The image of Tahiri unconscious on Galantos, as pale and thin as she'd been on Mon Calamari, made Jaina's heart ache. After several awkward visits to the infirmary and a number of silences during the mission so far, Jaina still had no idea what it was Tahiri had wanted when she'd called her that day after Uncle Luke's meeting of the Jedi. To say she was sorry? To blame Jaina for letting Anakin die? She didn't know. The black tide of grief made people do crazy things. She knew that firsthand, and so did her parents. But if there was anything she
could do to make life easier for Tahiri, she would do it in an instant. The problem was that she doubted even Tahiri herself knew what that might be. All they could do was hope that they could work it out before something else happened . . .
Too many hours, two system checks, a detailed scan of her R2's files regarding the N'zoth system, and a halfhearted attempt to learn some words in the fiendishly difficult Chiss native tongue later, her navicomputer bleeped to warn her that they were about to emerge from
hyperspace.
"Heads up," she said to her wingmates. "We're there. And remember, this is just a surveillance sweep, so don't provoke anything unless you absolutely have to. Is that clear?"
"Understood, Colonel," Jocell said. "Preparing to disengage navigational lock."
"I don't know about you," Miza said, "but I'm becoming a little sluggish from all this rest we're supposed to be enjoying. I'll almost be glad if we could find something to shoot at."
"I know what you mean," Jaina said. "But I don't want you using so much as a hard stare without my direct authority, Miza. Clear?"
Miza chuckled. "I'll keep my hands safely in my lap."
"You do that." Her R2 unit bleeped again; Jaina glanced at the translator to learn they had five seconds before arrival. "Okay, guys, here we go."
The first thing that struck her as her X-wing rattled back into realspace was the brightness of the sky. She'd been in close clusters before, but it was easy to forget just how much of a difference it made when a large number of hot, young stars clustered so closely together especially after spending so much time at the edges of the galaxy, avoiding the Yuuzhan Vong. Because she had brought them in at the outskirts of the system, N'zoth's primary was hidden in the radiance from the many other suns, and it took her some moments to actually locate it. Bright and blue-tinged, it burned at her with an almost forbidding glare.
Her wingmates dropped out of hyperspace beside her, and immediately peeled away into formation. Sensors swept the space around them; astromech droids chattered via comlinks; intrasystem landmarks were confirmed. According to New Republic records, no one had been to N'zoth since the Yevethan crisis, twelve years earlier. Then, the Yevethan Black Fleet had been routed by New Republic forces after it attempted a genocidal cleansing of the area around the Koornacht Cluster. Jaina agreed with her father that the silence since was probably an indication of frantic retooling rather than peaceful reconsideration. This would be the first opportunity anyone had to find out one way or the other.
"I'm picking up extensive mass readings," Miza said. "Judging by the uneven distribution, I'd say we have at least three fleets massed in orbit around worlds two and five."
"Which one's N'zoth?" Jocell asked.
"Two," Jaina supplied. "I'm not picking up signatures consistent with old Imperial designs, but that's not unexpected. The Yevetha were quick to learn, and they would have had to start again from scratch. Why not redesign at the same time?"
"No capital ships that I can see," Miza said. "Just plenty of small ones, easy pickings."
Jaina didn't caution him again; she knew it was just his sense of humor. Still, she would have preferred it if he remained serious like Jocell.
"There are no thrustship exhaust traces, either," Jocell said. "Rad and IR readings areodd." After a brief pause, she added, "Jaina, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
Jaina studied her screen. The mass shadows were exactly where Miza had said clumped in broad orbital corridors around the rocky second planet and a bloated gas giant on the far side of the system. It made sense, she thought, to keep your fleets close to both home and a refueling base. You wouldn't put them all in one spot. That would be tactically unsound. Just because you weren't expecting trouble didn't mean it wouldn't come to find you.
