Dark Tide 2: Ruin

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Mara nodded, but Luke disagreed. “I don’t get that feel from her.”

  “Luke, she’s seeking superweapons.”

  “I know, but I don’t think she’s really considered what the result of their use is. We all know the story of Alderaan. We know what happened to Carida. We remember the Krytos virus, but somehow, getting your brain around the idea that billions of people are dead is very tough. You can feel very bad, devastated, over the death of one person, but can you multiply that a billion times when a planet is destroyed?”

  “Especially a planet full of the enemy?” Mara shrugged.

  “Despite what she has done so far, Mara, she’s not yet strayed to the dark side. She has always been good.” He sighed. “If we knew what had set her off, we could help her.”

  “Big if.” Luke’s wife nodded slowly. “I think Mirax’s plan has merit. Let’s do it.”

  Luke smiled and returned to the director’s office. “Forgive me, but something urgent has come up. I really need your help.”

  The woman smiled. “I’m ready to assist in any way I can.”

  “Good, thank you, then just back away from your terminal.” Luke glanced at R2-D2. “Yank down everything you can on the Eye project’s history, then a data card’s worth of the most technical stuff you can find. We’re baiting a trap and we can only afford bait that’s irresistible.”

  Anakin shifted uneasily. He’d gotten his first inkling of how serious Daeshara’cor was about her quest when she’d threatened to kill him if she so much as sensed him reaching for the Force. Now she sat, two lightsabers on her lap, comlink in hand.

  She switched off the comlink and looked over at him. “You heard. It will be you for the data. You won’t be hurt.”

  Kneeling there in the corner of a dingy, unfurnished apartment, with his hands bound behind his back and to his ankles, Anakin sighed. “You mean I won’t be hurt more than I am already.”

  “That can’t be helped. I can’t have you loose.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Daeshara’cor.” He shrugged as much as he was able to. “I always admired you, how hard you’d worked. Why are you doing this?”

  She sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “No? Why not? Because I’m not a Twi’lek? Because I grew up on Coruscant and then at the academy?” He frowned at her.

  Before she could say anything, the apartment door flew in with a crash. Chalco stepped into the doorway, a blaster carbine in one hand, and a ratty gray thing wrapped around his throat. It looked as if someone had yanked a strip of hide off a Talz and made it into a stole, which then had been dragged behind a Podracer during some endurance rally.

  “Hold it right there, Daeshara’cor.” Chalco growled in low tones. “Don’t worry, kid, you’re safe now.”

  “Think so?” The Twi’lek brought her lightsaber to hand and ignited it. The blade splashed bloody highlights over Chalco’s face. “Leave now and you won’t be hurt.”

  “I’m not the one who’s going to hurt, sister.” His trigger finger twitched, launching a blue stun bolt at the Jedi. Her lightsaber came up with ease and around, batting the blue bolt back at him. It hit Chalco in the right knee, then raced like lightning up his body and around his belly. The involuntary twitching of his muscles quickly erased the shocked look on his face, then he collapsed to the floor.

  Using the Force, Daeshara’cor dragged him into the room, then shut the door behind him. She kicked the blaster from his hands and slid him over next to Anakin.

  The man lay there for several seconds, then blinked and began to whisper. “I don’t get it.”

  “Get what, Chalco?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to be able—” A shiver shook him. “They said it would make a Jedi powerless.”

  Daeshara’cor frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “The miriskin.”

  Anakin arched an eyebrow at his friend. “Ysalamiri skin? Is that what that thing is?”

  “Yeah. Cost, too.”

  “Um, Chalco, that only works if the ysalamiri is alive.”

  The Twi’lek sniffed. “And the closest that thing you’re wearing ever was to being alive was being touched when someone pulled it off a loom.”

  Chalco groaned.

  “Did you tell Skywalker?” She extinguished her lightsaber. “No, you wanted to get me yourself. Okay, I still have a little time.”

