Dark Tide 2: Ruin

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Danni smiled. “I think astrophysics is easier than diplomacy or politics.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. In politics we have black holes, pulsars, things that give off more heat than light.” Leia smiled up at Danni. “I can’t remember a time when politics was not part of my life. I’m fortunate that I took to it well. I will admit, though, retirement was fun, and I look forward to it again.”

  The gentle hum of the shuttle’s wings retracting was followed by a bump as the shuttle settled to the customs station’s deck. The egress hatch hissed open—the hiss being more than enough to mask the sound of Basbakhan crossing to the landing ramp to forestall any assault. Olmahk stood between the gantry and Leia, then nodded at her to come forward when his partner indicated all was clear.

  Leia moved past the gray-skinned aliens. The Noghri, with their small stature, appeared almost childlike, save for their fierce features. She knew from experience just how powerful and deadly they could be, either bare-handed, or wielding the lethal knives they wore. The Noghri were quick and dedicated to her safety.

  The Yuuzhan Vong killed Bolphur on Dantooine, which is why I now have two Noghri to accompany me. A shiver ran down her spine. Twenty years earlier she couldn’t have imagined any creatures more deadly than the Noghri, but a Yuuzhan Vong warrior had killed Bolphur with his bare hands.

  Leia descended the landing ramp and was pleased to see two squads of stormtroopers lined up beside a white walkway painted on the deck. The formality and ceremony of the welcome boded well for the mission. Beyond them were three officials in Imperial uniforms, though one of them bore no rank insignia. She let Basbakhan precede her through the gauntlet of stormtroopers, then she paused and waited for the envoys to come forward.

  The civilian, a woman only slightly taller than Leia, did so. “Welcome, Consul. I am Miat Temm. This is Colonel Harrak and Major Pressin.”

  Leia shook hands with each in turn, then waved Danni forward. “This is Danni Quee, my aide.”

  The Imperials acknowledged Danni with a nod, then Miat pointed toward a turbolift. “If you would come this way, the admiral is waiting.”

  As they rode up in the lift in silence, Leia gently used the Force to get a sense of the Imperials. From the two military men she caught insecurity masked by arrogance, and a fair amount of confusion about her and their being asked to attend her. From Miat she got almost nothing. She’s blocking me! Leia suppressed a smile and wondered if any of Pellaeon’s enemies knew Temm had Force abilities.

  The lift opened, and Miat led them into a large reception room that had a wall of transparisteel that allowed them to look out at the Chimaera. Leia took this as a very good sign. Beyond it sat her ship and, below, the world of Bastion, all looking very peaceful.

  Admiral Pellaeon, clad in the white uniform of a grand admiral, stood at the far end of a white table. He had no guards with him and wore no weapons. He smiled as they entered, and waved Leia toward the seat at his right hand.

  “It is good to see you again, Consul Organa Solo. Please, come, be seated, and tell me what has prompted your visit.” He nodded to his own people, indicating their place was along the other side of the table. “If you need any refreshment, this can be arranged. You have a comlink, yes, Major Pressin?”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  Leia smiled. “Nothing right now, thank you.” She shook Pellaeon’s hand and returned his smile, then introduced Danni as her aide.

  Pellaeon greeted her with a nod of his white-maned head. “Please, be seated.”

  Leia sat and noted how Pellaeon turned his chair to face her, leaving his back to his aides. Miat did not seem to mind, but the two officers were clearly put out. Pellaeon wants them off guard and unsettled for some reason, but why?

  Leia leaned in toward Pellaeon, capitalizing on his openness. “I have come to correct a problem we’ve had sharing information with you. Something very important has happened, something that could determine the future of both the New Republic and the Remnant.”

  Pellaeon nodded slowly. “You’re referring to the fall of Dubrillion.”

  Leia managed to cover her surprise, but Danni could not. “How did you know?”

