Star Wars: Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen

by Troy Denning

  “Then how come she’s holding a blaster on you?” came the tinny reply.

  Leia looked up at the security dome in the ceiling. “Because Junior was dumb enough to reach for it.” She pulled the power pack out of the blaster’s handle, then tossed the pistol aside. “I’m not interested in harming anyone. I just need to talk to Admiral Bwua’tu. I have important information for him.”

  “Fine,” the watch officer said. “Return to your cell and I’ll ask for an audience.”

  “I’m not asking.” Leia raised a hand toward the security dome, then located the power feeds in the Force. “And I’m not waiting. It’s urgent.”

  She jerked the lines free, then stepped over to Saba’s cell. Keeping one eye on the sergeant and his assistant, she placed her hand on the cold door and used the Force to disengage the internal catch.

  The cell was empty, save for a couple of broken claws on the floor and a comlink lying on the bunk. A section of durasteel panel was hanging down at one end of the ceiling, leaving just enough room for a Barabel to squeeze through.

  Leia summoned the comlink to her hand, then turned the volume down so that the sergeant and his assistant would not be able to hear Saba’s end of the conversation.

  “Master?” Leia whispered into the microphone.

  There was a short pause, then Saba answered. “Blast! You scared them away.”

  “Scared who?” Leia asked.

  “The gankerz,” Saba answered. “This one is hungry.”

  “You couldn’t have asked for a . . . never mind.” The last thing Leia wanted to do was start a discussion about detention-center cuisine with a Barabel. “Can you meet me at the bridge? We need to talk to Bwua’tu.”

  “No.” Saba touched Leia through the Force, initiating a combat-meld. “That will do no good.”

  “Saba, Luke reached out to me,” Leia said. She opened herself to the meld, and an impression of vast openness appeared in her mind. “Something’s happening in the nebula.”

  “Yes,” Saba said. “The Killiks are leaving.”

  “And we must warn the fleet,” Leia said. She recognized the vast openness as a hangar and realized that Saba was leaving the truth unspoken—no doubt because she feared some Alliance comm tech was eavesdropping on their conversation. “Luke was very clear about that.”

  “Bwua’tu won’t believe you.”

  “We must try,” Leia said.

  The image of the Falcon, sitting on the hangar deck surrounded by a squad of Alliance troops, flashed through her mind.

  “Then try,” Saba said. “This one is still hungry. She is going to continue her hunt.”

  The slag that had once been the DR919a lay thirty meters in, an unrecognizable mass of blindingly bright metal glowing out from the crater it had blasted into the Gorog nest ship. A steady torrent of flotsam was pouring into the immense hole from the surrounding decks, dead Killiks and stony hunks of spitcrete and three lengths of twisted durasteel that looked suspiciously like turbolaser barrels. Gushing out of the surrounding walls were several cones of white vapor—air or water or some other vital substance shooting out of broken conduits into the cold vacuum of space.

  Luke felt nothing from the crater itself, but the Force was filled with ripples from the surrounding area, all very sharp and erratic as stunned Gorog struggled to figure out what had just happened. Unfortunately, the confusion did not extend to Lomi Plo. She was still touching him through the Force, filling him with the same cold ache he had been experiencing since they entered the Tusken’s Eye.

  Luke stepped away from the escape pod’s viewing port, then pulled up his tunic and turned his back to Han.

  “Do it, Han.”

  “You sure about this?” Han asked. “Even on stun, at this range you’re going to get burned.”

  “Now, Han!” Luke ordered. “Before Gorog starts to sort things out.”

  “All right,” Han said. “No need to get—”

  A searing pain exploded across Luke’s back, and he dropped to his knees. Even calling on the Force to bolster himself, it took all of his willpower to remain conscious. He let the pain fill him, gathering it up and directing it down into the pit of his stomach where he felt Lomi Plo’s chill touch.

  Something released inside, like a knot coming undone, and the cold ache vanished all at once. Luke reached out to his companions, gathering their presences into a single bunch, then shut them all off from the Force.

  They let out a collective gasp of surprise. Tarfang suddenly slumped down in his crash couch and began to babble in a frightened tone.

  “Tarfang is convinced we died in the crash and don’t know it yet,” C-3PO explained. “And I must say, I feel something odd in my own circuits.”

