Star Wars 396 - The Dark Nest Trilogy III - The Swarm War

by Troy Denning

  “You don’t fear for yourself,” Jacen said. “You fear for others—and now Lomi Plo knows that. She’ll use it against you.”

  Luke nodded, and a glimmer of recognition came to his eyes. “Fears aren’t so different from doubts. I have to face mine—”

  “No,” Jacen said. “You have to eliminate them.”

  “Eliminate them?” Mara asked. “That’s a lot to ask—especially before we reach Tenupe.”

  “But I can do it,” Luke said. “I have to.”

  “How?” Mara demanded. “You can’t give up caring about your family.”

  “He doesn’t have to,” Jacen replied. “He just has to surrender.”

  “Surrender?” Mara asked.

  “Vergere taught me to embrace my pain by surrendering to it.” Jacen turned to Luke. “I made that pain a part of me—something I would never fight or deny. You have to do the same thing with your fear, Uncle Luke. Then it will have no power over you.”

  “That may be easier said than done,” Luke said.

  “Not at all—I know just where to start.” Jacen used the Force to lift R2-D2 over to them. “The first thing your fear showed you was your mother’s face. And before the battle, you refused to see what happened after your father Force-hurled her.”

  “So I need to see that now?”

  “Only if you want to kill Lomi Plo,” Jacen said.

  Mara wanted to discourage Luke, to spare him the pain of seeing his mother die by his father’s hand. But he was determined to kill Lomi Plo and end this war on Jedi terms, and she knew that Jacen was right, that Luke could not succeed until he embraced his fears as Jacen had learned to embrace his pain.

  “Jacen’s right. If you’re going after Lomi Plo, you need to do this.” Mara reached for his hand. “You can’t change what is in that holo. You can only accept it.”

  “That’s a lot different from accepting you being hurt—or dying,” Luke pointed out. “I couldn’t do anything to stop what happened to my mother, but when you were hurt, I was there.”

  “And you still couldn’t stop what happened to me,” Mara countered. “You were pretty busy with Lomi Plo, as I recall.”

  “I was barely holding my own,” Luke acknowledged.

  “Some things you can’t control,” Jacen said. “If you fear them, then those things control you.”

  Luke shook his head. “I’m not sure we have time for this,” he said. “And what if you’re wrong? What if Lomi Plo’s wounds are enough to distract her?”

  “I’m not wrong,” Jacen countered. “Look, you may think you push your fears aside when you go to battle—that you bury them. But you’ll never bury them deep enough to hide them from Lomi Plo, no matter what her condition is. So you’ll have to deal with this problem now. Because as you’ve pointed out, Lomi Plo is healing as we speak.”

  Luke let out a long breath. “Okay.” He turned to R2-D2. “Show me the holo where my mother dies.”

  R2-D2 issued a questioning trill.

  “We’re going into battle either way,” Luke said. “If you don’t want to end up navigating slave ships for Lomi Plo, you’d better start where we left off last time.”

  R2-D2 gave a plunging whistle, then rocked forward and activated his holoprojector. The image of Padmé, Anakin, and Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared on the floor, Padmé choking, Anakin extending an arm toward her, and Obi-Wan approaching Anakin.

  “Let…her…go!” Obi-Wan was ordering.

  Anakin whipped his arm to one side. Padmé flew out of the holo, and Anakin started forward to meet Obi-Wan.

  “You turned her against me!” Anakin accused.

  Obi-Wan shook his head. “You did that yourself.”

  The pair left the holo as R2-D2 retreated and turned away from them. For a moment, their voices could be heard arguing in the background, slowly fading as Obi-Wan accused Anakin of falling prey to his anger and his lust for power. Then their voices faded entirely as Padmé’s crumpled form returned to the holo, lying on a metal deck.

  A lump of sorrow formed in Mara’s stomach, and she felt Luke shaking with grief. R2-D2 extended a grasping appendage and started trying to drag Padmé’s unconscious form to safety.

  From somewhere out of the holo, C-3PO’s voice called, “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt her. Wait!”

  The distant sounds of a lightsaber fight arose somewhere outside the holo, then C-3PO appeared and carefully took Padmé in his arms. He started toward the slick-looking skiff they had seen in the last holo, with R2-D2 following close behind, beeping.

