It would take a month or more for the orbital yards to use up their supplies, and even then they had sufficient water recycling capacity to hold out for another month on half or quarter rations without resupply. Fondorian yards were staffed mainly by humans, who could live on very few calories for a long time as long as they were hydrated. A week was far too soon.
She couldn’t believe Jacen hadn’t learned the lesson of Corellia. She was sure he had. And if he was half as sly and resourceful as she knew, he would have gone with the intention and enough troops and matériel to move to the assault phases—orbitals, then planet—as soon as he could.
Did he already know she was slipping information to Luke? Was this part of his test?
Stop thinking that way, or he’s got you where he’s got everyone else. You’re a better tactician than that.
“Don’t you have oversight of Colonel Solo’s plans?” asked the commander. His name was Kenb but she could only see the K and the E on his tunic because his arms were folded tightly across his chest, creasing the fabric. “If there’s anything wrong—”
“If there is, then it’s my problem rather than yours, Commander,” she said kindly. Caf cups scraped faintly; flimsi rustled. When she turned her head, consoles were immaculate again. I’m not Jacen. You don’t have to be afraid of me. “I’ve been neglecting logistics, and I want to get up to speed again.”
“Certainly, Admiral.” Sullustan faces weren’t as obviously mobile and expressive as a human’s, but she knew disbelief when she saw it. “Call me if you need anything.”
Yes, in any normal government, the head of state and the defense secretary would discuss with the chiefs of staff how a major engagement was to be fought, and how it would be resourced. Yet here they were, a duumvirate combining all the roles of state and military, and still he was economical with information. It was rather like beings trying to pretend they were alone in a crowded turbolift; as long as eye contact could be avoided, the illusion of anonymous privacy held. Jacen made vague noises about strategy, grabbed an assortment of ships, and ambled off to play. And she let him, because she had no idea how to stop him with her first shot.
She’d only get one chance. Wounded, he’d be a terrible enemy.
And I want to see what you packed for your little trip.
Jacen always had the Anakin Solo, of course; and Fondor was a relatively small world, a speck compared with Coruscant. Its neighbor Nallastia was even smaller, and might not even try to ride to the rescue. Niathal called up the holochart from Jacen’s office node and tried to work out what was inappropriate for Fondor. Because something didn’t fit.
Mines—especially the latest self-dispersing Merr-Sonn Vigilante type—were quick and easy to lay, and Jacen didn’t need many ships to do it; two for the planet side, and perhaps three for the outer cordon, simply because so many mines were needed to create a double shell around a planet. Other than that, it was simply a case of telling their program what they needed to do and where, scattering them, and the clever little things made their own way into position and formed their own communications net. They would stand guard for as long as it took, killing anything that tried to pass. They could even be deactivated and rounded up later, like an obedient flock.
Would have been a great idea to do that with Corellia.
But mines were indiscriminate killers, designed to be so, to send out a clear message that nobody could pass. The whole Corellian blockade had been as much a psychological lever, conceived at a time when Cal Omas had really thought that the war could end with talks, and when Jacen could be curbed, and when casualties could still—so they had thought—bring everyone to their senses.
“The minelayers are an hour into hyperspace,” Kenb said. “Give them an hour to deploy on reaching the target and pull back outside the Fondorian limits.”
Niathal had to let Luke know the full picture. He would only target Jacen, but any commander needed wider context.
She’d struggled with that decision on the short journey to HQ, because it would be as good as warning Fondor, and the crews and troops dragged along for Jacen’s jaunt were her people. She might have been signing their death warrants.
But if I balk at this—is there any useful intelligence I can safely give the Jedi? GA personnel will almost always be involved.
No, she couldn’t be selective. She had to choose now. It was literally a sickening sensation.
If Fondor doesn’t roll over when faced with the prospect of having one or two of its cities turned into a transparisteel parking lot … how is Jacen going to occupy the planet?
