pale.”
Jacen blinked at him. He felt as though he were hung on a hook. His mind told him that he couldn't do what his gut said he must. He couldn't cut down an enemy who had surrendered.
Trust the Force, Luke had told him, so often. Trust your feelings in the Force.
He couldn't not cut down this enemy, even if the man had surrendered.
Jacen slowed his breathing, his heartbeat. He got his voice under control. “I apologize,” he said. “I actually do have to kill you now.”
“You're insane. I've surrendered.”
“That's not enough. You ruin the future, Thrackan.” No, that wasn't quite right. But the future was ruined if he lived. “For the greater good, our Jail traditions notwithstanding, I have to kill you.”
“But my droids are here.”
A blaster opened up from behind Jacen. He turned to intercept the bolt—and, partway into his maneuver, cursed himself for being tricked twice.
No one stood in the hallway. The sound of blasterfire emerged from a small circular device adhering to the ceiling near a glow rod light fixture.
Jacen continued his maneuver into a full spin. His lightsaber, ending its 360-degree sweep, would cut Thrackan in half.
Instead, it hit a gleaming metal column.
Jacen glanced up. The column was rising out of the floor, propelling the metal disc Thrackan stood on up to the ceiling. The disc hit the edges of the transparent tube, and there was a tremendous thoom noise. Thrackan's feet launched up from the disc and disappeared from sight.
Jacen stepped onto the second disc and hit all four buttons on the control panel. The disc he stood on raised him rapidly into position, to the bottom of the second tube, and an instant later, a second ear-hammering thoom catapulted him upward.
Propelled by an energy he couldn't yet define—repulsors? pneumatic air currents? tractor beams?—he flew up through his tube, flashing past corridors, sometimes seeing open channels out to space, sometimes seeing lit passageways through which people were running.
The shaft the two tubes occupied was sometimes tight-packed with machinery or engineering supports, sometimes open. The first time it opened, Jacen looked up and could see Thrackan, a hundred meters or more above him, in his own tube.
Thrackan's tube twisted, a right-angled turn, and suddenly he was headed away. The turn would have pulped a human under ordinary circumstances. Gravitics, Jacen told himself. Only gravity manipulation could have allowed Thrackan to survive.
Jacen reached the same altitude. His tube turned the opposite direction. He felt his stomach lurch, and suddenly he was hurtling away from his enemy—away from the man he desperately needed to kill.
He howled, a noise of anger and distress he could barely hear over the wind noise whipping along the tube's interior. Then he deactivated his lightsaber, clipped it to his belt, and tucked Thrackan's blaster into a pouch.
It was time to be calm, time to get off this station, time to find out Ben's status.
Thrackan was right. Jacen had failed. Not in his intended mission—but in his greater responsibility.
Chapter Sixteen
CORONET, CORELLIA
ON THE DATAPAD, IT'S SEE SEE SEE THIRTY-NINE,” DORAN shouted forward from the passenger compartment.
In the copilot's seat, Zekk twisted uncomfortably and shouted back, “I'm telling you, the signs read WEDGE ANTILLES BOULEVARD.”
“Be quiet,” Jaina snapped from the pilot's scat. “It's got to be the same route. Cities rename their streets all the time.”
Their vehicle—a standard Lambda-class shuttle, its wings locked in the down position for flight—cruised down the center of the Coronet boulevard. Its presence was incongruous. Though no more massive than some cargo-carrying groundspeeders moving along the same avenue, it protruded in ways no groundspeeder did, its flight wings sticking out of the lane on both sides, its upper stabilizer rising well above the containment zone indicated for the traffic lane. Nor was it inconspicuous in any other way—colored the bright tan of desert sands, with a Corellian sand panther, twisting and lashing out, painted along each side, it was even more highly decorated than most Corellian personal vehicles.
Zekk misted to face forward again. “This seat is too small for me—”
“It's too small for anyone,” Jaina said. “I think it's built for a child.”
“And it smells like fur.”
Jaina glanced over. “Yes, there's fur coming off it and sticking to your clothes. Maybe a Bothan?”
Zekk leaned back to sniff at the seat top. “Doesn't smell like a Bothan.”
“We don't all shmell alike!” Kolir's outraged shout floated up from the passenger compartment. “How do these rumorsh get shtarted?”
“Rest your mouth, you're injured,” Jaina called back.
