by Greg Keyes
The corvette analog probably was, but it wouldn’t go faster-than-light until it was a little farther from the planet. But if they spotted him . . .
He resisted holding his breath as the larger ship cruised by only eight kilometers off his lower starboard. If it noticed him, it gave no indication.
New light caught his eye, as some of the junk ejected with him hit Wayland’s outer atmosphere and began to burn. One eye still on the passing cruiser, he reached for his stick. It wouldn’t do for him to hit the atmosphere wrong. Too shallow an angle and he’d skip off into space. Too steep and he’d be incinerated. Time for a little course correction.
He didn’t bring the ship to full power, instead firing maneuvering thrusters from independent power sources. That steepened his approach. He reached for the stick -- and gaped at what he saw on his sensors.
Three little blips, launched from the cruiser, all headed his way.
So they had been watching the jettisoned junk, and he had revealed himself.
No use cursing the void, his grandmother used to say. It’ll get you in the end, and you might as well be on good terms. He went to full power, dropped his nose, and dove planetward. The skips accelerated after him.
“That’s right fellows,” Uldir grunted. “Bring those flying rocks into the soup with me.”
He bumped through high-altitude clouds of ice crystals that shattered the light from Wayland’s primary into rainbow and diamond. He flattened his descent a little, noting that the less aerodynamic coralskippers were dropping behind his speedier ship. Their weapons, effective enough in space, lost range in atmosphere. He could probably outrun them easily enough.
He rolled into a tight turn. He couldn’t afford to take that chance -- he could outdistance the skips, all right, but they could keep him spotted until craft more apt for atmosphere could vector in on him. Uldir had met a few of their fliers, and some were pretty nasty. If he didn’t want to have to deal with fighting the Vong the whole time he was searching for Klin-Fa Gi, he’d better do something about this now.
He aimed his prow at the coralskippers as they hit the turbulence he’d just passed through. He opened up with laser cannons, not really thinking to do much damage at this range, but hoping the brief opening and closing of their voids would roughen the air around them and sap some of their energy reserves. When he was in range, he gave them the present he’d been planning on -- a concussion missile. The weapon was one of his own modification, equipped with a gravitometric sensor. As soon as it sensed a void, it would go.
It blew some ten meters from the lead skip. At such short range, in an atmosphere, a concussion missile had considerable authority, expanding air in a supersonic sphere that slapped the lead coralskipper back the way it had come. The other two had begun peeling away, but not far enough, and both went tumbling. Uldir braced for the milder jolt when the wavefront reached him and began using his laser cannons in earnest, stinging one of the tumbling skips. From his peripheral vision he noted the lead skip falling planetward, apparently unchecked by its gravitic drive. The third skip he could no longer see, but instinct told him he had a few seconds before it picked up his tail.
Yellow plumes of vaporizing coral sent the skip ahead of him pitching and yawing, making it more difficult to hit, but it didn’t seem to be using its voids at all. He almost had a solid lock, but that’s when the warning in his head went off -- time was up. He yanked on the stick up and port -- and felt blood rush to his head. He’d been right -- streamers of plasma boiled by where he’d been. He tightened into a loop. Both skips were below him, now. He noticed with satisfaction that the fire from the one behind him had struck its brother a glancing blow, and it was burning.
Almost laconically, Uldir drilled the final skip and then sprinted toward the forest far, far below.
* * *
When he was a few meters above the treetops he leveled out and called up a map of the planet. It was well detailed, but few features were actually named. One of them was a dot in the northern hemisphere on the big continent labeled “Mount Tantiss.” Wayland had been the Emperor’s secret for many years, listed on no star chart due to -- of all things -- an ancient clerical error. Mount Tantiss had been his arcanum and storehouse. Grand Admiral Thrawn had tracked the planet and the mountain down after the Emperor’s demise, bent on finding weapons that would help him reclaim what the Empire had lost. Later, Master Skywalker and some of the other heroes of the Rebellion had found it as well and destroyed the mountain with a seismic explosion.
