Alone for a second, she turned to Han. "Do you really think this is going to work?"
"It's worth a try. While everyone is distracted upstairs, it might be the only chance we get. All it will take is for us to get lucky once. And if those signals are from them, then-"
He was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. Droma leaned past Leia and Han to point at a telemetry display.
"I think you should see this, " the Ryn whistled.
The display contained an image of the flickering, furious web of the space battle above, followed as much as was possible from the Falcon's viewpoint. The view showed two wedge-shaped fighter groups darting in different directions away from the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. Imperial forces engaged with one of them, but couldn't prevent them from reaching the atmosphere. Both groups of Yuuzhan Vong fighters dipped under the fog and disappeared.
"Looks like we've got company, " Han said.
Leia wasn't surprised. It was only a matter of time before the Yuuzhan Vong tried the same tactic as they had.
"Why can't things ever be easy, Leia? Just for once it would be nice if things went the way they're supposed to. "
Leia smiled. "Even if they did, Han, I'm sure it would just make you all the more suspicious. "
Everything around Saba burned with a bright, potent vitality. With each lungful of air she took, she could feel the life force of the planet diffuse into her blood and spread to all the cells in her body. The cycle of life and death was in constant play in the tampasi all around her. Iridescent insects glided from branch to branch overhead, seeking pollen from the giant drooping flowers that grew there. Every now and then she would see gangly, six-legged creatures leap out from the cover of the fat leaves to snatch at these insects with unnaturally long and glistening tongues. These in turn were eaten by translucent, long-feathered birds that appeared and disappeared in bright flashes among the boras, their shrill calls echoing throughout the tampasi whenever they successfully managed to catch one of their prey.
She couldn't get enough of it, no matter how deeply she inhaled. She wanted to ingest the whole world and become one with it. Soron Hegerty walked alongside her, talking about the Ssither, a saurian race the biologist had studied many years ago, but Saba barely heard a word. Only as a strange darkness fell over them did she stir from her reverent daze.
She looked up, expecting to see another airship passing overhead, but even as she did so she knew that this couldn't be the explanation. This darkness was too complete-as though night had abruptly fallen across the world.
"What iz it?" Saba asked. The others were all gazing up in obvious concern.
"It's Mobus, " Soron Hegerty said. "We've fallen into its shadow. "
Saba understood. She didn't need to see the gas giant in the sky above to know that the sun had slipped behind it as Zonama Sekot continued on its orbit around the giant world. The animal life on the living world, however, didn't know the difference between sunset and eclipse.
"We call it Sanctuary, " Rowel said. His gold-black gaze was on Luke, glittering in the sudden twilight.
Again Saba nodded, understanding the Ferroan's misgivings. The people of Zonama Sekot had searched long and hard for somewhere to feel safe. They had found it, finally, and now it had been invaded again. How would that feel?
They walked on through the tampasi, chilled by the unnatural darkness, as hushed as the world around them. Despite the gloom, their progress wasn't impeded in any way. The lower branches of the boras sprang to life with a million flickering lights cast by insects nesting there. The greenish bioluminescence illuminated the tampasi floor with a soft, pale light that allowed them to see where they were going. New creatures stirred as ones accustomed to daylight retired for the duration of the eclipse. Saba held her breath as an entirely new ecosystem woke around her.
The sun returned as the ground party approached a Ferroan village an hour later. Voices rose around her, and it was with no small sense of sadness that Saba realized that they had reached the end of their journey through the tampasi.
"It's hard to imagine that boras could grow as tall as they have in such a short time, " Jacen was saying to one of their Ferroan guides as they entered the village. "Where I come from, trees like this would take thousands of years to grow. "
Rowel glanced at him, his brow pressed down in confusion. "Why would your world take so long to yield its treasures?" he asked. "What is the point in holding back from your inhabitants if it means that most would never get the chance to appreciate your beauty?"