  The flesh around the admiral’s dark eyes tightened. “Dubrillion and other New Republic worlds that border our space are of interest to us. I’m certain, Consul, it will come as no surprise that we had agents on Dubrillion. While the messages they got out did not contain a lot of information, we knew something was amiss. The cessation of their communications confirmed it was a serious problem.”

  He lifted his chin. “I will also tell you that I know of Danni Quee. We had an agent on Belkadan, at the ExGal project. Any site designed for the gathering of intelligence has an interest for us. We’ve not heard from our agent since what we presume to have been the facility’s destruction.”

  Danni blinked. “Who?”

  Pellaeon shook his head. “Let’s leave the dead, dead, shall we?”

  Leia nodded. “You know some of what has gone on, then. I have a data card that will fill in the technical details, but the brief is this: Humanoid aliens from outside the galaxy have attacked or destroyed half a dozen worlds on the Rim. They exhibit an extreme technophobia, are merciless in combat, take slaves, and are ruthless in dealing with them. They are called the Yuuzhan Vong, and we, as yet, have established no direct diplomatic connection with them. Danni was one of their captives for a while and has had the most direct contact with them among our people.”

  The admiral sat back, lacing his fingers together and letting them rest against his chin. “You have come to us to ask for aid in dealing with the Yuuzhan Vong?”

  Leia nodded. “You, perhaps better than anyone, know the difficulty of dealing with an enemy who can strike anywhere. And let me speak frankly, internal dissent within the New Republic is not at the boiling point, but New Republic military forces are needed to police disputes. At the same time there are vocal segments of the population who, because of the peace accords, think the military should stand down, demobilize, and that no more money should be budgeted to defense. While the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, if it goes unchecked, could bring everyone together, the unity would come too late. We need to stop them now. We have a force that will function very well as an anvil, but we need a hammer.”

  A grim grin tugged at the corners of Pellaeon’s mouth. “I would have thought the Jedi would act as your hammer.”

  “As the data files will point out, the Yuuzhan Vong are resistant to Force powers. The Jedi are doing all they can to help in this situation, but there aren’t enough of them to be able to handle a problem of this magnitude.”

  Pellaeon glanced back at the two military men. “Your request has not gone unanticipated, Consul. These men have told me, at various times, that any military cooperation with the New Republic would be a trap. You would lure our ships away from our home and destroy them, then finish your conquest of Imperial space. They had not anticipated this very scenario, but their cautions are not easily dismissed. To them, this threat is a sham.”

  Leia smiled coldly at the two men. “Your intelligence forces must already know that my daughter, my sixteen-year-old daughter, has joined Rogue Squadron. She did so at Dubrillion, and your sources would have told you that the squadron has just replaced over half its personnel. If I did not think the Yuuzhan Vong were a grave threat, do you think I would allow my child to have joined the military?”

  Colonel Harrak ran a finger around between his neck and the uniform’s collar. “Your children are Jedi.”

  “And as I said, the Jedi have little edge against the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  Pellaeon raised a finger, cutting off Harrak’s reply. “All right, Consul. I will review the material you have brought. I am not unsympathetic to your plight, and I, as well as many others in the Empire, do feel a responsibility for the people of the New Republic. They may have rejected us, but we have not rejected them. If we are able, we will help.”

  Leia nodded. “I can’t ask for more
than that.”

  “You could, Consul, you could.” Pellaeon returned her nod. “Let’s hope this will be enough.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Luke Skywalker reached out and tapped the Force to refresh himself. Energy pulsed into him, sending a tingle over his flesh. He smiled, luxuriating in the warmth flooding him. He did not often use the Force in this manner these days, preferring passive acceptance of its gifts, but exhaustion had seized him. With no time to sleep, he needed the boost.

  He glanced down at the datapad on his desk. Compiling the assignments for all the Jedi had not been as simple a task as he had hoped it would be. It seemed those Jedi given solo missions wondered why they were being sent out alone. Those who were traveling in pairs or larger groups wondered if Luke doubted their abilities, or they resented the extra burden of nursemaiding another Jedi. Protests arose over the nature of the missions themselves, or the nature of the solutions to be used on them—the philosophical split among the Jedi raising the smallest of conflicts to a whole new level.