  Anakin looked up at her. “You were going to tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “No, I was going to tell you why you couldn’t understand.” The Twi’lek’s eyes hardened. “You come from a life of privilege, Anakin. You and your siblings were hailed as heroes from the moment you were born. You held a fascination for billions. Expectations for you were great, are great, and to your credit, you shoulder all that very well. Still, it puts you where you cannot understand the rest of it.”

  “What I can’t understand is why you want to find some weapon capable of killing billions. Could anything have been that bad in your life to inspire that?”

  “Can you not imagine wanting to kill billions?”

  “No.”

  “Not even to protect your family? To save your mother? Your father?” She regarded him openly. “Wouldn’t you trade the life of a billion Yuuzhan Vong to bring back Chewbacca?”

  A lump immediately choked him. Anakin fought his face scrunching up. He tried to blink away tears, but felt them searing his cheeks. He sniffed and tried to wipe his nose on his shoulder, but couldn’t. His lips trembled and he remembered Chewbacca as he last saw him, brave and defiant. And then nothing . . .

  Anakin sniffed again, then lifted his chin, stretching his throat. “A billion lives or ten billion lives would not bring him back. And the killing of a billion Yuuzhan Vong still wouldn’t match the heroism of his death. Chewie went through so much. He was a slave my father freed—”

  “Then he would understand.”

  Anakin frowned. “I don’t—”

  “No, and you never could.” She turned away and began to fiddle with the comlink’s settings. “I need to talk to your uncle again.”

  Chalco slowly roused himself and pulled himself up against the wall. “I’d try to untie you, kid, but, ah, my fingers aren’t working too good yet. My head . . . my head is throbbing.”

  “Mine, too.” Anakin shoved off from the wall and righted himself again. His head hurt, his knees were sore, and his throat ached. Daeshara’cor’s comment about Chewie had hurt horribly.

  He caught sight of a vein pulsing at Chalco’s temple. It kept time with the pounding in his own head, as if it were hammering his braincase. He sighed.

  His head came up for a second, then he let it hang again lest Daeshara’cor notice him. Carefully, slowly, concentrating very hard, he pushed his discomfort aside and touched the Force.

  Daeshara’cor spun as he gathered it to himself. She took one step toward him, then the blaster carbine rose from the floor and careened solidly into her forehead. Her eyes flickered, then she sagged to the floor.

  Anakin sank back on his heels and reached out through the Force to find his uncle. He did, and quickly, for Luke was far closer than Anakin expected.

  Anakin opened his eyes and saw Chalco looking at him with a huge, self-satisfied grin. “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re lucky I happened along. Without me, she’d have gotten away cleanly.”

  “You think dealing with you tired her out?”

  “No, not hardly.”

  “And klonking her with the blaster, that was something you did?”

  “Nope.” Chalco shook his head. “But if I’d not brought it along, you’d have had nothing to use against her.”

  Sighing, Anakin used the Force to slide the blaster carbine over to Chalco. “Now, pump a stun bolt into her to keep her out, and then you can see if your fingers are well enough along to untie me.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “I would if we had one, but my uncle is on his way.” Anakin ga
ve the older man a smile. “Now, knowing he’s going to be upset that we’re here, in this situation, do you think it’s better I’m all trussed up, or free?”

  “Gotcha. You are a smart kid.” Chalco whipped the miriskin from around his neck and tossed it off into another corner. “Our secret about that?”

  “Sure, Chalco, our secret. We’re in enough trouble as it is.” Anakin smiled. “My uncle doesn’t need to know everything.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I’m not going to kill the people I should be protecting! Jacen snarled, then summoned the Force, shoving back hard against the onrushing throng of armored human slaves. The two in the lead stumbled back, knocking down others of their number. Jacen grabbed one of the fallen humanoids and shoved it back, low, slamming it into the knees and thighs of the other slaves. Bodies flipped high in the air, then crashed back down.

  Off to his right, Corran and his silver lightsaber entered the fight. He swept past and through two reptoids, spilling smoking bodies left and right, then met the Yuuzhan Vong leader on equal footing. The Jedi feinted high, then slashed low. The lightsaber’s argent blade sparked off the vonduun crab armor covering the Yuuzhan Vong’s shins, but did not penetrate to the flesh.