  “I’m hiding us from Lomi Plo,” Luke explained. He let his tunic down. His back was still racked with pain, but at least the cold weight inside had vanished. “With any luck, she’ll think we died in the crash, too.”

  Tarfang eyed Luke warily, then sat up and began to jabber angrily, alternately pounding his fists and stabbing a furry finger at the air.

  “I most certainly will not say that to Master Luke,” C-3PO replied. “And I fail to see the harm if he is trying to make us feel better. It’s certainly better than dwelling on a negative.”

  “We’re not dead,” Luke said between gritted teeth. He went to Juun’s side and pointed out the pilot’s viewport toward a section of deck hanging free just inside the rim of the crater. “Put the pod over there. We need to get out of this thing before Gorog sees it.”

  Juun dropped them into the crater. The temperature inside climbed rapidly as they drew closer to the molten remains of the DR919a, and the pod gave a noticeable jerk when it entered the nest ship’s artificial gravity.

  “Hoersch-Kessel gravity system,” Han observed. “Boy are they going to regret that.”

  Tarfang chittered an indignant question.

  “Tarfang would like to know what you think is wrong with—”

  “Everything,” Han said. “I just hope we can keep this rock from lighting its hyperdrive. I really hate what those g burps do to my joints.”

  Juun sat the pod down on the sagging edge of a deck section surrounded by antennas and dishes and data feeds, all of it very un-Killik-looking and all of it arranged around a half-melted relay station.

  “They had help building these things,” Han said, peering out the pod’s viewport. “And a lot of it. That heat sensor looks Balmorran, and the signals package is definitely a Kuat Drive Yards Eavesdropper.”

  “Probably had help from the pirates—financed by the black membrosia trade,” Luke said. “But we’ll sort that out later. Right now, we need to get to those hyperdrives.”

  “Good idea.” Han opened the pod’s survival pack and sprayed Luke’s back with bacta salve, then passed him a blaster and took one for himself. “Any idea how we’re going to get there through a nest full of bugs?”

  “We’re not going to go through them,” Luke said. He pulled the top of his vac suit over his shoulders and began to seal the closures. “We’re going to go around them.”

  Juun frowned and stopped short of pulling his helmet visor down. “I don’t understand.”

  “Outside the ship.” Luke secured his own helmet to the collar ring. “By crawling across the hull.”

  “I was afraid that’s what you had in mind,” Han said.

  Luke lowered his visor, then picked up the heavy survival pack and turned toward the hatch. Han and the others sealed their own vac suits, then they all left the escape pod and started to push it toward the still-glowing crater.

  A shudder ran through the deck. They all scrambled back, afraid it was about to collapse. But the deck remained where it was. While it was sagging slightly, it was clearly in no danger of falling, even with the heavy escape pod sitting just a meter or so from its edge.

  The shuddering grew stronger. The severed lines and equipment dangling on the walls began to bounce around soundlessly, then Han’s
voice came over the vac suit comm system.

  “We’d better wait awhile.” He pointed out through the crater hole, where the pirates’ unnamed planet was starting to glide by ever more rapidly. “I’m not sure I want to be crawling around outside when this thing goes into hyperspace.”

  NINETEEN

  Leia found the command deck of the Admiral Ackbar to be as spotless, orderly, and efficient as the rest of the Star Destroyer. The mixed-species crew was both alert and focused, glancing up as she stepped out of the lift, then quickly returning to their tasks when they saw she was escorted by a detail from bridge security. Bwua’tu himself was in the Tactical Salon—the TacSal—at the back of the command deck, surrounded by his staff and studying a holodisplay of the Murgo Choke. An opalescent bust of the great admiral sat in a niche on the back wall, keeping a solemn watch over the entire deck . . . and causing a cold tingle in the middle of Leia’s back.

  The security detail stopped outside the TacSal, where the admiral’s aide, Wurf’al, met Leia with a disapproving sneer. He gestured curtly for her to follow, and as they approached the holodisplay, Bwua’tu ended the discussion he was having with his staff to greet Leia with a smug grin.

  “Princess Leia, you wanted to see me?”

  “That’s right, Admiral,” Leia said. “Thank you for not making it difficult.”