  He massaged the back of his neck with his mechanical hand. “Well, Artoo, I thought saving the galaxy was hard work. Being a bureaucrat is even worse.”

  The little droid’s head swiveled around, and R2-D2 tootled at him. The droid had plugged its interface into a computer connection and had been helping Luke track the Jedi as they headed out on their transports. As news of their making their connections came in, R2-D2 updated their files, letting Luke know if his people were getting where they needed to be.

  Mara appeared in the office doorway. “Luke, we may have a problem.”

  “What?”

  She entered the office and waved Anakin in after her. “Anakin found the initial stuff. I’ll let him explain.”

  The brown-haired youth smiled. “To help plan missions in the future, I created a computer program to analyze the usage of our data library. By tracking the files accessed after assignments were made, we’d learn what kind of information the Jedi needed to complete their missions. In the future we could add those files to the mission assignments, saving some time. It would be on the data cards, and their only need from that point on would be for updates.”

  The Jedi Master smiled broadly. “That’s very good thinking.”

  “Thank you.” Anakin beamed. “The program just peeled off requests for data. No one knew it was running. When I did a breakdown of the requests for information and cross-checked my data against the computer system’s control log, I found a problem.”

  Luke arched an eyebrow. “And the problem is?”

  “My program caught fifteen more requests than the official control file had listed in it.” The youth shrugged. “The fifteen that aren’t recorded could be trouble. Artoo, if you can, pull up the anomaly file and send it to Uncle Luke’s datapad.”

  The droid whistled a low tone. Luke glanced down at the screen and saw a list of fifteen files scroll past, with descriptions for each appended. “Maw Installation, Death Star, Sun Crusher, Darksaber, Eye of Palpatine . . . These are all about superweapons and the places they were built.”

  Mara nodded. “The files contained the complete technical specifications for those things. There’s a ton of data there, and we have no idea what they were looking for in pulling them up. The implication, though, is not good.”

  Luke sat down at his desk and stared at the list of files. “The reason the control file didn’t list these fifteen requests is because whoever asked for the files went in and deleted the requests, right? Covered her tracks?”

  “Or his, yes.” Anakin shook his head. “I tried to go through and see if I could pull the data from memory, but the appropriate memory sectors had been overwritten twice. Whoever did it is very good.”

  Luke sighed, then looked up at his wife. “You have suspects?”

  She nodded slowly. “I checked our files. There are a handful of Jedi who have the necessary computer skills. I ruled Anakin out immediately, ditto Tionne. Most of the others I’m not concerned about, but Octa Ramis could be a problem.”

  Luke called to mind the dark-haired woman. “She was close with Miko Reglia, wasn’t she?”

  “Tionne said they had a romance at the academy. She thought they’d drifted apart after graduating and going their separate ways, but the logs of their travels suggest they were able to meet several times.” Mara shrugged. “I don’t recall her being particularly distraught at his memorial service on Yavin 4, but I was not in the best of shape then.”

  “I was preoccupied. You notice anything, Anakin?”

  “She wasn’t weepy or anything that I saw, but then I didn’t pay that much attention to her. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. It’s not your responsibility.” Luke nodded. “Do you think she pulled these files down to try to build a weapon to use against the Yuuzhan Vong? I can’t see the sense in that.”

  Mara shook her head. “It would take years to build another Death Star. The fastest to build would be a Sun Crusher, but the facility for doing that is gone. I can’t imagine anyone, no matter how much in grief, would look at building one and causing stars to go nova just to get rid of the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  “That would be extreme, yes.”

  “But isn’t that what Kyp did?” Anakin frowned. “To avenge his brother’s death by the Imperials, he destroyed Carida.”