He’d embarked with 150,000 troops. Taking ten orbital yards would tie up most of them; and assuming they succeeded, it was labor-intensive to keep an eye on an industrial process where disgruntled workers would sabotage operations in a thousand small places. It wasn’t enough even in the short to medium term. Jacen’s battle awareness was extraordinary—a Sith skill, Luke said—and he might very well have known something that she didn’t; but it didn’t guarantee he wouldn’t run into problems, or that his crew would try quite as hard as they had before Tebut was killed. Morale was a subtle thing. It was often the difference between inspired actions and failure.
“What’s the latest estimate of the strength of the Remnant task force?” she asked.
“They’re standing by with twenty Star Destroyers and carriers with air group embarked. Assorted cruisers, auxiliaries, landing craft, and fast patrol vessels. No firm numbers on personnel overall, but a first wave of fifty thousand troops for the blockade, and they have small special forces units embarked to take strategic targets as required. They plan to join Colonel Solo just before the assault.”
“I’d better talk to Pellaeon. See if he thinks this is genius or madness.”
“I think I can guess what Gentleman Gil will say …”
It was rather touching; most personnel still had a soft spot for Pellaeon. Niathal didn’t, but now that she had to work with him again, she’d find one temporarily. “Very well, I’m finished for the day. If anything changes, comm me.”
Niathal valued the transit time from HQ to the Senate. Her official speeder had tinted screens and soundproofing, and so it was a haven, a few minutes each day when she could clear her mind.
Jacen isn’t stupid. Not stupid enough to try to take Fondor with a fraction of the troops he needs, anyway. I just hope the Imperials are as good as their word. I bet they think they’re going to get Fondor as a bonus for their trouble …
Jacen’s vagueness about operational orders, part of his ad hoc way of running things lately, frustrated her immensely. It was all intangible feeling, Force intuition, and too few hard numbers; it worked more often than not, but she still didn’t like what she couldn’t see and measure. Jacen couldn’t hold Fondor with those numbers unless the whole population capitulated, and even if governments did, citizens often had their own ideas about resistance. Either the Force was telling him Fondor was going to shrug and take it after a token exchange of fire, much as they skirmished on the limits of Fondor space and didn’t take it much farther, or he was overestimating his chances.
Maybe he had some Sith secret tactic that nobody had seen before.
She rubbed her face wearily. Either way, Luke Skywalker needed to know the attack was imminent. The chauffeur dropped her off at her club for the evening, and instead of savoring that brief respite when the biggest decision she had to make was what to order from the menu, she swept her room for eavesdropping devices and then composed an encrypted data sheet for Luke Skywalker with every detail he might need.
She wasn’t sure how many Jedi had regrouped on Endor, but they had a way of punching way, way above their weight.
Give him a punch for me, Luke …
When Luke appeared, she spoke quickly. “Master Skywalker, Fondor will be ring-fenced by Vigilante mines. Double shell. I estimate four or five hours and the fleet will follow shortly afterward.”
Luke paused as if he was visualizing t
hat. “I think Fondor was expecting something after the skirmish with the Anakin Solo.”
“Yes, that was provocative. But there’s more. Jacen’s following at twenty-three fifty-nine with part of the Fourth Fleet and a hundred and fifty thousand troops. He’s planning to isolate the orbital yards by mines and force a surrender, or so he says. The Imperial Remnant is backing him up. I’m sending you the data now—I’ll update it when I can.”
“What makes you think he might be lying?”
“He’s Jacen. It’s what he does. I don’t believe he’s stupid either. Too few troops to take and hold both orbitals and planet, but a lot of capital ship firepower. My personal view is that he plans to draw the Fondorian forces out and then pound them so that the Imperials can move in.” The thoughts were rolling out as she spoke, ideas breeding. “But he’s not invincible.”
“Is it a decoy attack?”
“I’ve seen no other ship movements or troop deployments that even hint that he’s going to stage a bigger operation elsewhere.”
“Or a smaller one?”