If Klin-Fa Gi was really a Dark Jedi, the ruins of Mount Tantiss were probably where she was headed.
He brought up the transponder overlay. Not surprisingly, it confirmed his suspicions -- the A-wing seemed to be motionless on exactly that spot. Grimly he changed his heading to take him there, keeping a wary eye on long-range sensors.
* * *
Uldir found the A-wing abandoned and hidden by a makeshift covering of huge leaves fallen from the canopy above. He took a deep breath, listening, watching, and smelling the jungle around him, trying to reach out with the limited Force ability he commanded.
From above, Wayland had looked much like Yavin 4, where he had attended the Jedi academy. Here, on the ground, the similarities seemed superficial. Although both Wayland and Yavin’s moon had land masses covered mostly in jungle, Wayland’s rose higher and stratified into two canopies. The air of Yavin 4 had been spiced with the scent of blueleaf. Here the atmosphere lay heavily on the forest floor, musky and ripe with decay, whirring, buzzing, and click-clackering with the sounds of unfamiliar fauna. He remembered how dangerous the jungles of Yavin 4 had been, and there he had known something of what to expect. This world he did not know at all. The sounds around him might be harmless insects or the Wayland equivalent of Yavin’s piranha beetles, which could strip a person to the bone in the time it took a Toydarian to beat its wings.
Still, he was pleased to discover that Klin-Fa Gi seemed even more out of her element here -- her trail of scuffed leaf litter and bent or broken understory was easy enough for him to pick up. It led, as he suspected, up through the foothills surrounding what had once been Mount Tantiss. Somberly, he shouldered a survival pack, his blaster, and a few concussion grenades and set off after her.
At least, he hoped it was her.
It wasn’t long before Uldir found evidence that he was indeed following the Jedi and not some strange and clumsy beast. Unfortunately, that evidence came in the form of the five corpses -- sentients, by the look of them, two different species. Neither of the species were Yuuzhan Vong, which meant they were probably locals. Whoever they were, they had been killed by a lightsaber -- few weapons left the same distinct, cauterized slashes as a Jedi’s signature weapon.
Grimly, he studied the scene for details. Three of the dead were of a tall, ectomorphic species with six limbs, of which four apparently functioned as arms. They had flexible snouts and their skin -- where bare of the hides and bone ornaments they wore -- glistered like an insect’s carapace.
The other two were squat, powerful in appearance, and naturally armored with bony plates on their rounded backs. Like those they lay beside, they seemed to have been basically bipedal.
Uldir had never seen either species before, not in the space lanes or among slaves that the Yuuzhan Vong used as shock troops. That wasn’t surprising -- there were plenty of beings in the galaxy who weren’t space-going, either because they didn’t have the technology or the inclination, and he remembered from his all-too brief scan of the files on this planet that it was supposed to have several intelligent species, all at an essentially stone-age level of technology.
When he saw what they gripped in their dead hands, however, Uldir’s blood ran cold. Now he understood something about why they had died. At first glance, their weapons resembled clubs, spatulate on one end and pointed on the other, about thirty centimeters in length. Uldir had seen such weapons before, but even if he hadn’t he would have noted something strange in the wa
y that they slowly wriggled, flexing from side to side like Hothan glacier worms. They were alive, and unmistakably of Yuuzhan Vong biofacture.
He studied the bodies more carefully, searching for other signs of the Yuuzhan Vong, wondering if these creatures had been slaves or willing allies. He found no sign of the coral implants the invaders used to control unwilling subjects, which seemed to suggest they were allies.
Still, there were many means of control, and Yuuzhan Vong knew most of them.
As he reached to turn one of the short, armored sentients over to inspect his underside, he suddenly realized that something was wrong. The forest sounds around him had changed, with most of the animal life having fallen silent. He drew his blaster -- casually, as if he really only meant to brush the side of his trousers.
“Lay down shame weapon!” A piping voice commanded in heavily accented Basic. “Lay down shame weapon or breathe-not you, offworlder!”
