by Greg Keyes
The remaining warriors shook off their stupor and charged, but Tahiri ignored them, tearing through one of the gaps cut by the Shadow. Nom Anor wasn’t watching her—instead he was dodging laserfire, trying to reach the landing ramp of the Yuuzhan Vong ship. He made it there only a few meters ahead of her, but as soon as he was on it, it began to retract.
With a war cry, she hurled herself through the air, landing on the ramp, sweeping her lightsaber toward the executor’s head.
Nom Anor ducked at the last instant and her lightsaber cut into the coral hull. He scrambled away from her, and she started to follow, but the ship suddenly bounded up from the ground, twisting as it went. Tahiri lost her footing and fell. She grasped at the edge of the retracting ramp and missed, but caught the edge of a plasma cannon with her left hand. Furiously, she cut at the hull with her lightsaber. It resisted the blow, and her weight suddenly tripled as the ship went into drive. She lost her grip and went whirling back to the ground, landing so hard all of the wind went out of her. She lay there, trying to recover, watching helplessly as the yorik coral vessel bored up through the atmosphere with Jade Shadow in hot pursuit.
Another wrenching wave of pain from the planet lashed at her, and again the ground shifted. Wheezing, she forced herself to her feet.
Corran, Luke, and Jacen were trotting toward her. Saba was standing at the edge of the clearing, staring out at the towers. The Yuuzhan Vong warriors all appeared to be dead.
“Tahiri,” Jacen asked. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing broken, I think,” she said.
He wrapped her up in an embrace that hurt almost as much as it felt good. Tears threatened again.
“I let him get away,” she murmured. “After all that, I let him get away. And now Sekot will die.”
“Die?” Master Skywalker said. “Do you two understand what’s going on here? What’s wrong with Sekot?”
Over Jacen’s shoulder, Tahiri saw a shaft of blue light suddenly leap from ground to sky, appearing from somewhere near the hyperdrive. It lasted only a second.
“Down!” Corran shouted. “Cover your ears.”
A heartbeat later, the shock wave came, followed by a wind so hot it scorched her back.
“What was that?” Jacen asked.
“The ship’s drive,” Corran explained. “Nom Anor must have sabotaged it somehow.”
“Nom Anor?” Master Skywalker said. “What—?”
“That’s a long story,” Corran said, “one that I would like to tell. But I don’t think I’m going to get the chance if we don’t get out of this area, and quickly.”
“Mara’s already on her way back,” Master Skywalker said.
By the time the Shadow dropped back low enough to pick them up, the surface of Zonama Sekot was vibrating like a plucked string, and in the Force, Tahiri could feel something building, something out of control. She followed the others aboard.
“I came back when I saw the plasma burst,” Mara said. “Is it a weapon?”
“No,” Luke said. “Get us out of here, Mara—fast.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“What about Nom Anor?” Tahiri asked.
“I alerted Widowmaker,” Mara said. “They should have enough firepower to deal with the Vong ship.”
The ground was dwindling, and the gigantic vanes of the hyperdrive were coming into view. The entire valley they stood in was black, and as she watched, three brilliant blue beams like the one they had seen a moment ago tore up through the atmosphere.
The shock wave hit, and the Shadow went into a crazy yaw, which Mara fought, cursing, into control.
“I appreciate the save,” Corran told Master Skywalker as the ship leveled out. “But how is it you just happened by?”
“We didn’t know it was you,” Luke said. “Sekot was in pain—we came here to find out what was wrong, and saw the Yuuzhan Vong ship.” He raised an eyebrow. “We were pretty surprised to find you here.”
“Right,” Corran said. “That explanation I promised you …”
Through the upward-angled cockpit view, Tahiri saw stars appearing as they left the atmosphere behind.
Then, abruptly, they streaked away.
Nom Anor was standing on the bridge of the transport vessel Red Qurang, watching the planet recede with a grim smile of satisfaction. Jade Shadow had broken off her pursuit.
“A large infidel ship is approaching,” one of the subalterns growled.