“I just don’t know. But I’m going to spend the evening briefing a few captains to get my people out if this all goes to rot.”
“Thanks, Admiral.”
“You’re welcome, Master Skywalker. Go ahead and ruin his day for me.”
And maybe my own people’s day, too. I hope not. I really do.
Niathal wandered down to the dining room and tried to work up some enthusiasm for the menu, but she had lost all desire to eat. She sat gazing in defocus at the fine linen and gold-rimmed Naboo porceplast plate, and found that even the water she sipped stuck in her throat.
She had been so certain that undermining Jacen Solo was the right thing to do. But collateral damage could never be avoided. It was part of war. She sent beings into battle, and some didn’t come back.
But that was when she looked them in the eye, and more often than not stood on that same deck with them.
She had never felt less worthy of the uniform in her life.
chapter nine
You’ve probably heard this before, but it’s a trap.
—Luke Skywalker, to the President of Fondor, warning of minelaying activity in Fondorian space
BRALSIN, NEAR KELDABE
“It’s hard not to hate the Vong,” Jaina said.
She slipped off the pillion seat of the speeder bike and looked downhill, hands shielding her eyes against the sun. The broad shallow valley that sloped away from her was a patchwork of cultivated fields, woodland, ancient circular fortified homesteads, and a rash of small round roofs that marked new homes being built.
But there were still huge swathes of dead land, poisoned by the YuuzhanVong, where nothing grew.
“I don’t try.” Beviin unloaded the panniers and stacked armor plates. “I have a good hate and feel better for it. Better out than in, that’s what I say.”
“Did you bring me up here for the view?”
Jaina picked out MandalMotors’ tower in the distance and an ungainly vessel tracking across the sky behind it; it was the tank-like thing that had given her a surprise when she entered Mandalorian space. There were two of them, in fact. She was intensely curious, partly because she had a feeling she might face one from the wrong side of a border one day, and partly because she was a pilot. It must have felt like flying a permacrete slab.
“Not really,” Beviin said. “But we won’t have an audience, and it’s a spot with its own history.”
“Yeah, I do seem to draw a crowd in your barn. You should sell tickets.”
“A lot of folks haven’t seen a live Jedi before.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“Just a figure of speech.”
Jaina followed Beviin to the top of the small hill, a gently rounded dome that flattened out into downs dotted with trees and bushes. The feel of the place made her nape bristle in the way that battlefields did, but many times magnified. It wasn’t actually a feeling of dread; just a sense that terrible things had happened but that it had somehow been triumphant, even oddly content in the end. Across the expanse of short spongy grass was an avenue of trees. She couldn’t see what it led to, but it led to something. She felt it.
“Sacred site?” she asked. Beviin bent over and took a few swings at the turf with his beskad. He looked as if he was digging for something. “I can feel something happened here, a battle maybe.”
“Vongese. But no prizes for guessing that.” He walked off to another patch of grass, scouting around for something. “Ah, look. They turn up all the time. Come over here.”
A skull seemed to have worked its way out of the soil. It wasn’t Mandalorian—Jaina could tell from the odd ridges that ran from brow to crown on its one clean side that it had been a Yuuzhan Vong soldier—but it still looked quite human: far more human than the Yuuzhan Vong had been in life, when they were so proud of the ritual facial mutilations that made them look utterly alien. Beviin squatted to pull the skull free. When he poked a finger into an empty eye socket, a pale yellow worm tumbled from the clinging soil and made a frantic, squirming bid for safety on the ground.
“I think there were a few thousand of them,” Beviin said. “And this was a poor place to defend, but we took them on. You fought the vongese, didn’t you? You understand.” He tilted the skull and picked off the soil still clinging to the right side, revealing a huge split over the orbital ridge. “Ah, ner vod, we’ve already met. How have you been? Rotting, I hope.”