  “I am being careful!” C-3PO said. “I have a good hold on her, but I’m worried about my back. I hope it’s able to hold up under this weight.”

  C-3PO entered the skiff and laid Padmé on a bed in a stateroom. The holo blurred as R2-D2 advanced it quickly through several minutes of watching her lie there; then Obi-Wan arrived to check on her and brush her hair back.

  The holo flickered off for an instant, then restarted in the observation room of an operating theater. Obi-Wan was there with C-3PO, Yoda, and a tall, swarthy human. Mara recognized the man as Bail Organa—someone she would later spy upon when she became the Emperor’s Hand. A medical droid entered the observation room and began to speak to Obi-Wan and the others.

  “Medically, she is completely healthy.” The droid’s voice was tinny, but surprisingly sympathetic for a machine. “For reasons we can’t explain, we are losing her.”

  “She’s dying?” Obi-Wan sounded as though he did not believe the droid.

  “We don’t know why,” the droid replied. “She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies.”

  “Babies?” This from Bail Organa.

  “She’s carrying twins,” the droid said.

  “Save them, we must,” Yoda added. “They are our last hope.”

  The medical droid returned to the operating room, and one of R2-D2’s beeps sounded in the holo.

  “It’s some kind of reproductive process, I think,” C-3PO said softly.

  After a few minutes, Padmé whispered something to the medical droid, and Obi-Wan was summoned into the operating theater. He went to her side, and his voice came out of R2-D2’s holospeaker sounding even more tinny and distant than usual.

  “Don’t give up, Padmé,” he said.

  She looked up at him, seeming very weak. “Is it a girl?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Obi-Wan looked toward the droid operating on her midsection. “In a minute…in a minute.”

  Padmé winced with pain, then the medical droid lifted a tiny bundle into view.

  “It’s a boy,” he announced.

  Padmé’s voice was so weak that it was barely audible. “Luke…” She smiled faintly, struggling to extend a hand to touch the baby on the forehead, then repeated, “…Luke.”

  The medical droid produced another bundle. “And a girl,” he announced.

  “Leia,” Padmé said.

  Obi-Wan leaned closer to her. “You have twins, Padmé. They need you…hang on!”

  Padmé shook her head. “I…can’t.”

  She winced again and took Obi-Wan’s hand. There seemed to be a necklace dangling from her fingers as she did this, but the holo was not clear enough to see what kind.

  “Save your energy,” Obi-Wan urged.

  Padmé’s gaze grew distant. “Obi-Wan…there…is good in him. I know there is…still.”

  She let out a sudden gasp, then her hand dropped out of Obi-Wan’s, leaving the necklace dangling from his fingers. He gathered it into his palm, then turned his hand and began to study the jewelry with a shocked expression.

  The holo ended, and R2-D2 tweedled a question.

  When Luke did not answer, Jacen said, “Thank you, Artoo. That’s all we needed to see.”

  R2-D2 tipped himself upright again, then swiveled his photoreceptor toward Luke and issued an apologetic whistle.

  “There’s nothing to apologize for, Artoo,” Mara said. Although Luke lo
oked outwardly composed, she could feel how hard he was struggling to contain his grief, to keep his anguish from erupting in an explosion of fury and pain. “It had to be done.”

  Jacen took Luke’s elbow, then squeezed until Luke’s blank gaze finally turned toward him. “Master, can you change what you saw in the holo?”

  Luke shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “That’s right. You can only accept it,” Jacen said. “Some misfortunes you can prevent, and you will. But others…sometimes all you can do is embrace the pain.”

  Luke laid a hand across his nephew’s. “I understand. Thank you.”

  “Good,” Jacen said. “Now use what you are feeling. Your anger and your grief can make you more powerful. Use them when you meet Raynar and Lomi Plo, and you will defeat them.”

  A sudden wave of disgust rolled through the Force-bond between Mara and Luke, and Luke frowned and pulled his arm away from Jacen.

  “No, Jacen,” he said. “That’s Vergere’s way of using the Force. It won’t work for me.”

  Jacen’s face grew worried. “But you’re one against two, and they’ll have the Force potential of the entire Colony to draw on. You’ll need all the power you can get!”