“It’s the Imperial frigate I mentioned to Shimrra,” Nom Anor said. “You were supposed to occupy it with your other ships.”
“There are no other ships,” Ushk Choka growled. “Lord Shimrra had need of them elsewhere.” He grimaced at the sight of the approaching ship. “It’s too large to engage,” he said. “Can we outrun it?”
“We will have to bear its first assault,” the subaltern said. “After that we can outrun. Its mass will prevent it changing its vector quickly enough to catch us before we burrow into darkspace.”
“Can we withstand?” Ushk Choka asked.
“Possibly,” the subaltern said dubiously.
“Maneuver evasively, then.”
Nom Anor was still watching the planet, feeling oddly calm, despite the danger he was in. He could still see where the hyperwave guides were by the boiling cloud, and as he watched, a brilliant blue cone suddenly appeared, then just as quickly vanished.
Something was wrong. The core was supposed to explode, not fire the engines. Had he failed? Was there something about Nen Yim’s protocol he hadn’t understood, or had he underestimated Sekot? Perhaps Skywalker and the other Jedi had managed to somehow reverse the damage he had caused.
The view swung away from the planet and was replaced by the night of space and a white wedge of abomination. It seemed Choka meant to run right into the warship’s forward batteries.
“Keep our present course,” Choka said. “Secure for bombardment.”
“Entering range,” the subaltern muttered.
The ship began rocking from the frigate’s guns, but Nom Anor ignored them and stumbled his way back to the micalike rear viewport analog, where Zonama Sekot was still visible.
Behind him, Choka and the pilot snarled at each other. Something exploded, and a haze of acrid smoke filled the air. Nom Anor dug his fingers into the spongy edge of the bulkhead, still unable to look away from the planet below.
The planet of his prophecy.
Not one, but three blue cones stabbed up through the atmosphere. It was a beautiful sight.
An earsplitting detonation snapped his face against the mica. He tumbled to the deck, black spots swimming before his eyes, but with grim persistence he dragged himself back up, noticing as he did that everything had gone eerily silent, though the ship still shivered beneath the Imperial frigate’s attack. For a foolish instant he thought perhaps the ship had lost its atmosphere and he was in vacuum, but then he would be dead, wouldn’t he?
He wiped blood from his eyes, realizing his forehead was cut, and gazed back out the viewport, just in time to see that they had made their run past the Imperial ship. Its drive section was just coming into view. It eclipsed his view of the planet as it began a ponderous turn, trying to come after them. It was still firing at them from its rear tower. Nom Anor noticed that Red Qurang was trailing a cloud of vaporized coral.
“We can stand no more of this,” the subaltern said. “Another strike, and—”
Suddenly all the stars fell toward Zonama Sekot. The frigate quivered and twisted, stretched into a streak of light, and vanished with the stars. Nom Anor snarled, braced himself—
And the stars were back. In the distance, the orange gas giant rotated as always. Where Zonama Sekot had been was only empty space.
Not what I expected, Nom Anor thought as his body went light from relief. Not what I expected, but it will serve.
Still, for long moments he gazed at where the planet had been, blinking away the blood even though there was nothing to see.
He willed
his muscles to relax. The truly dangerous part of his journey was yet to come. Ushk Choka and his men were surely doomed. Shimrra would probably execute them the instant they landed. Nom Anor would live longer, at least until he had told the Supreme Overlord everything he knew. Then the true test of his gamble would come. Would he join Choka and his crew in feeding the gods, or would he be forgiven and perhaps even elevated?
Only time would tell. But the risk was worth it. One way or another, he was at last going back where he belonged.
THIRTY-FOUR
The hull-breach claxon blared as Mon Mothma closed with the pursuing Yuuzhan Vong fleet.
“Deck Twenty-four, sir,” Cel reported. “Contained. The damage is minimal.”
“Get those deflectors back up,” Wedge ordered. “Divert power from starboard, if necessary.”