Beviin drew his saber and lined the blade up carefully with the split in the bone. It slotted into it neatly. Once Jaina had proved her worth in the workshop and worked until she dropped, Beviin had been the most gracious host imaginable, and she found it hard to square that avuncular charm with the man he could become when he picked up that beskad.
“And that,” he said, pointing to the avenue of trees, “is Fenn Shysa’s memorial. Your mother knew him, and your uncle Luke, too. Pay your respects and we can get on with your lessons.”
It was a battered red-and-green helmet on a plinth; no inscription, no railings, nothing that indicated its owner had been a head of state or even who was commemorated. Jaina was struck less now by the intimidating face that Mandalorians presented than by their apparently anarchic society and—despite the credits flooding in now from their beskar mining and sales of the Bes’uliik—grim rural poverty. Then she remembered little Briila, able to handle a tiny blaster at five years old, and old man Fett nearly taking her spleen apart with a gut-punch, and decided that caution was still the best option.
It was hard to know how to be reverent toward a helmet. She did what she would do at a state funeral, and simply bowed her head for a moment, as Jedi did.
“Shysa led us to kick out the Empire,” Beviin said. “Didn’t you, Fen’ika?” He walked up to the helmet and patted it fondly. “A great Mand’alor. But he always wanted Fett as the front man, and Fett wasn’t having it. Shysa got his way in the end, though. Hey, do you want to record a holoimage for your mother?”
“Some cultures would find that disrespectful.”
“Ah, we don’t. Shysa would have loved it, if it was for Princess Leia. You could even have been a Mando if your mama had said the word—and if she hadn’t met the space bum, of course.”
Beviin said it with a big grin, and it didn’t sound like the insult it would have been in Fett’s mouth. “Why did Shysa think Fett should be Mandalore? Because his father was?” Jaina didn’t add that Fett didn’t strike her as the community-minded kind. “Bloodlines don’t matter to you.”
“True, but Jango had a fearsomely good fighting reputation, and he was Jaster Mereel’s chosen heir, so the Fett name has some power. When things were as rough as they were when the Republic fell—well, even we needed icons. You know that Shysa even got a clone deserter to pose as Jango Fett’s heir, just to give the aruetiise the idea that we were solid again? Nobody really knew who or what was under the armor. Worked … for a while.”
“And then Fett ruined all their national solidarity by showing up as my grandfather’s right-hand thug.” Jaina knew her own dynastic moral high ground wasn’t all that farther above the waterline than Fett’s. “What happened to him?”
“Shysa?” Beviin winked. “Or Vader?”
“The deserter.”
“Spar? Oh, Fett’s daughter killed him. He was a good Fett double, all right … too good, may he find peace in the manda. Ailyn hated her papa.”
“That’s tragic.” Was Beviin joking? No, he wasn’t; but why would any man put himself in harm’s way for Fett? “So, there’s Shysa …”
“You’ll have to ask Fett about that yourself.”
“I’ll put it on the list after I ask him about his not-dead wife.” Jaina fought down a bitter anger that Sintas Vel was alive and Mara wasn’t. “I think Uncle Luke might advise him to seize that blessing.”
“If his granddaughter tried to kill him, and his daughter even killed a man who looked like him, what do you think his ex-wife’s going to do if she remembers who he is?”
Jaina didn’t know what to say, but she thought of Jag, and her parents, and knew she had plenty that Fett didn’t. He was too old and isolated to even hope to have it. But it gave her no sense of satisfied vengeance that her father’s old enemy was so damaged; all she could feel was pity.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” she said, wanting to forget a miserable story. She had enough of her own; there were surely more to come. “Call me a Twi’lek dancing girl one more time, and I’ll show you how mean they make us at the academy.”
Beviin grinned and slipped on his helmet. “Talk’s cheap, Jedi. Get your plates on.”
The training armor wasn’t custom-fitted and the helmet was just a head guard, but it was beskar. The worst injury she could get while sparring was bruising from impact. Beviin took out two metal sabers and handed her one, hilt first.
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