Jacen smiled at this, and Saba sissed softly to herself. To Rowel, worlds were thinking, living things, not just places to live. What most people would consider normal might seem odd to him.
Darak led them to a ring of brown, mushroomlike habitats clustered around the base of a nearby boras. Each habitat had a central pillar that rose two stories high, and was capped with a roof that bulged out and then down until it touched ground. The texture of the walls was rough and flexible, almost rubbery, and the doorways and windows were rounded as though grown rather than cut.
Grown, Saba thought, with the faintest of misgivings. After so long dealing with the organic technology of the Yuuzhan Vong, anything that worked on a similar principle automatically triggered a negative reaction.
Darak led them to the largest habitat and waved them inside.
"We will meet in one hour, " she said. "At sunset. "
Without another word, Darak and Rowel withdrew, leaving the visitors to make themselves at home.
The ground floor contained a number of seating mats scattered about in casual orderliness, along with several tables containing bowls and plates piled high with foodstuffs. The second floor grew out of the central stalk and was accessible by a spiny spiral staircase.
"Fascinating, " Hegerty said, marveling at the habitat's architecture.
Saba's stomach growled; she stepped over to one of the tables and dipped a claw into a bowl of an off-white paste. She cautiously sniffed at it before tasting.
"Well?" Danni asked, coming up beside her. "What's it like?"
"Not obviously poizoned, " she said.
"I think if any harm was intended for us, " Mara said, "then it would have happened before now. "
"Mara's right, " Luke said. "They could have killed us while we slept on Jade Shadow if they'd wanted to. "
Danni reached into another bowl, this one containing green nutlike pellets. She tasted one, nodding with surprised satisfaction to the others.
"It's good, " she said, trying some of the other foods.
Jacen, Mara, and Hegerty joined them at the table. Only Luke stood to one side, looking out the window.
"It's clear that things have changed since Vergere was last here, " the Jedi Master said after a moment. "We'll need to be on our toes. I suggest we use this time to prepare ourselves for the meeting. "
While she agreed with Luke, Saba found it difficult to emulate the Jedi Master's calm. They were on Zonama Sekot! How could she just push that fact to the back of her mind and ignore it? She could feel the living world around her; incomprehensible thoughts washed over her like ocean currents. They had reached the place Vergere had sent them to find, a planet that could well prove to be the key to ending the war with the Yuuzhan Vong.
That the Yuuzhan Vong had also located the living planet, however, didn't bode well. They had successfully achieved their goal-only to find not solace from their concerns, but rather more problems. At least, she thought, they weren't prisoners. The door hung invitingly open, and there were no guards outside. This seemed strangely at odds with the distrust the Ferroans had displayed since the Jedi Knights had arrived. Then again, perhaps security wasn't that much of an issue when you were on a planet that could keep a watch on everything for you...
Jacen was about to try some more of the food when he noticed three childlike faces with wide eyes peering around the entrance to the habitat at him. They disappeared with a giggle as soon as they saw him looking back at them.
"Nice to see that not all of the Ferroans hold us in contempt, " Mara said at his shoulder.
He was about to agree with her when Saba uttered a low, perplexed growl. She was standing off to one side, staring out of one of the windows.
"Saba?" Mara said. "What is it?"
The Barabel shook her head uncertainly. "This one feels Sekot not just on the surface of this world, but beneath it, too. "
"I've been wondering about that also, " Jacen said. "I'm sensing life below us as well as around and above us. "
"You mean in subterranean chambers?" Mara asked.
Jacen shook his head. "In the rock itself. "
"That's not as crazy as it might sound, " Danni said around a mouthful of berries. "Some species of bac teria can survive a long way underground-kilometers, even. If Sekot arises out of the biological matrix covering the planet, then it seems reasonable that the life inside it contributes, too. "
"Which might explain the planetary defense systems we saw in action, " Jacen said.
"How, exactly?" Hegerty asked.