The probing triangle of ships continued their surveillance of the system. From the Yevetha's point of view, she supposed, they were trouble, and she didn't doubt that the xenophobes would have monitoring stations all around the system, ready to spot just such an intrusion as theirs. But where were the flashes of engine exhausts as interceptors launched? Where were the echoes of hyper-space distortions as squadrons of updated thrustships rushed to confront them? Why was there nothing but diffuse mass and heat appearing on the scanners, nothing concentrated in any particular place?
N'zoth was radiating heat like a small sun. Not surprising for a desert world, perhaps, but why wasn't the heat concentrated around the cities?
Sithspawn, she silently cursed. If her father had been here, she knew just what he would have said.
"We're going in closer," she said. "And I have a feeling I know what we're going to find."
Neither of the Chiss pilots asked her to elaborate, suggesting that perhaps they had had the same feeling. Instead they silently slaved their clawcraft to her X-wing as she laid in a course for N'zoth.
The hyperspace jump was mercifully short. When they arrived where the two fleets had been in orbit around the Yevethan homeworld, Jaina found the reality of the situation much worse than she had imagined. There was nothing but wreckage. Thousands of thrustships, dozens of capital vessels, and one battle station capable of maintaining the entire lot floated in pieces around the planet below. The wreckage was still hotit could take months for excess heat to radiate through vacuumand it was this that had shown up on the scopes. Jaina took her small contingent on a wide parabola around the deathly silent wreckage, moving them in closer to the planet itself.
She didn't need to look, but she had to. N'zoth had been pounded from orbit, possibly by chunks torn from the wreckage of the fleet above. Lava and sulfuric clouds belched from the bottom of a score of new craters around the globe, and the atmosphere was filled with ash. Where there had once been cities, there were now only great holes in the crust. Every trace of the Yevethan civilization had been reduced to atoms.
For once, Miza didn't have any smart comments; he was as quiet as the others as they swung around N'zoth's equator. Jaina turned her sensors toward the distant gas giant, not doubting what she would find there. Someone had attacked the Yevetha, taking them unawares and totally decimating a fleet of considerable size. The Fia stood to benefit most from the destruction of the Yevethaand it would certainly explain why they no longer seemed to care about the xenophobes in their backyardbut there was no way they could have come by this sort of firepower. No, this could have only been the work of the Yuuzhan Vong.
A cold and uncomfortable feeling spread through Jaina's stomach as she thought of her parents and Jag back on Galantoslittle knowing what she'd found. She reached out with the Force to find her mother, but the distance was too great. And with communications down in the sector, there was no other way to warn them.
She was about to order their immediate return to Galantos when Miza messaged her. "Jaina, I'm picking up a transmission from that small moon we passed a moment ago."
"Put it on the air," she ordered.
There was a pause followed by some cold static. Jaina tried to boost the signal, but no amount of switches flicked would clean up the noise.
"Miza? Jocell? Either of you getting anything?"
"Nothing," Jocell replied.
"Likewise," Miza said. "It's like they're trying to open a line, but for some reason they're not saying anything."
"Maybe they can't," Jocell suggested. "They might be too badly injured."
Jaina nodded thoughtfully to herself. It was a possibility, she supposed. Flicking her own comm unit, she sa
id, "Whoever you are, if you can hear this, click your mike twice."
There was a slight delay, followed by a distinct double click.
"Okay. Now, if you're injured, click twice again."
Another delay, followed by two clicks.
"I'm picking up a weak power reading from the bottom of a crater," Miza said. "It's consistent with that of a small vessel. I guess he's been hiding there in the ruins of his thrustship. He probably survived by laying low until whoever did this had passed on."
Jaina considered this, but quickly dismissed it. It didn't ring true, somehow. "No, that's not the Yevethan way. They don't hide from fights. My guess is he crashed there and was knocked unconscious, awakening only when the battle was over."
"That's if he is a Yevetha," Jocell said.
"What else would he be?" Jaina asked. "You're not suggesting he might be one of the Yuuzhan Vong, are you?"
"I don't know. But without a visual, we have no way of knowing."
"Miza? What do you think?"