  The warrior took a half step back, then scythed his staff around in a cut that came at Corran’s left flank. The Jedi spun inside the arc of the cut and parried it wide with the blade held in his right hand. This left Corran standing with his back to the Yuuzhan Vong’s front, just for a second. He continued his spin, pivoting now on his right foot, and brought his left foot up in a roundhouse kick that cracked his heel against the Yuuzhan Vong’s face mask.

  The Yuuzhan Vong staggered backwards and caught his legs against a planter. He fell back, off balance, and found his limbs trapped by the branches of a spindly ornamental fruit tree. Corran closed and slashed at him twice. The first cut traced a scar across the Yuuzhan Vong’s armored belly, then the return stroke opened him from hip to hip.

  The third Yuuzhan Vong warrior hissed an order, which started the reptoids pulling back. Before he had any chance to organize any sort of defense or retreat, resistance snipers targeted him. A hail of red blaster bolts shot down at him from all angles, jolting him. He wobbled and lurched, raising a hand to ward off the sting of the energy weapons. His vonduun crab armor might have been proof against an errant bolt or two, but such concentrated fire burned through it. The Yuuzhan Vong spasmed, throwing his limbs wide, then collapsed to the ferrocrete decking.

  The reptoids, bereft of any leadership, scattered. Ganner slashed two down and the resistance fighters killed more, but none came in Jacen’s direction. Instead, nearest him, a thrall snapped an order that brought several of his fellows with him. They retreated in good order to the north, back into the building from which they had launched their attack.

  Corran raised his blade and circled it over his head. “Move it. Grab two of the guys Jacen put down. Let’s go.”

  Two of the resistance fighters each grabbed a downed thrall and started to drag them off when a black ovoid form screamed overhead. It vanished beyond the line of buildings to the south, but Jacen felt a sour taste growing in his mouth. “That was a coralskipper, Corran.”

  “Sithspawn!” Corran glanced at his chronometer. “We have to get out of here fast, and we’ve got at least two hours before our ride will be here. As we planned it, people. Get the prisoners out in the vehicles, the rest of us will pull the Vong off.”

  Ganner nodded grimly. “I’ve heard the Pesktda Xenobotanical Garden is worth seeing.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t figure you’re going to get time to read all the exhibit signs.”

  Ganner frowned, but Jacen smiled. “Hey, at least he thinks you can read.”

  The older Jedi’s return comment was swallowed by the reappearance of the coralskipper. The ship came down and hovered ten meters above the plaza. Its nose-mounted plasma cannon spat out a bolt that sizzled over the Jedi’s head and melted a two-meter-wide furrow in the ferrocrete.

  Corran pointed west. “Go, now! I’ll distract it.”

  Ganner started sprinting west, but Jacen grabbed Corran’s sleeve. “You know what you’re doing?”

  “Nope, but that’s never stopped me before.” The Corellian Jedi winked at Jacen and stood, then darted east. He waved his lightsaber in the air and shouted. “C’mon, sparky, I dare you.”

  The plasma cannon’s muzzle swiveled in Corran’s direction like a bug’s eye on a stalk. The Jedi set himself, lightsaber in hand, ready to deflect the bolt. Light began to glow gold in the muzzle.

  “Go, Jacen, go!”

  The young Jedi frowned and gathered the Force to himself. He grabbed the hatch cover Ganner had used as a weapon and flicked it up into the air. He slammed it against the cannon muzzle and summoned all the strength he could to hold it there. Jacen felt an immediate shock of pressure through the Force, so he redoubled his effort.

  The hatch cover glowed red, then white, then evaporated from the center out. A little spurt of plasma squirted down, and Corran batted it from the air with ease. On the coralskipper, from the nose back, little golden lines traced their way along the ship’s black body. They seemed to define where bits and pieces of it had grown together. Then a nova filled the cockpit and blew out the viewports. Burning plasma geysered into the air, and the ship hung there for a moment before dipping its nose and plunging into the ferrocrete.