  “No,” Luke said. “I’ll need strength—and that comes from my way of using the Force.”

  Jacen cast a worried glance toward Mara, and she began to grow fearful as well.

  “Luke, I understand your hesitation,” Mara said. “But I’d feel better if you took another Master or two—”

  “I’ve made my decision.” Luke smiled and squeezed her arm gently. “Don’t fear. Accept.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  It had grown clear that—for once—Han and Leia Solo would not arrive at the crucial moment. A ceaseless storm of megamaser fire had turned Tenupe’s green sky into a flashing sheet of crimson and the endless downpour into a hot, foul-smelling drizzle. A dozen different kinds of rescue shuttles were hovering over the flooded river, trying to pluck the half-drowned Chiss survivors off their submerged islands. Clouds of fist-sized Qeeq and meter-long Aebea were droning out of the jungle to attack, clogging intake turbines with their puréed bodies and massing on hulls until their weight alone dropped the vessel like a stone into the river.

  The crucial moment was past. Maybe Jaina had misinterpreted the situation when she reached out to her mother in the Force, or maybe something had delayed the Falcon. It hardly mattered. The battle could no longer be stopped. Zekk was descending out of the jungle’s defoliated canopy with her StealthX slaved to his, and all that remained now was to spring UnuThul’s trap and watch the Chiss die.

  As the StealthXs drew near, Jaina and Zekk’s mind-link was restored. It was not as all-embracing as it had been when they were with the Taat—living with other nests had weakened it—but the connection remained strong enough for Jaina to know the sense of urgency that filled every fiber of Zekk’s body, and to understand the reason for it. UnuThul was coming with the Moon Fleet.

  The struts had barely touched the jungle floor before Jaina’s astromech was opening the canopy and tweedling a welcome.

  “Nice to see you, too, Sneaky,” Jaina said. “All systems go?”

  The droid gave an affirmative whistle, and Jaina felt a wave of concern from Zekk. She looked battered and exhausted and bloody. Maybe she was not ready to start flying missions.

  “You think the Chiss will wait while we take a nap?” Jaina retorted. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to her Wuluw communications assistant and reached down to rub a forearm along an antenna. “Sorry for getting you killed so many times, Wuluw.”

  “Burru,” Wuluw thrummed. “U bru.”

  “You be careful, too,” Jaina said. “Someday, the Song will have a verse about your bravery at the Battle of Tenupe.”

  “Rrrr.” Wuluw’s mandibles clattered in embarrassment, then she waved all four arms in modesty. “Uburr.”

  Jaina and Zekk laughed, then Jaina stepped over to her StealthX, retrieved her flight suit from the cockpit and gladly changed out of her mud-caked combat utilities.

  She was just climbing into the pilot’s seat when her mother suddenly touched her through the Force. Leia seemed terribly alarmed and was clearly trying to warn Jaina and Zekk about something, but the feeling was too vague to tell more.

  Then Jaina and Zekk felt Saba reaching out to them as well, opening herself to a battle-meld. They did the same, and the situation immediately grew clearer. Saba and Leia were here, somewhere near Tenupe, and they needed Jaina and Zekk in the air. Something terrible was coming, something that had to be stopped.

  Jaina hastily buckled her crash webbing, then glanced out at Wuluw, and she and Zekk wondered if this was something they should warn the Killiks about.

  Yes! The impression came from both Saba and Leia, so strong that Jaina and Zekk heard it inside their minds as an actual word. Must!

  Wuluw started to turn around and leave, but Jaina caught her in the Force and floated her back to the StealthX.

  “Urubu rububu!” the Killik drummed as Jaina suspended her next to the starfighter. “Brurb!”

  “Don’t worry, you’re not coming with us,” Jaina said. “And even if you were, I really doubt you’d burst. StealthXs have inertial compensators.”

  “Urb?”

  “You need to warn the swarm,” Jaina said. “Something bad is coming.”

  “Rr?”

  “We don’t know. My…”

  Jaina stopped, unsure whether she should reveal the source of her foreboding. She had heard how her parents had interfered with the Utegetu evacuation, and she knew the Colony would disapprove of any effort to end the war, so she and Zekk both thought it was probably best not to mention Leia and Saba.