To emphasize the point, a quivering shaft appeared as if by magic in the tree nearest him. Uldir hesitated -- he had seen arrows before. They had a primitive but effective way of making holes in people. On the other hand, he had a blaster, which made bigger, more efficient holes. But the voice was behind him, and he didn’t know how many there were . . .
Whoever it was could have killed him already. He might as well see what the odds were, and what they had to say. He raised his arms slowly, turning toward the voice. He did not lay down the blaster.
The speaker was a stripe of color in the underbrush, hard to see, but Uldir could make out that it was one of the slender, six-limbed humanoids. Uldir breathed slowly and deeply, his eyes tracking through the strange leaves for others.
“Lay down shame weapon,” the creature said again.
Uldir kept the weapon above his head, pointed at the sky, but did not do as demanded. He nodded his head at the corpses. “I didn’t kill your friends,” he said. “I found them like this. I’m in pursuit of the one who did this.”
He heard faint rustlings in the brush all around him, and his heart sank. He had probably lost his opportunity to shoot his way out of the situation, if he’d ever had one.
Looking at the dead, however, he found part of him was glad of that.
The creature made a faint trumpeting sound. “If kill Cut-Up-Wish-to-bes, not our enemy,” he stated. “Lay down shame weapon. Not tell again.”
“I won’t be defenseless,” Uldir said. “I know what the Yuuzhan Vong do to their captives. I won’t be taken captive.”
Another trumpeting sound, this one trilled. An answering call came from someplace to his left.
“We not friends of the Cut-Up-People,” the sentient said, emphatically. “Never we fodder them.”
Uldir could see two more of them now, both of the stockier race. They bore bows, arrows, and stone axes with wooden hafts, like the one who had been speaking. None of them carried anything that looked like Yuuzhan Vong biotech. Uldir’s shoulders relaxed a tick. Deliberately, he returned his blaster to its holster and raised his hands, palm outwards.
“The Yuuzhan Vong are my enemies,” he said. “If you are also their enemies, we are friends.”
The thin figure swayed forward. “Outworlders not friends,” he said. “They bear shame, and bear it upon us.”
“I came here only to find the one who left this trail,” Uldir said. “When I have her, I will leave. I mean you no harm.” He indicated himself. “My name is Uldir Lochett.”
The creature regarded him for a moment. “You offer name?” He said at last.
“Yes. I offer my name.”
The being seemed to consider that for a moment. “I offer in return. I am called Txer. I am leader of the Free People.”
“Pleased to meet you, Txer.”
Txer then said something in his native language, and several of the others -- Uldir now guessed about fifteen -- responded to him. It seemed to be a debate, of sorts, and he suspected the point debated had something to do with whether Uldir got to keep breathing or not. Finally Txer chopped both of his upper hands, and silence fell. He moved closer to Uldir, until they stood only about two meters apart.
“You follow the one who made this trail. She is strong.”
“Yes,” Uldir said.
“We hear her battle with Cut-Up-Wish-to-bes. Come to see. Hear your shame-thing land, watch you. You come only for her? Is truth?”
“Yes,” Uldir replied.
“Why follow her? If they who fight Cut-Up-People your friends, why not her? Your words have Offworld poison in them, maybe.”
“It’s complicated,” Uldir said. “Yes, she is enemy to the -- er, Cut-Up-People. But I fear she seeks something here, something the Emperor left. Do you know of the Emperor?”
Txer trilled loud and long, then babbled again in his own language. A few of the others responded, sharply, and all of the creatures Uldir could see brandished their weapons. His hand itched toward his blaster.
“Dark man,” Txer said, finally. “She seeks the things of the Dark Man.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Uldir replied.
“So do Cut-Up-People,” Txer replied. “They make holes, deep and long, in cracked mountain.”
“Yes,” Uldir said. “They look for his secrets. So does the one I follow.”
“Must not to allow,” Txer said, his voice a thin wisp. “Cut-Up- People bad. Dark man worse. All things of shame, his. I remember.” His luminescent eyes narrowed. “Also remember some outworlders who broke mountain, buried his things. You cousin to them?”