  It hit hard enough to ripple the surface, knocking Jacen down. Pieces of the ship shattered and started bouncing across the plaza. Jacen began to comprehend his danger from them, but before he could act, Corran came sprinting over, hauled him up by his shoulders, and pulled him clear. A huge section of the coralskipper’s tail toppled over on the spot where Jacen had fallen.

  He smiled up at Corran. “Thanks for saving my life.”

  “Sure, now don’t ever disobey another order.”

  The young Jedi blinked in confusion. “But I saved your life.”

  “Details, details.” Corran pulled him along as they sprinted to catch up with Ganner and the majority of the resistance fighters. “I lead this expedition, I get to decide the risks and who assumes them. You almost got yourself killed.”

  Jacen frowned. “But since I saved your life, you managed to save mine.”

  Corran’s eyes narrowed, but he smiled. “You know, if you’re going to keep using logic against me, I’m just going to have to send you home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His chest heaving as it hadn’t in years, Corran crouched in the shadow of one of the Xenobotanical Garden’s outbuildings. The retreat from the plaza had been easier initially than he had expected. While the human thralls did come after them, they did so with little organization. Corran had no desire to slay the thralls, but the resistance members seemed to regard setting their fellow Garqians free of their torment as a sacred duty. Corran had previously acknowledged on Bimmiel how those who could not be cured had to be destroyed, but he was glad he didn’t have to be the one pulling the trigger.

  He glanced across the small pathway to where Jacen Solo knelt on one knee. The boy had impressed him. Boy? Emperor’s black bones, he’s a young man, and growing up fast. The use of the hatch cover had likely saved Corran’s life. The fact that the plasma reflux blew out the plasma cannon and splashed plasma all through the interior of the coralskipper had been an added benefit. What he liked more about Jacen, though, was the way he had paced Corran in their retreat.

  Along with several of the resistance members, the two of them formed the group’s rear guard. Ganner and four of the Noghri went with the main body, while the remaining two Noghri were heading away with some resistance fighters and the two prisoners. The action the rear guard faced had not been that serious until a larger Yuuzhan Vong transport had descended. From that point forward, Yuuzhan Vong warriors entered the fight, and they clearly were something more than thrall trainers.

  Corran ducked as a hum rose and a slender, dark shape flew at him. The r
azorbug sailed past his head and landed in the dust a couple of meters behind him. It sprouted arms and legs and, if allowed to, would have taken wing again and returned to the warrior that had thrown it.

  The Jedi reversed his lightsaber and twisted the handle. The blade went purple and more than doubled in length. The coruscating purple blade tapped the bug, instantly converting the moisture in it into vapor. The bug popped crisply, spraying legs and chitin everywhere.

  “I hate those things.”

  Jacen nodded, then pointed off to the right.

  Returning his blade to its normal focal length, Corran ducked his head out past the edge of the building. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, then nothing. These warriors are very good. We’re not going to see them until too late.

  Ganner’s voice poured through his comlink’s earpiece. “Perimeter secure. Ithorian section is ours.”

  Corran double-tapped his comlink’s microphone, then glanced at Jacen and pointed toward the gardens and the tall grove of bafforr trees. The young man nodded, then took off at a run, cutting left and right at random intervals to make hitting him with any sort of missile weapon tougher. Good for you, Jacen.

  The eldest Jedi came up out of his crouch and gritted his teeth against the pain in his legs. He danced back from his shelter, watching for movement, then turned and sprinted. Like Jacen, he juked, and even threw in a few skips.

  Two razorbugs arced past him, then a fatter, blue thing hit the ground and exploded off to his right. He cut through an archway and dodged right, then heard something skip off the ferrocrete. He almost stopped for a half second, hunkering down in the archway’s shadow, to ambush the next Yuuzhan Vong through, but he knew he’d be overwhelmed by those following him.

  No, into the bafforr grove. That’s going to be our chance.