Mon Mothma ran port broadside to the approaching vessels, lasers and ion cannons thrumming in a steady rhythm, missiles and mines ejecting as rapidly as the ship’s weapons systems allowed. Wedge knew he couldn’t keep that up for long, but he wasn’t worried about depleting the power core or running out of ammunition—they would be overwhelmed by the enemy long before that happened. In the meantime, however, his desperate maneuver was causing the lead capital ships to either slow or veer onto lengthier vectors—not so much from fear of the Mothma’s firepower as to avoid collision. That wasn’t true of the entire advancing line, of course—the ships on the wings had simply gone around him. Those weren’t the ones he was worried about; his central preoccupation was with tying up the cluster of the four ships flying point, because if they were slowed significantly, the second Interdictor would have to set a parabolic and hence longer, slower course to reach the rest of the Alliance ships. That would give the battle station that much more time to incapacitate the outsystem gravity-well generator and his fleet that much more of an opportunity to jump out of this thoroughly botched affair.
And, to his surprise, it was working.
The Yuuzhan Vong had been strange throughout this whole battle—tentative. The sudden appearance of the Golan II seemed to have made them more so. Even approaching his lone Star Destroyer, the Vong seemed almost cautious. It was almost laughable—Ebaq Nine must have really shaken them up if they thought the string of mishaps that constituted the Bilbringi offensive might actually be the setup for some ingenious trap.
Come to think of it, that might be why they were trying to stay relatively clear of Mon Mothma. Maybe they expected …
He blinked. It might work.
“Commander Raech,” he said.
“General,” Mon Mothma’s commander said.
“Evacuate the sectors adjacent to the power core and reduce the core shielding efficiency by two percent every thirty seconds.”
“Reduce the efficiency, General?”
“That’s correct,” Wedge replied.
“Very well,” Raech said.
“Give me reports on that as it develops, Lieutenant Cel.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, clearly as puzzled as the commander.
Wedge turned his attention back to the battle. The largest of the ships had rolled up above his horizon and was pounding their upper shields from medium range, while a smaller frigate analog was coming in from below.
Wedge ordered a change in heading. Groaning, the ship turned its nose toward the Dreadnaught and the three cruisers behind it. Mon Mothma was now under fire from an entire hemisphere.
“Forward deflectors failing, sir.”
“Steady,” Wedge said. “Hold this course.”
The pockmarked surface of the Dreadnaught grew nearer, resembling a badly scarred moon. The lights on the bridge went out, suddenly, and stayed out.
“Power core shielding down fifteen percent, sir,” Cel said. “Sir, the surrounding decks are reporting contamination.”
“Continue as ordered,” Wedge said.
And hope the Yuuzhan Vong don’t revert suddenly to form.
The interdictor cracked at its central seam and bled plasma in a white-hot fountain of lead. Spinning from the reaction, it rolled like some bizarre child’s firework and then split, light flashing inside it like lightning in a dark thunderhead.
Jaina, still bound in stun cuffs, felt like cheering.
So did some of Prann’s people, apparently, because they actually did.
Prann wasn’t one of them. “Status?” he snapped.
The Barabel at system ops looked over. “We’ve sustained major damage to the southwestern deflector grid. Other than that, we’re in pretty good shape.”
“Good.”
He looked over his shoulder at Jaina, his eyes smoldering, then finished the turn and took a few steps toward her.
“Well, Jedi,” he said. “You got your wish. Now I get mine.” He pulled the blaster out and pointed it at her head.
“Hey, wait, Prann,” one of the humans said. “None of us signed on for murder, especially the murder of a Jedi. The station is still in good shape, we’re no longer interdicted—let’s just blast jets out of here, stick to the original plan.”
“Unh-unh,” Prann snarled. “Nobody gets inside my mind like that. It ain’t right. And if we try to jump, she’ll just do it again, drop us by the other interdictor. Once she’s dead, then we jump.”
“Just let me stun her,” Vel said. “She can’t do anything then.”
“No, not until she wakes up. Then who knows what kind of mind tricks she’ll pull? Better this way.”
Jaina watched the muzzle of the weapon calmly. “Right now you guys look like heroes,” she said. “Nobody knows you weren’t planning to help. Nobody has to. Kill me, and all that changes.”