"Well, Vergere talked about biological factories making spaceships and other things, " he said. "Sekot clearly found ways to use the technology the Ferroans brought with them when they colonized this world, before it became conscious. Since then, it's gone even farther. If life has spread down into the crust, and perhaps even deeper, then Sekot could conceivably manipulate the planet on a grand scale. "
"You mean like building a couple of immense hyperdrives, " Hegerty said.
"That, " Jacen said, "but also holding the surface together during long jumps-or bending magnetic field lines at will. Jumping in and out of systems must have been fairly traumatic; without something to keep heavy radiation and gravitational effects at bay, the surface of the planet could have been totally sterilized. "
"What I want to know, " Mara said, "is where Sekot actually came from. If life on this scale can evolve naturally, then why isn't every planet talking back?"
There was no easy answer to that question.
"Perhaps there's something special about the Ferroans, " Hegerty suggested.
"I'm not picking up anything radically different about them, " Luke said. The Jedi Master opened his eyes, looking at each of them in turn. "They're naturally attuned to the life fields around them, but not symbiotically. That would happen to anyone born and raised in an environment as strong in the Force as Zonama Sekot. "
"Perhaps it was just a random mutation, " Danni said. "If the odds are against something like this happening, then that might explain why it's only happened the once. "
Luke nodded thoughtfully. "It's possible. I'm sure the Magister will be able to tell us more. "
Jacen hoped so. When it came to Zonama Sekot, there were too many unknown factors for his liking.
"Looks like you've made a friend, " Mara said, her voice whispering close to his ear.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
She indicated the entrance with a nod. Turning, he saw that one of the little girls had returned and was staring in at him again. When she saw him look at her, she waved shyly and then quickly ducked out of sight with another giggle. Smiling, he went over to the doorway and looked around outside for her.
The girl was standing near the base of a boras, ready to flee if she had to.
"What happened to your friends?" he asked.
"They're scared, " she said.
"There's no need to be, " he said. He extended his open hands in a no-weapons gesture. "See?"
She pointed at his belt. "What about your lightsaber?"
Jacen was surprised by the girl's knowledge of the weapon, but he tried not to let it show. "You know about these?"
The girl nodded.
"And do you also know that I'm a Jedi?"
Another nod. "The older ones tell stories about the Jedi. "
"What do these stories say?"
She hesitated, looking around in a manner that suggested she was worried she might be seen talking to him.
"What color is yours?" she asked.
"Color?" Then, realizing "Oh, my lightsaber? Would you like to see it?"
She shook her head in a definite no. "They're dangerous!"
"Not in the right hands, " he said. "I would never hurt you, or anyone here. "
She wasn't convinced. "Jedi Knights have other ways to hurt. "
"What do you mean?"
"Anakin killed the Blood Carver without a lightsaber. "
That pulled Jacen up with a start, and for a few seconds he didn't know what to say.
Anakin killed the Blood Carver without a lightsaber.
The words sounded strange, no matter how many times he rolled them about in his head. How could his brother have ever come to Zonama Sekot without Jacen knowing? There was only one possible answer, and for a joyous moment Jacen entertained the hope that Anakin had somehow managed to manifest himself here in ghostly form-as had his uncle's teachers, Master Kenobi and...
Then the hope died as a cold feeling blossomed in his gut.
Anakin killed the Blood Carver...
"Tell me, " he said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice, the fear of what the truth might be. "What was the name of the other Jedi, who came here with Anakin?"
"Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan Kenobi. "
The child looked at Jacen as though he were an idiot, and he wondered if that was exactly how he should feel.
"Tescia!"
A woman's voice rang out, and the girl jumped back with a guilty start.
"Tescia, what are you doing? I told you to stay away from there!"
With a fearful look, the girl fled, leaving Jacen standing alone in the doorway.
He watched as the girl disappeared into one of the habitats with her mother urging her on. Then, with a heavy heart and a sense of foreboding, he returned inside to relate what to the others he'd just heard.