A groundspeeder rose from a lower lane and settled into
place in front of the shuttle's bow, close enough that its proximity alarm sounded—precisely what the irritated Corellian pilot ahead intended. Jaina growled. All around, normal groundspeeder traffic was reacting negatively to the inappropriate presence of the shuttle in their traffic lane. They crowded the shuttle from behind, decelerated ahead to force Jaina to slow down, settled into place immediately above the shuttle's wings to aggravate her. “Rudest pilots in the universe,” she said. “Where's Uncle Luke?”
“Soon, soon,” Thann soothed from the main compartment.
A new sound cut through the shuttle's hull—the warbling alarm of a CorSec groundspeeder. Sighing, Jaina checked her sensor board and found the view showing the vehicle. It was right behind the shuttle, its flashers going, its pilot waving her to descend. Doubtless the pilot was also broadcasting a warning, but the shuttle's communications gear was set to Hardpoint Squadron and operation frequencies.
“Are we on Corellia yet?” Zekk asked.
“First chance, I'm going to space you,” Jaina said.
They reached a point where Wedge Antilles Boulevard crossed under an even broader avenue, listed as Five Brothers Avenue on both the datapad and the ground-level glowsigns. Traffic on Five Brothers Avenue was higher than that on Wedge Antilles Boulevard, for the simple reason that this was an elevated trafficway, a thruster-scoured transparisteel bridge so broad that even the fastest-moving vehicles on Wedge Antilles Boulevard would be beneath it, in shadow, for long, long seconds.
But as Jaina's stolen shuttle neared the intersection, she and Zekk recognized some of the traffic up on the Five Brothers overpass—a formation of X-wings, tucked neatly among the groundspeeders, and also pursued by a CorSec speeder doubtless piloted by a very annoyed officer.
She keyed her communications board. “Hardpoint, this is Purella-Tauntaun. We have you on visuals. Over.”
Luke Skywalker's voice crackled back instantly. “Are you spaceworthy—wait, I see you. Isn't that a little conspicuous? Sand panthers? Over.”
“Best we could do on short notice. And we're ready for space. Over.”
“Begin your ascent. Out.”
“Belt in or hang on!” Jaina shouted. The jubilant tone in her voice came from being able, finally, to escape the restrictions of slow-paced traffic and a ruined operation. Not waiting to see if her teammates complied—they'd been told to belt in the instant they originally took off, after all—she used her repulsors to raise the shuttle's nose.
The pursuing CorSec vehicle crowded up on her rear a little too fast from a little too close. Jaina heard a clang of impact as the ground-speeder banged into her main drive unit. She fired her accelerators, just enough to splash thruster wash over the hood of the CorSec vehicle, and gave the pilot two seconds to get clear. Then she put her thrusters and repulsorlift units on full.
The shuttle leapt into the sky.
It didn't leap as nimbly as the X-wings on the bridge ahead. They stood on their tails and rocketed skyward. By comparison, her shuttle rose like a lazy balloon.
But it was better than being in traffic.
Four of the X-wings reduced speed and dropped into position behind her, forming a protective box beyond her stern. Three maneuvered into position around her, one above, one to port, one to starboard, a protective triangle. And Luke and Mara took point.
Jaina grinned. She'd prefer to be out there with them, in a nimble starfighter protecting a more vulnerable target . . . but if she had to be shepherded, to have Luke and Mara doing the honors was about as good as it could get.
CORELLIAN SPACE
The ships of Admiral Klauskin's task force pulled away from Corellia's gravitational attraction. It would be some time, long minutes, before they were far enough away from the gravity well to make the jump to hyperspace.
The vessels of the Corellian fleet moved in, forming up in small groups of four and five ships. “But they're not moving in for the kill,” Fiav Fenn said. “They've recalled their fighter squadrons.”
“We're just going to get harassment fire, then,” Klauskin said.
“Probably.”
“How's their frigate?”
“Floating dead in space. Minimal casualties as far as we can determine, but a confirmed kill. All their escape pods have been picked up by their side.”
“Good, good.” Klauskin nodded absently.
The forward elements of Klauskin's task force, including Dodonna, reached the leading edge of the reconfiguring Corellian fleet. Dodonna began shivering as she sustained long-distance laser battery fire. But as Klauskin had predicted, nothing heavier hit her; nothing threatened to batter down her shields.
Harassment fire.
The admiral grinned. “In about half an hour, they'll wish they'd tried to blow us out of the sky.”
“Yes, sir.” Fenn's voice sounded dull. Klauskin wondered what had happened to diminish her enthusiasm for her job.