  “Why should I?” Bwua’tu asked. “I’m as concerned as you are.”

  This surprised Leia. “You are?”

  “Of course,” Bwua’tu said. “Even if your friends in the StealthXs are carrying extra air scrubbers in their cargo compartments, they must be breathing their own fumes by now. I only hope it’s not too late.”

  Leia’s surprise changed to irritation. “My friends are fine. I came to warn you that the Killiks are about to contest your blockade.”

  “Truly?” Bwua’tu’s expression remained smug, but Leia could tell by the way his neck fur flattened that this news troubled him. “And this knowledge came to you while you were staring at the wall of your cell?”

  “More or less,” Leia said. “Luke reached out to me through the Force.”

  “Of course . . . your Jedi sorcery.” Bwua’tu considered this for a moment, then asked, “Did your brother also reveal where to expect this threat—or what form it might take?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Leia said. “Communication through the Force isn’t usually that precise. All I could tell was that Luke is very concerned.”

  “I see.”

  Bwua’tu’s gaze slid back toward the holodisplay, where the starfighter complement from both the Admiral Ackbar and the Mon Mothma—well over a hundred craft—were deployed in a double screening formation between the two Star Destroyers. The admiral seemed to forget Leia for the moment and lose himself in thought, then he abruptly looked back to her.

  “Master Sebatyne is more adept with the Force, is she not?”

  “She is,” Leia said. “That’s one reason she’s a Master.”

  “Then perhaps Master Sebatyne could provide me with a more thorough report,” Bwua’tu said. “Inform her that I require her presence on the command deck.”

  “I’ve already been in contact with Master Sebatyne, as I’m sure your comm officers have informed you.” As Leia spoke, she was puzzling over what seemed an odd, almost desperate starfighter deployment. “She’s unavailable at the moment.”

  “That’s right,” Bwua’tu said. “She’s hunting gankers.”

  Leia shrugged. “There’s no reasoning with her when she’s hungry. Barabels like their meat fresh.”

  “As do we all,” Bwua’tu said. “But there are no gankers aboard this ship, Princess Leia.”

  “Come, Admiral.” Leia touched Bwua’tu through the Force and confirmed what she had already surmised: he did not believe a word she was saying. “There are always gankers aboard a capital ship.”

  “Not aboard my ship.” Bwua’tu stepped closer and spoke in a low, gravelly voice. “Your plan is a good one, Jedi Solo, but you forget with whom you are dealing.”

  “My plan, Admiral?” Leia glanced back at the holodisplay and realized what she was seeing. The starfighters from the Mon Mothma were carefully working their way toward those from the Admiral Ackbar, slowly weaving back and forth in a tight search pattern. “You think I’m trying to stage a diversion!”

  “It will do your friends in the StealthXs no good, of course,” Bwua’tu said. “But I am impressed with the tactical coordination you Jedi achieve with your sorcery.”

  “You give us too much credit.” Leia stretched her Force-awareness into the Choke and felt the familiar presence of a StealthX battle-meld. Then Kyp Durron reached out to her, assuring her that his team would soon be coming to help her and Saba. Leia seethed inwardly; she hardly needed rescuing. But the idea that someone could believe she did made her think it had been a mistake to sit in a cell just to avoid further straining relations with the Galactic Alliance. “Until I saw your starfighter deployment, Admiral Bwua’tu, I didn’t even know that Master Durron and his squadron were out there.”

  “Now you mock me, Jedi Solo.” Bwua’tu sounded genuinely irritated. “The Rurgavean Sleight is obscure, but did you really think I would fail to recognize it?”

  “Of course not.” Leia racked her brain, trying to remember what the Rurgavean Sleight was. “But you must believe me. Luke’s message is real. I’m not trying to distract you.”

  “For someone who is not trying, you are doing an exceptional job,” Bwua’tu said. “If Master Sebatyne fails to report to the nearest officer within thirty seconds, the StealthX fuel will be destroyed. After that, we will move on to the Falcon’s drive nacelles.”

  “What will it take to prove I’m telling the truth?” Leia had to struggle to keep an even voice. “Would you believe me if I called in both teams of StealthXs?”