  “We’re getting a strong feeling from the Force.” Jaina returned Wuluw to the ground. “Warn the swarm—and alert UnuThul!”

  Jaina lowered the StealthX canopy and energized the repulsor drives, then followed Zekk up into the top of the jungle, where the defoliated mogos were now shattered and burning. Chiss megamaser strikes were lancing down through the clouds like a Bespinese lightning squall, igniting kilometer-long columns of flash fire and turning the lower sky into a region of flame-storm and hot, buffeting winds.

  The two Jedi ascended toward the cloud ceiling half blinded by alternating instants of crimson brilliance and stormy dimness, trusting their stick hands to the Force, weaving and rolling their way through a forest of crackling energy. They were dimly aware of a quiet area by the river, where an erratic stream of Chiss shuttles was diving into the mass of Killiks swirling above the islands. But they did not even consider entering the enemy’s rescue corridor. As nerve racking as it was to ascend through a barrage, it was far better than the alternative: being spotted by a rescue pilot and having a squadron of clawcraft jump them.

  The cloud cover made the ascent especially challenging. The megamaser beams did not seem to descend so much as manifest from the mist. Jaina and Zekk constantly found themselves reacting rather than anticipating, rolling away from a fading column of flame only to find a new one erupting ahead. To make matters worse, their tactical displays revealed two squadrons of clawcraft circling through the clouds around them—enough to make even Jedi grind their teeth and curse under their breaths.

  Zekk wanted it known that he was only responsible for the teeth grinding. Until he had become Jaina’s mind-mate, he had never even heard most of the curse words that were now ricocheting around inside his head.

  As they broke out of the clouds into the emerald vastness of Tenupe’s upper atmosphere, both exhaled in relief. A blinding torrent of energy was still crackling down around them, but now that they were above the rain and the clouds, the situation looked a little more like the battles they had grown accustomed to in space—with an emphasis on little. The megamaser beams were fanning down from about fifty points overhead. The vessels that fired them were still so distant that they were barely flecks against the sky, but they were descending fast, foll
owing each other down in a large open spiral and trailing long plumes of gray entry smoke that gave away their positions.

  Jaina wrinkled her brow. A military fleet dropping out of orbit with batteries blazing might be terrible, but it was hardly something that Leia and Saba would expect Jaina and Zekk to stop with a pair of StealthXs. The warning had to point to something else—something the two Jedi Knights had not yet seen.

  “Sneaky, give me a full tac on that fleet,” Jaina ordered. “I’m looking for something that doesn’t fit the attack profile.”

  Sneaky tweedled an acknowledgment, then scrolled a message across the display: A SPACE FLEET PERFORMING CLOSE GROUND SUPPORT DOES NOT FIT ANY ATTACK PROFILE IN MY RECORDS.

  “Your records don’t include the Battle of Bogo Rai,” Jaina said.

  AND YOURS DO?

  “ReyaTaat’s do,” Jaina said. ReyaTaat had once been a Chiss intelligence officer named Daer’ey’ath. “It’s a famous Chiss battle. The Colony learned about it when Taat found Daer’ey’ath spying on us and received her into the nest.” OH.

  The fleet deployment appeared on Jaina’s tactical display. The enemy’s ground-support task force consisted of thirty Star Destroyers and their escorts, a truly awesome flotilla capable of incinerating the jungle from canopy to roots for kilometers around. But the Chiss were being oddly careless, leaving only a handful of Star Destroyers and their escorts in orbit to provide top cover. When UnuThul arrived with the Moon Swarm, he was going to do more than bloody the enemy fleet and drive it off—he was going to smash it against Tenupe.

  The Chiss have made their last mistake, Zekk said through their mind-link. After UnuThul destroys their fleet, they will not be able to press the war.

  The Chiss will be weakened, Jaina agreed. Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew that the total destruction of the fleet was a two-edged sword, that weakening the Chiss too much would only embolden the Colony and prolong the war—but it did not seem that way to UnuThul. She could sense his excitement through the Force. It was a dark momentum inside her, growing more powerful each moment and carrying her inexorably into bloody total war. The tide will change, and the Colony will crush them like bugs.