As they passed through the harassment screen, Dodonna shook and vibrated, but Klauskin never felt genuinely threatened. Reports continued to flood into the bridge. GA ship after ship reached the point where they could enter hyperspace. Preliminary starfighter losses from the skirmish were assessed. The role of the accidental intruder, Millennium Falcon, in the action was evaluated. Hardpoint Squadron reported a successful departure from Corellian atmosphere.
The last, lagging vessel in Klauskin's task three reported readiness to enter hyperspace.
“All ships jump,” Klauskin ordered.
A moment later the stars through the forward viewport seemed to twist and spin, an unsettling kaleidoscopic visual image. An instant later they straightened themselves, and the white-clouded blue-and-green planet Tralus wrenched into view in the distance ahead.
“All starfighter squadrons,” Klauskin said, “launch.”
Two hours later, it was done—a world was occupied and subjugated.
To be sure, this wasn't a tremendous military accomplishment. Tralus was lightly occupied, and its defense against invasion amounted to a few scattered CorSec units, plus a dangerous, well-armed commando unit holding the installation built around the repulsor unit associated with Centerpoint Station.
Klauskin's forces didn't bother with the repulsor defenders. They merely swept down on the city of Rellidir, whose population of one million made it a metropolis by the standards of Tralus, and took the city and planetary leaders into custody. Units of Klauskin's task force landed in the city and occupied several downtown blocks. A few assault shuttles full of elite soldiers surrounded the repulsor facility with orders to keep its garrison bottled up. The rest of the task force's ships remained in orbit, a defensive perimeter.
Units of the Corellian fleet began popping into nearby space—circling, reconnoitering, attempting to look threatening. It was evident to Klauskin that their commanders were confused, ill directed.
He smiled. He'd achieved his purpose by securing this beachhead. He'd confused the enemy. They were, at last, intimidated.
“Enemy reinforcements continue to arrive,” he said, his tones ringing and military, “but take no action for fear of retaliation against or spillover damage to the civilian population.” He thought for a moment, attempting to dredge up some further statement of hope and good cheer, then shook his head. “Operation Roundabout, Admiral Matric Klauskin, commanding.” He nodded to Fenn to indicate she should cease recording.
She hit the appropriate button on her datapad. “Shall I clean it up before sending, sir?”
“No, send it raw. Let's not make Admiral Pellaeon wait for it any longer than he has to. He's getting on in years, you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need a brief rest. I'll be in my quarters.” Klauskin turned away from the bow viewports that had occupied his attention for the last several hours and began the long walk to his quarters.
Minutes later, the door into his quarters slid open and he strode through. Only then did his pace change, his step fading from energetic to slow and weary.
And weary he was, tired both physically and emotionally. To have his mission run head-on into certain failure, to have him wrest it back to a result that he could consider a success, had taken a toll on him.
An admiral's flagship quarters were large and could be dressed up in opulence, but Klauskin had never taken that route. His largest chamber, instead of being a living chamber full of entertainments and comforts, had been furnished as a conference room, one large oval table and numerous padded chairs, with viewports affording it a beautiful port-side view of the stars. He walked past the table, seeing neither it nor the glorious view, and entered his bedchamber. He sat on the bed, remained upright long enough to pull his boots off, and lay back.
The air above him shimmered and Edela appeared.
She was a trifle overweight but dressed well to compensate for it, today wearing a green formal gown with a low neckline. Her long hair, brown streaked with gray, was piled high in a Coruscanti style that some considered out of date but Klauskin had always regarded as classic. She wore no jewelry. She despised jewelry.
In all the years they'd been married, she'd never looked more radiant. At the moment, she looked far happier and healthier than the month before she died.
He'd long since stopped wondering how he'd been so lucky to have her reenter his life. Now he just smiled up at her. “I'm glad you came.”
“Shh.” She put a finger to her lips, then lowered it to his. “You need to rest. You did so very well today.”
“I did, didn't I?”
“Yes. Don't ever let anyone ever tell you that you didn't.” Her tone was almost stern. “You just wait. Soon enough, they'll all be saying how you took impossible orders and sliced a victory out of them. You'll be famous. You'll be promoted to fleet admiral.”
“Yes, dear.”
“No other reward would be acceptable. Anything else would be an insult.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Sleep, Matric.” He did.
CORUSCANT
Two days later, Luke Skywalker, dressed in the full robe array of a Jedi Master, was escorted to a conference chamber within the densest government precincts on Coruscant.
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