Gilad Pellaeon surveyed the battle from the bridge of Right to Rule. It was going as well as could be expected. The chunk of the retreating Yuuzhan Vong fleet that he'd been chasing from Imperial Space had stumbled across Generis with eager destructiveness. He had been unsure what their intentions were until he consulted old intelligence reports and learned that Generis was a relay base for communications between the Unknown Regions and the Core. Given the Chiss's isolationist stance, it had never been targeted for sabotage by the Empire. Taken by surprise, there had been little the Imperial forces could do for the relay base. Generis had fallen, and the Yuuzhan Vong had moved immediately on to Esfandia, to repeat the insult.
Pellaeon didn't consider it anything more than that. The commander in charge of the retreat, B'shith Vorrik, wasn't a sophisticated strategist. There was little chance of a trap, or of there being a higher purpose to his strategy. The fact that Luke Skywalker had disappeared into the Unknown Regions on a secret mission just weeks earlier couldn't possibly be connected to the attack. How could Vorrik possibly know of the mission? And if someone higher up did know about it, why should they even care?
Pellaeon smiled to himself as the battle ebbed and flowed around him. The answer to the last question was probably the key to the mystery-if indeed there was one. Whatever Skywalker was up to, it was either totally irrelevant or absolutely integral to everything. There was no chance of anything in between, he was sure.
And in the meantime lay the opportunity to return the insult...
"Watch the northern flank, " he instructed one of his senior officers, indicating a section of the battlefield where the Yuuzhan Vong were managing to regroup. "Get a yammosk jammer in there now. I want that entire side as chaotic as possible. "
He was under no illusions that they would win. All they had to do was hurt Vorrik long enough to make him reconsider his attack, and/or rescue the hardware and crew aboard the relay station. If they were alive down there, then he would make sure they were found. He wasn't about to pull back until he knew for certain one way or the other.
Pellaeon frowned, still concerned
by the northern flank. Despite a large injection of TIE fighters and energy fire, the Yuuzhan Vong persisted in gathering there. He didn't know what it was they were up to, but he did know he wanted it stopped.
"Put me through to Leia Organa Solo. "
"I'm afraid Millennium Falcon has dropped off our screens, sir. "
"Destroyed?" He wasn't sure what he disbelieved more that such a thing could happen, or that he'd failed to notice it.
"Gone to ground in the atmosphere, sir. Or so we suspect. It was last seen descending toward the southern pole. "
This would have placed the Falcon on the side of the planet farthest from where the fighting was most intense, and therefore in the best position to be overlooked. He nodded, satisfied with the assumption that the Princess and her rough-and-ready husband had plans of their own.
"Get me the commander of the Galactic Alliance frigate instead. "
Within seconds, a flickering, colorless hologram of Captain Todra Mayn stood before him.
"Your orders, Admiral?"
A certain stiffness to the woman's voice assured him that past enmities between the New Republic and the Empire hadn't been completely forgotten. But she wasn't obstructing him, and that was the main thing.
"I have a mission for your strike group, " he said. "Can you spare three fighters?"
She looked reluctantly at the displays before her. "We will if required to, sir. "
"But you don't wish to? " he asked.
A flicker of uncertainty passed across her face. "To be honest, sir, we're doing some damage on that warship. With just half a squadron to watch our back, I'm not sure we'd be able to effectively keep up the attack. "
"Don't worry, " he said. "I'll make sure you get backup. "
Pellaeon gestured to an aide and instructed her to assign a full TIE squadron to Pride of Selonia. Then he returned his attention to Mayn.
"So, Captain, do you think Galactic Alliance, Chiss, and Empire can work together?"
"I guess we'll find out soon enough, sir, " she said. "I'll instruct Colonel Fel to take his orders directly from you. "
Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Force Heretic III - Reunion - Book 19 Page 10