  Bwua’tu narrowed his eyes, contemplating her offer, then tapped a bent claw in her direction. “Well done, Princess. A classic slide into the Mandalorian Surrender.”

  Leia sighed. “I’m trying to help you, Admiral—not capture the Ackbar.”

  A cold knot formed between Leia’s shoulder blades as she spoke. She half turned, expecting to see Wurf’al or some other officer glaring in her direction. Instead she found herself looking into the vacant eyes of the admiral’s bust.

  “Admiral, I continue to sense something wrong aboard this ship.” She pointed at the bust. “May I ask what kind of security scans were performed on that piece?”

  “You may not,” Bwua’tu said sternly. “I won’t be distracted, Jedi Solo.” He raised his hand and studied his chrono for a moment, then added, “And your thirty seconds have passed. Since we still have no sign of Master Sebatyne, I’ll have to carry out my threat.”

  Wurf’al produced a comlink and passed it to the admiral. “Security Two, Admiral.”

  Bwua’tu kept his gaze fixed on Leia. “That would be the detail guarding your StealthX fuel.”

  “Go ahead,” Leia said. She still had a bad feeling about the bust, but it seemed clear Bwua’tu would not listen while he thought she was trying to stage a diversion. “Perhaps it will convince you of my sincerity.”

  “As you wish.” Bwua’tu activated the comlink. “Tibanna detail—”

  The admiral stopped speaking when the comlink in Leia’s sleeve pocket echoed his words.

  Bwua’tu scowled and motioned Wurf’al to retrieve the device. Once Wurf’al had done so, the admiral raised his own comlink and spoke again.

  “Tibanna detail, come in.”

  The call was repeated over the comlink in Wurf’al’s hand—the same comlink that Saba had left for Leia to find on her bunk.

  Bwua’tu raised his bushy brow and turned to Leia. “My compliments. It appears I am no longer in control of your StealthX fuel.”

  A loud sissing came over both comlinks.

  Bwua’tu frowned, then spoke into his. “I wouldn’t gloat, Master Sebatyne. I still control the Falcon.”

  This
only drew more sissing.

  Bwua’tu deactivated the comlink, then surprised her by not immediately ordering an attack on the Falcon’s drive nacelles. Instead he turned to his aide, Wurf’al.

  “Send a detail to investigate what became of the squad guarding the StealthX fuel,” he said. “And sound battle stations in the capture bay.”

  Before Wurf’al could acknowledge the order, the sharp wail of a proximity alarm sounded from the flight deck speakers.

  “Contact cluster exiting hyperspace,” an efficient female sensor officer announced. “No transponder codes, outbound from the nebula.”

  Fifteen black triangles—the tactical symbols for unknown vessels—appeared at the edge of the holodisplay, coming from the direction of the Utegetu Nebula. Instead of stopping to reconnoiter or plot their next jumps, as most starship fleets would do, they streaked straight toward the heart of the Murgo Choke at a substantial percentage of lightspeed.

  Leia was still trying to comprehend what she was seeing when Bwua’tu began to rattle off orders. “Wurf’al, make that general battle stations.”

  “Sir!”

  “Grendyl, recall all starfighters . . . Jorga, assign targets to turbolaser batteries . . . Rabad, have Commodore Darklighter bring the Mothma forward to support us . . . Tola, start a withdrawal toward the Mothma . . .”

  The acknowledgments came faster than Leia could track them—“Sir . . . sir . . . sir . . . sir . . .”—and the flight deck erupted into a controlled frenzy as the officers jumped to execute their orders.

  “Batteries five, nine, and seventeen have acquired targets, Admiral,” a Duros gunnery officer reported.

  “Well done, Jorga. Open fire.”

  “Open fire?” Leia gasped. “You don’t even know—”

  Bwua’tu raised a finger, warning her to remain silent. An instant later clouds of tiny black triangles began to stream from the fifteen larger vessels.

  “Contacts launching fighters,” the sensor officer announced.

  Leia was stunned. The Killiks were not merely attempting to run the Galactic Alliance’s blockade, they were going to attack it. Implications and ramifications raced through her mind in a mad swirl, and she was filled with the deepening fear that she was watching the outbreak of another galactic war—one born of desperation and misunderstanding, and all the more tragic for it.