"My gut instinct tells me it's a Yevethaand an injured one at that. Like you said, Jaina, it's not in their nature to hide, so why else would he be down there? And it makes no sense for it to be a Vong, either. Whatever caused this was a big fleet. They came in, hit hard, and moved on. What would it serve them to leave a single small ship behind?"
"I agree," Jaina said. "But I also agree with Jocell that we're going to need a visualespecially if we're to rescue the pilot." Miza's clawcraft was veering off before she could give the order. "Already on my way. This shouldn't take too long."
"Jocell, keep an eye out for anything unusual. If we have to get out of here in a hurry, then I want plenty of warning."
"Understood, Colonel."
Jaina watched Miza's ship shrink to a tiny speck of light shooting across the face of the moon. She felt uneasy having her wingmate so far away, even though there seemed to be no overt threat anywhere in the system right now. Or maybe she was nervous because there was no overt threat around. It was too quiet for her liking.
To take her mind off everything, she opened a line with the Yevethan pilot.
"We're going to try to get you out of there. Do you copy?" Two clicks.
"Hang in there. One of my pilots is on the way down now. He'll be passing over your head in a matter of seconds. Then we'll"
This time a low, malevolent chuckle came over the comm unit, followed by a raspy, fluidy cough.
"Your optimism is as shallow as your compassion," said the voicedefinitely Yevethan, and male. "You care no more for me than I do for you."
"Not quite the response I was expecting," Jocell muttered.
Jaina ignored her wingmate. "We do carewhy do you think we're trying to?"
"Soon I shall join my people," the Yevetha continued. "Soon the Yevetha shall be no more. But we shall not go down quietly."
"There is no reason to go down at all! Just let us "In the face of death's bright dawn," the Yevetha went on, "I shall offer one final act of defiance, so that when we are talked about in times to come, they will say that the Yevetha were warriors to the end!"
Jaina felt a cold discomfort pulse through her. "Miza, get out of there!"
"Way ahead of you, Jaina!"
"There is nowhere to run," the Yevetha said. "The galaxy belongs only to those who had the power to destroy our once-mighty race!" A faint and disturbing hiss issued from the comm unit. "Die with me, won't you?"
"Miza! Talk to me!"
"Almost"
A powerful flash of energy lashed out from the ball of rock. Miza's clawcraft vanished into it a split instant before reaching Jaina's X-wing, sending her tumbling end over end, shields down and cockpit dead.
"You did it!"
Jacen found himself enveloped in a hug the moment he stepped off the shuttle's boarding ramp. Taken by surprise, he automatically returned the hug before realizing who was giving it to him. The warm, petite body pressed against his; the hair; the delicate yet very female scent...
"I always knew you would," Danni said, pulling away slightly. "But I was still worried about you. You Solos have a knack for doing things the hard way."
"It was Admiral Pellaeon, really," Jacen protested. "If he hadn't woken up when he did, I doubt I could have convinced Flennic of anything."
"You're just being modest." Danni laughed, playfully punching his shoulder. "I bet Jacen Solo could convince a Selonian to lie if he really wanted it to."
Footsteps approaching from the docking bay's main entrance prevented him from responding to this. Danni stepped back, looking embarrassed, as Luke walked around the corner.
"I thought I felt you come aboard," said Jacen's uncle, dressed in his customary Jedi robes.
"How long have you been here?" Jacen asked both of them. He hadn't seen Jade Shadow anywhere near Widow-maker on his return flight.
"Captain Yage sent a shuttle when Gilad woke up," Luke explained. "By the time Danni and I arrived, they'd used his codes to patch into the Imperial security network without being noticed, and from there eavesdropped on your conversation with Flennic. He insisted on interrupting. I hope you don't mind us doing that. It wasn't that we thought you couldn't manage on your own, Jacen. It just seemed simpler this way, and a chance to prove to Flennic that the Empire's Supreme Commander is still alive."
"I'm just relieved that the admiral came out of this all right," Jacen said. "Can I talk to him?"
"That will be up to Tekli," Danni said. "He's still recuperating in the bacta tank. That talk with Moff Flennic tired him out, short though it was." Then, leaning in slightly toward Jacen, she added, "You know, for someone normally so quiet, she certainly has a lot to say when it comes to her patients."