“Sort of,” Uldir replied.
Txer tilted his long head thoughtfully, then spoke some more to his people.
“We also follow this trail,” he said, simply.
“I’ll appreciate your help,” Uldir replied.
“Not to help you,” Txer said. “To watch.”
* * *
They traveled for the rest of the daylight through steadily steepening terrain. Twice, for no reason Uldir could tell, they hid in thickets, remaining utterly silent until some unspoken signal released them to walk again. That night they camped in the cavernous shelter of the gnarled roots of a fantastically huge tree.
“Why do you call my weapon a shame weapon?” Uldir asked Txer, as the light faded to nothing.
“Is shame to use. Not from life.” He paused, searching for words. “Machine,” he said at last, as if the word bit him on the way out of his mouth.
“Oh,” Uldir replied. It made sense -- these were people who lived simply off what the land provided. Given that the Empire had been here, most of their experiences with technology had probably been of the negative sort.
“Is that why some fight for the Cut-Up-People? Because they also hate machines?” That was putting it mildly, of course. The Yuuzhan Vong considered all “dead” technology to be an abomination, and those who used it so unclean as to deserve extermination. Their conquest of the galaxy was more of a holy war than one for territory -- they had long since conquered worlds enough for their people to live on.
“Wish-to-bes think like this, yes,” Txer replied. “They say Cut-Up-People like us. They are not. Life is for respect. They do not respect life. They break it, twist it, make it as they want, make it foul. They do same to us.”
“You’re right about that,” Uldir told him. “I’ve seen it happen, on world after world. And in the end, those who help them suffer more than those who resist them.”
“Offworld wisdom we do not need,” Txer said, stiffly. “Free People see this for themselves. Need not your eyes to see.”
“I understand that,” Uldir said.
“We fight them, like we fought Dark Man,” Txer went on.
Stone weapons against the Vong? Uldir thought. That was an uneven fight. Unless the equation changed, the Free People were doomed.
“I should go on alone, when the light comes,” Uldir said. “I don’t want to put your people in danger.”
“We fight them,” Txer said firmly. “And if you lie, we fight you too
. We fight until offworlders all gone, or until we all die. Sleep now. Tomorrow we enter Cut-Up territory, and then no sleep.”
Uldir spent a restless night trying not to worry about his crew, hoping they were still alive and had managed to find a hiding place. He did not think Klin-Fa Gi would stop to sleep, and he felt her drawing ahead of him, and that made him even more anxious.
When he did sleep, his mind built dreams whose architecture was darker than the night.
* * *
“The jungle looks sick,” Uldir remarked the next morning. The upper canopy looked ragged and skeletal, and the lower was covered with what looked like a fine mold or dust.
“Yes. Will get sicker,” Txer assured him.
It did. Soon they were walking through only the memory of a forest; the mighty trunks were still there, but no hint of green or color of blossoms was anywhere in evidence -- only a drab, charcoal gray.
“What did this?” Uldir asked.
Txer rubbed his mouth. “Not know. No one living has seen what does it. No one dead talks about it.”
A kilometer later the trees became charred stumps, obviously scorched by some high heat. The burned zone went off to his left and right for as far as he could see.
Two kilometers later, even the stumps were gone, and they stood on a high ridge looking across a shallow valley at what remained of Mount Tantiss.
Under force of the seismic disruption, the peak had shuddered and collapsed. This side of the mountain had slumped and become a rolling, churned slope of talus. On this vast jumble of basalt, at about the same level he now stood on, grew the Yuuzhan Vong base.
Five of the living compounds looked to be star-shaped, or at least radially symmetrical. This sort of structure Uldir had seen before, in records taken by an erstwhile smuggler named Talon Kaarde. Called damuteks, the Yuuzhan Vong had grown some on the ruins of the Jedi academy when they’d captured the Yavin system a few months earlier. Uldir’s old friend Anakin Solo had fought his way through a damutek and had reported a lot of useful information about them.