  “And found out his brother wasn’t dead after all, but died when the planet did, yes.” Luke sighed heavily. “The ends never justify the means. You’ve checked on Octa?”

  “She has boarded her ship and is on her way.”

  Luke sat back and ran a hand over his jaw. “Interesting. Her associates?”

  Mara smiled. “She’s been on a number of missions with Daeshara’cor.”

  “But Daeshara’cor is on the Durastar, going off to Bimmisaari. I mean, Artoo reported to me that the Durastar suffered a drive failure so came out of hyperspace early, but Corellia is supposed to be sending ships out to ferry the passengers on to their destination.”

  The droid shrilled confirmation of Luke’s comment.

  Luke’s wife nodded. “If you look at the standard emergency rescue report appended to the request for aid, you’ll see one rather significant item. There are zero Twi’lek females listed on the passenger manifest.”

  “What?”

  Anakin smiled. “I figure she boarded, planted some memories on the staff, then left the ship before it departed. The list of passengers was made up based on the folks who reported to evacuation stations.”

  “And you’d have to think, Luke, that a Jedi would be very hard to miss in that sort of emergency situation.”

  The Jedi Master closed his eyes. “Something here doesn’t make sense. Octa looking for superweapons does make sense. The Yuuzhan Vong killed Miko. I can see her wanting to seek revenge, even if it’s of the dark side. But what is Daeshara’cor’s motive? Were she and Miko ever close?”

  Mara shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think motive is secondary right now. We need to find out where she went.”

  Anakin laughed. “That should be easy. There are only so many places where a superweapon could be built, right? The shipyards at Kuat . . .”

  The Jedi Master stood. “Building a superweapon isn’t something that can be done in secret anymore, and the resources to do that just aren’t available. She’s after something else.”

  He glanced at the droid. “Artoo, pull up the docking bay data on the Durastar. I want a list of ships—and their destinations—that took off from that docking bay within four hours either way of the Durastar’s departure.”

  “That could be dozens of ships, Luke.”

  “I know, Mara, but we have to start somewhere.” Luke took his lightsaber from his desk and clipped it to his belt. “We don’t need a rogue Jedi running around, and especially not one looking for a planet killer.”

  An airspeeder got them to Docking Bay 9372 quickly enough. The cavernous enclosure bustled with activity. Loadlifters shifted cargo; passengers snaked throug
h the chaos in long lines; idle workers clustered together drinking, laughing, gambling. Mara and Anakin split up to hit the ticketing offices for the commercial shuttles that would transport people from the surface to ships waiting in orbit. R2-D2 accessed a local terminal node to get the data Luke had requested.

  Luke opened himself to the Force and wandered through the docking bay. A torrent of emotions poured into him. He smiled at the petty anger arcing between a couple whose sense of on time differed radically. He passed by people anxiously trying to remember if they had packed this or that. He nodded at ships’ captains calculating profit with each crate loaded or unloaded from their freighters’ holds. The excitement from folks heading into space for the first time broadened his smile, and the passion of a couple heading off on a honeymoon prompted him to blush.

  As he strolled along he did his best to immerse himself in Daeshara’cor’s mind-set. She had an interest in superweapons and had access to fairly confidential files concerning them. She knew she was expected to be in Bimmisaari in five days, so she had that much time in which to operate before any alarm could be sounded. That narrowed down her choice of destinations.

  Luke immediately rejected her having traveled to the Maw Installation near Kessel. The Durastar would have taken her to Bimmisaari, from which Kessel was a short hop. More importantly, the files she’d accessed would have left no doubt that Admiral Daala had destroyed the lab complex. While it was possible some portions of it still floated in space, the chances that anything useful still remained were minimal.

  Before Luke could figure out what Daeshara’cor had been looking for, he felt something through the Force that seemed out of place. It began as curiosity, but spiked immediately into fear. Discipline immediately masked the fear, but did a fairly poor job of it. Luke looked to his right and saw a man hastily pulling up the hood on his cloak and turning away.