Jacen smiled. He had developed a great deal of respect for Master Cilghal's apprentice. Although not strong in the Force, her knowledge of healing was extensive, and she had clearly demonstrated the ability to handle herself during recent emergencies.
The three of them walked unimpeded through the corridors of Widowmaker. Luke seemed perfectly at ease, explaining as they went that Mara and Saba had stayed behind to keep an eye on events from afar. Jacen had to admire his uncle's poise. Even surrounded as he was by Imperial trappings, the Jedi Master moved and talked with an air that suggested this ship could have been his own rather than one that belonged to a once-formidable enemy.
They reached the medical bay and were automatically waved through by the stormtrooper guards. Inside they found Tekli studying reports on her patient's progress while a weary-looking Captain Yage talked to him.
Gilad Pellaeon looked better than when Jacen had last seen him, but not as recovered from his injuries as Jacen would have liked. He was still immersed in the bacta tank, and looked just as terribly thin and pale as before. He was communicating solely via attachments to his breath mask, which gave his voice the faintly muffled tone Jacen had noticed while dealing with Flennic. "And what about Screed? Is he still alive?" " Admiral Screed was executed by Warlord Zsinj," Yage said.
"Really?" As if in thought, Pellaeon paused for the time it took a few handfuls of bubbles to float up past his body. "My memory must be going to have forgotten that. I always had a soft spot for that old hawk-bat."
Yage glanced at Luke and his companions, realizing for the first time they had company. "You have visitors, sir," she said.
Pellaeon opened his eyes to peer through the thick nutrient filling the tank, then closed them again. His face was distorted by the curved, transparent wall enclosing him, making it impossible to read his expression with any accuracy.
"Ah, yes," he said. "Skywalker." There followed a sound like a grunt, but it could just as easily have been a short bleat of amusement. "Come to view the relic have you?"
Jacen glanced at his uncle. The Jedi Master's face was calm and unruffled. He offered no response because clearly the comment didn't deserve one.
"How are things proceeding, then?" the Grand Admiral asked after a few seconds.
"Mara reports t
hat ships are moving in ways consistent with the withdrawal you ordered," Luke replied. "The jump points are filling up fast."
"Good." He nodded slowly, the movement causing his body to swivel gently in the fluid. "It's nice to know that what Flennic is telling me is the truth. Nevertheless, I'll wager that he is skimming a percentage off the top to defend his holdings here."
"I wouldn't take that bet," Jacen said. "I don't think Flennic is going to like sitting here defenseless while the fleet abandons him."
"You're probably right," Pellaeon said. "He'll be snug and safe where the concentration of firepower is greatest. He wouldn't do anything that might risk his life. That won't stop him doing what he can to protect his investment, though." The Grand Admiral's eyes opened again, fixing directly upon Jacen. "You did well back there, young Solo, but reason and common sense were never going to bring Flennic around. He understands nothing but forceand I'm not talking about the one you Jedi regard so highly, either. I'm talking about the brute sort." His eyes closed once more, as if irritated by the solution. "Reminding him of his insignificance, unless he joined the greater scheme of things, might have done the trick, but in the end I'd rather have him angry with me than you. I'm used to it."
Jacen bowed slightly, even though he was aware that Pellaeon wouldn't see the gesture. "Moff Flennic is someone whose displeasure I wouldn't wish to cultivate,
Admiral," he said. "But I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, either."
Pellaeon laughed. "Well put, lad. As indeed was your argument back there. We really do find ourselves in a difficult place at the moment. I fear we won't have much time to practice the new maneuvers while relocating the fleetor afterward, for that matter. If what you say is true, then the Yuuzhan Vong will be sure to strike when we are least able to defend ourselves. They'll want to strike hard and fast like they did in Bastion and leave us too battered to be of any use to anyone. I doubt they'll be converting our worlds just yet; they'll come back for those when they have both the time and resources to do so."
Star Wars - The New Jedi Order - Force Heretic I - Remnant - Book 17 Page 21