“Hey, she’s right,” the Rodian—Jith—said.
“No, don’t be a fool,” Prann said. “We’ve got all those other pilots on board. Somebody will talk.”
“Good point,” Jaina said. “Are you going to kill them, too?”
“Prann, come on,” Vel pleaded.
“I’d take his advice,” an infinitely more familiar voice said, from behind her.
Prann jerked the gun up and fired as Jaina whipped her head around. She was in time to see a large, furry mass intersect the bolt with a blazing bronze lightsaber and send it whining into the bulkhead, missing its intended target—her father.
Lowbacca—the furry mass—growled and leapt toward Prann, followed closely by Alema Rar, whose lightsaber was also blazing. Then the air was suddenly full of blaster fire. Lowbacca slashed through Prann’s weapon and then knocked him to the ground with an elbow strike; Rar leapt straight at the bridge crew. Her mother and father were suddenly in front of her, Leia blocking any shots coming their way and Han taking careful aim so as not to damage the consoles.
It didn’t take long for Prann’s people to give up in the face of the furious and unexpected attack. Within a few moments they were all disarmed.
Jaina let her breath out in a long sigh. “Hi, Dad, hi Mom. I was wondering how long you were going to take.”
Prann was picking himself up off the floor, rubbing his jaw.
“We stopped to pick up reinforcements,” Han told her, indicating Alema Rar and the rest of Twin Suns.
Leia moved to stand next to her. “Are you okay?” she asked, putting her hand on Jaina’s shoulder.
“Never better,” Jaina said.
Her dad was staring Prann down.
“Look, Solo,” Prann said, most of his bluster suddenly gone. “I don’t want any trouble from you.”
“You were holding a blaster on my daughter. What do you expect from me, a kiss and flowers?”
“Oh—yeah.” Prann muttered, almost as if to himself. “I was just—angry, you know. I wouldn’t have really done anything.”
“The rest of you,” Han shouted. “I want you back at your posts, because this crate isn’t going anywhere until every last Alliance ship has made it out, understand?”
The crew complied immediately, and the Twins went around collecting the discarded w
eapons.
“This is our station,” Prann said. “We earned it.”
“Hey,” Han said, “what’s your name?”
“Erli Prann.”
“Erli Prann. Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of you. But Prann?”
“Yeah?”
Her father’s fist suddenly lashed out, cracking the butt of his blaster against the side of Prann’s head. Prann dropped as if Han had used the business end of the weapon.
“If you ever touch my daughter again, I’ll kill you,” he said.
When he looked up, Prann’s crew was staring at him.
“Well?” he thundered. “Don’t you all have something to do?”
They jumped back to their tasks as if they’d been working for Han Solo all their lives. The lasers and ion cannons started firing once more, covering the Alliance fleet as it gathered speed for hyperspace.
“And somebody get me the code to these stun cuffs!” he demanded.
The Dreadnaught was suddenly receding instead of getting closer. So were the other capital ships.
“Well, look at that,” Wedge said. “It worked.”
“They think we’re overloading our core, don’t they, sir?” Cel asked.
“Yes, Lieutenant, exactly,” Wedge replied. “But they won’t buy it for long.”
He turned to the pilots. “Hard about. Point us toward that space platform. And get the shielding efficiency back up in the power core.”
“Sir, the interdictor is down,” Cel noted.
“Brilliant. Control, order all ships to lightspeed.”
The Yuuzhan Vong shook off their uncertainty pretty quickly when they saw the Mothma’s drive turn their way. They gave chase like a pack of voxyn.
Up ahead of him, he had the satisfaction of seeing the rest of his ships vanish into starlight.
“We can ramp up to lightspeed ourselves, General,” the Mothma’s commander said. “Shall I give the order?”
Wedge’s lips pinched in. Jaina and everyone else on the battle station were doomed if they left now. Not a good reward for what they had done, but if he attempted an evacuation, the crew of Mon Mothma might join them.
He sighed. “Prepare—”